New routes vs familiar favorites

[Philip Tschersich]

I’ve lived in Kodiak, Alaska for 30 years. I try to do a ‘big’ trip in the archipelago each year, sometimes more than one. We have no trails so planning a trip is a process of deciding how to negotiate the terrain, bodies of water, and vegetation between village or remote mail plane stops, and I have to figure out every mile. I have rarely repeated a route. Not because most of them weren’t spectacular experiences, but rather because I have always been able to dream up a new point-to-point, and exploring my backyard would take more than a lifetime.

One exception is visiting Shuyak Island, the northerly-most large island in the archipelago. There I have favorite campsites. I know intimately how to use the tides to make my packraft travel easier. I know the deer and bear trails, bays and inlets. Going someplace familiar for an ‘easy’ and scenic trip where there is little route finding through terra incognita to worry about is a nice respite from the normal type-2 fun I subject myself to. Plus I feel like I’ve earned a bit of coasting at this point, haha.

I want to go back to Shuyak again this summer, and have 2 new routes across Kodiak in my back pocket if I get motivated. I used to think of repeating a trip as a sort of defeat or missed opportunity to push into new territory. But more recently I’ve come to appreciate how familiar terrain can change the focus of the experience.

 

[Roger Caffin]

more recently I’ve come to appreciate how familiar terrain can change the focus of the experience.
And there is no guarantee that I can even remember the details of the last trip there anyhow!
Massive boo-boos excepted of course: I do make some notes.

Cheers

[Philip Tschersich]

Yes. Notes to self are helpful indeed.

[Matthew / BPL]

I cant speak much to repeating off-trail travel as I’m just starting to do that but I like repeating trails whether it’s a dayhike or backpacking trip. I notice different things each time I travel through an area. I also like to branch out from known areas. I get very excited when I start to develop the spatial relationships between one area and another. This deeper, intuitive understanding requires multiple trips, at least for me.

[jscott]

Knowing a route can leave your attention free for other things. In the spring/early summer it’s good to know that steep snow covered sections of trail are safe and passable; or how the route generally goes when under snow. Or where stream crossings are to be found, etc.

You can’t cross the same river twice, as they say, so a route will always be different in many ways. You can however fall into a river twice.

[W I S N E R !]

I do a lot of repeating when I’m local, I enjoy it. As said above, I think it frees you for other things. In my case the repetition introduces a meditative aspect that I enjoy immensely.

Doing a lot of training hikes at the moment, 6 days/week, with at least one overnight….many many repeats, but I do make sure to hike something new at least once per week.

Seeing familiar places change is an interesting meditation as well.

[Roger Caffin]

Repeating a short route every second day (early morning training runs with my wife) means we get to see how the seasons evolve, and we can pick up traces of various wild animals and birds.

Right now we are seeing the very start of the spring flowers here in Oz.

Cheers

 

[Paul Wagner]

I’m happy to repeat day-hikes whenever I feel like it, but if I am going to go through the process of planning a backpacking trip, I  usually want to see something new.  I make exceptions for when I take others along–because I want to show them places I love, and I want to make sure they’ll enjoy the experience.

[Philip Tschersich]

Yeah, I’m not talking about day hikes or quick overnighters here. These are 3- or 4-plus-day trips. I have lots of local day hikes I have done many dozens of times

The terrain, vegetation, or water bodies in the Kodiak Archipelago do sometimes funnel you into specific routes, so some trips share common sections. Other variations of getting from A to B may exist, but you’d have to be completely insane (or clueless) to take those other routes of *maximum* resistance. But the total lack of trails also means that in many areas there is simply no ‘best’ (or even suggested) way. Not having a prescribed route takes getting used to, but can be liberating (though at times, also hellish).

[Jon Solomon]

I mostly hike on trail nowadays since I sprained an ankle walking through hours and hours of moraine offtrail just after resupply a few years ago but still always mix in off trail routes, too. I have no problem hiking routes that I’ve done before. In Taiwan, there were some routes that I did close to two dozen times. Never got tired of the routes and always found something new and different.

Sometimes “new” happens internally, too.

Among the five senses, the sense of sight includes a uniquely subjective element (take color for instance) that is cause for endless debate. In the context of self-powered backcountry travel, my takeaway from this is that while the sight of new terrain to be navigated and appreciated is always exciting, challenging, stimulating, and beautiful, sometimes the most sublime moments come when you arrive in a place that you’ve been before but see/feel in a new way.

Déjà vu.

[Alex H]

Like Philip, I have been exploring Big Bend National Park for nearly 50 years and do almost entirely off trail routes, usually a week at a time.  Sometimes parts will overlap, especially when it comes to reliable water sources and outstanding campsites but usually it is totally new terrain.

On the other hand here at home in NC, I have a favorite campsite in the mountains that I go to every summer for a night or two, sometimes included in a longer route but usually just out and back, it is meditative more than anything else.

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