Does Your Outdoor Clothing Help Keep You Safe?
When hiking or backpacking, the relationship between outdoor clothing and personal safety is obvious. We know our woods wardrobe should be comprised of layers. On the base layer we avoid cottons in favor of moisture-wicking fabrics. With outer layers we look for ventilation, wind protection and water resistance. In between it’s always good to have a lightweight fleece handy when extra warmth is necessary. Various combinations of the three keep us covered in all conditions. But how many of us consider clothing color as a safety feature?
Don’t Buy Hiking Boots Online
Look, I loathe shopping as much as the next outdoor nut, but if there’s one piece of hiking gear that’s essential to buy in store, it’s boots. There’s too much at stake in terms of sizing, fit and quality to risk pixel picking. The wrong boot can turn an otherwise glorious hike into an insufferable pain in the foot.
14 hiking lessons learned on the maine appalachian trail
This past summer I took my first foray into long hiking, spending 22 days logging the 282 miles of the Maine Appalachian Trail. By no means do I consider myself a trail expert from this one adventure, but I did learn a lot of things I wished I’d known in advance. Hopefully this article will help other trail rookies avoid some of the mistakes I made.