Raise your hand if you’ve hiked the Appalachian trail!

I truly believe that you have to try EVERYTHING before you decide you don’t like it. This doesn’t just pertain to foods like when you were growing up, but also activities. You should even test people out, you don’t really know if you like someone until you hang out with them. Try those new things you’ve never done before. Hang out with that new group of friends! You never know what is out there just waiting for you to discover it.

I kept that in mind when my friend asked if I wanted to go on a backpacking trip. Backpacking has always been something I was interested in but never had the courage to do. I obviously love camping and I love going on hikes, why not combine the two!

Now, don’t get me wrong here. Backpacking is not one of those things you can just jump into. First you need to plan your trip. Print out a map of the areas you're going too. Always make sure you have a trail map as well. Secondly, you do need some gear. Although camping and backpacking are similar they DO NOT use the same equipment! The trick with backpacking gear is to keep it LIGHT! Everything you bring with you has to fit in a bag you’re going to carry. Any pack you carry should only be 20% of your body weight so keep that in mind. If you’d like to see what I bring with me on my trips check out my GEAR LIST here.

Now, let’s talk about food. You can’t bring your nice yeti cooler with you so really think about how many days you're going and break it up by meals. Snacks are great too but don’t go crazy here. Just remember everything you bring should be something you're going to either consume or use, otherwise you’re carrying dead weight. That is NOT something you want to do. It will obviously slow you down on the trail, you’ll have to drink more water because of the additional weight, and you’ll require more stops. This isn’t the recipe you want for your trip, so think smart and only bring the essentials.

Like many of you, the first time I do something does give me anxiety. Being a classic over-thinker, I think of all the possibilities of what can happen and plan for the worse. The plan was to go for 3 days and 2 nights totaling just under 19 miles. I would need to bring; a tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, kitchen, 1 change of hiking clothes, 1 pair of sleep shorts, extra underwear, 5 meals, 4 snacks, 4L of water, my camera, mini tripod, and dog bowls. Lucky for me, Ritz carries his own weight, which isn’t much. Ritz carries a backpack that has his food and water. Thankfully, I don’t have to carry that for him, saving a little weight in my pack. At the end of it all, my pack weighed about 50 lbs! At first, I didn’t even feel the weight! The straps on a backpacking bag are SUPERIOR! First of all, in any bag I always recommend a belt strap. I don’t care how silly you think you look, that belt strap is saving your back a TON of pain! This bag has a belt strap, a chest strap, and a shoulder trap system that relieves the pain on your shoulders. At about mile 5 I did start to feel the weight of my pack. I have hiked before, of course, but not with nearly as much weight.

Luckily, most of the hike was down hill. We started at the peak of Mount Greylock. We thought it would be easier to hike down to the campsite. The hike was beautiful and filled with lots of different waterfalls. The snow melt was still running off the mountain so running water was abundant. Once we did arrive at our campsite, deer hill, it absolutely lived up to its name. This hill was basically a half mile on a cliffside. The hill was west facing and by the time we were all set up for camp we got to cook our meals watching the sunset. I was mildly worried about bears. Black bears can be very unpredictable and if you aren’t careful with your food or storage it can become a dangerous situation pretty quickly. Lucky for us, these campsites came equipped with storage houses. We packed all our food in bear safe containers and then locked them in the storage house. If a bear did come along it would be too much of a hassle getting to our food, the bear would give up.

Some people would cringe at the fact they have to sleep outside on the ground, not me. I absolutely love sleeping outside. It's not the hard ground I like but the sounds of the crickets and bugs and even the birds in the morning. The cool night air gets into the tent and everything just smells of the forest. I really enjoy any moment I get to be outside. Lucky for us, the bears decided to stay away and in the morning we gathered the empty water bottles, filled them with fresh stream water and made breakfast. I had my first successful backpacking night. When I woke up I had the normal aches but I was not as sore as I thought I would be. Even putting on the heavy pack it didn’t feel any different than the day before. This gave me some false confidence as we started our trek.

The night before it had rained, so the path down the hill was slippery. We hiked about a mile straight down until we got to a small gully leading to a beautiful waterfall. The fall was amazing although with the rain it has made all the rocks on our path unworkable. I decided my pack was too heavy and it would be safer to take it off my back and hike down the hill dragging it behind me. Although it was a little difficult, I made it down the hill safely. One thing I would say helped a lot was Ritz. He walked ahead of me and scoped out the path. Every couple of paces he would stop and look back at me, just to make sure I wasn’t lagging too far behind. When I was he would wait or walk back to me to show me the safest path. I wouldn’t have gotten through the hike without him.

The plan was simple. Hike down deer hill and then hike a few miles west towards a different campsite for night two. Despite the rain, deer hill was the easy part. Once we passed the waterfall we hiked about 2.5 miles west. We had come upon a clearing with a stream and decided this was a perfect spot for lunch. After lunch we wanted to get back on the trail, but had a hard time finding where the trail head picked up. After what felt like forever we found the trail head, but not the correct trail head. Which of course we had no idea at the time. After about 2 or so miles I noticed a sign for the end of the trail. I thought to myself, “the trail isn’t supposed to end”. That’s when I realized we were pretty far off track and headed in the wrong direction. Although for some reason my hiking partner decided turning around would be more work. She wanted to continue and find out where the end of the path led. Even though I knew it wasn’t the right direction, I followed her lead. The path led us about 4 miles off route towards a residential part of town. Needless to say, this was a bad situation. We needed a rest but had to keep going, we were losing daylight and fast. We ended up hiking the next 4 hours around the mountain. When we arrived at an open trailhead we were beaten. The dogs had even given up and could not continue walking. By the end of the day we had walked over 15 miles. The plan for the whole trip was supposed to be 19! Never in my life had I walked that much in one day, never with 57 lbs of heart on my back. I was BEAT! That ended our trip as we never made it to our second campsite. We cooked up some dinner and called it a night.

Although the trip did not end how I originally expected it to, it was an amazing trip. Even though hiking can be difficult, it's hot outside, my muscles get really tired, I feel more like myself being in nature. Our social lives today have really bogged down my mind. The constant feeling that I need to keep up with social media trends. Constantly having my phone right next to me. Not wanting to miss any messages or check my social media. Mentally, this just isn’t a healthy way to live, This trip gave me the break I needed from the constant over stimulation. It also allowed me to find a new hobby and a new passion that’s healthy and sustainable. I would absolutely recommend giving backpacking a try! Like I said at the beginning of this post, you can’t say you don’t like something without ever trying it first. So, get out there and TRY!