Backpacking

From BWCAWiki

Backpacking is the complete combination of hiking and camping. A backpacker hikes into an area with the intent of exiting at a later date, so he or she carries supplies and equipment to satisfy sleeping and eating needs.

A backpacker packs all of his or her gear into a backpack. This gear must include food, water, clothing, and shelter, or the means to obtain them, but very little else, and often in a more compact and simpler form than one would use for stationary camping.

Backpacking campsites are typically more spartan than ordinary campsites. In areas that experience a regular traffic of backpackers, a hike-in campsite might have a fire ring and a small wooden bulletin board with a map and some warning or information signs. In truly remote areas, established campsites do not exist at all, and travelers pitch their tents in locations carefully determined under the wilderness ethics of Leave No Trace.

Leave No Trace

Most backpackers purposely try to avoid impacting on the land through which they travel. This includes following established trails as much as possible, not removing anything, and not leaving trash in the backcountry. The Leave No Trace movement offers a set of guidelines for low-impact backpacking ("Leave nothing but footprints. Take nothing but photos.").

Skills and safety

• Survival skills are handy for peace of mind: In case the weather, terrain or environment is more challenging than prepared for, or for dealing with shortcomings in involved parties.
• Navigation and orienteering are useful to find the trailhead, then find and follow a route to a desired sequence of destinations, and then an exit. In case of disorientation, orienteering skills are important to determine where you are and formulate a route to somewhere more desirable. At their most basic, navigation skills allow you to choose the correct sequence of trails to follow.
• First Aid: effectively dealing with minor injuries (splinters, punctures, sprains) is considered by many a fundamental backcountry skill. More subtle, but maybe even more important, is recognizing and promptly treating hypothermia, heat stroke and dehydration, as these are rarely encountered in daily life.
• Leave No Trace is the backpacker's version of the Golden Rule: To have beautiful and pristine places to enjoy, help make them. At a minimum, don't make them worse.
• Distress signaling is a skill of last resort.

See also

• Objective hazards found in the BWCAW
• Hiking trails in the BWCAW