What to Wear and Carry

Among notices about gadgets, clothing, food, and miscellaneous exotic stuff for hikers to carry into the wilderness, I once saw an ad for a unique Colorado product: a down-filled necktie. No longer is there any excuse for sloppy hikers!

A certain amount of silliness is unavoidable as advancing technology in materials and equipment design makes hiking and backpacking ever easier. As the number of potential customers for hiking products increases, the incentive for manufacturers to supply both quality and crud to satisfy hikers’ needs and desires increases proportionately. Any detailed list today of what is needed in the Rocky Mountain National Park backcountry would be obsolete tomorrow.

Nevertheless, although the latest in equipment and clothing constantly changes, there are some basic requirements, since the human body and the mountain environment do not change much.

The park’s mountain environment is made up of two important categories: terrain above tree line and terrain below tree line. The latter is more moderate. Venturing very far above the trees into the alpine zone necessitates more preparation for varying conditions.

As for the human body, it experiences two important states: comfortable and uncomfortable. The state of discomfort can be subdivided almost infinitely, with “sissy” at one end of the scale and “casualty” at the other. Most of us prefer to risk some discomfort during our backcountry experience than to shoulder the weight of extra gear. The trick lies in determining the degree of risk.

For instance, starting out for Dream Lake on a warm, sunny August morning without carrying a sweater or rain gear is perfectly reasonable. The chances of a dangerous ambush by the elements are negligible. But starting out for Longs Peak on the same morning without the burden of extra protection for your body is foolhardy and could cause you significant harm. Between these two extremes range a number of less simple situations requiring decisions about what to wear and carry.

Below tree line it is possible, although unlikely, for the temperature to vary as much as 50 degrees Fahrenheit during a single day. The chance of being caught in an afternoon shower is fairly high, but the wind usually is not dangerous.

Wind, wetness, and temperature all figure in discussions about hypothermia, which used to be called exposure. Essentially the victim’s internal heating mechanisms break down because of repeated draining away of body heat by combinations of low air temperatures, wetness, and wind. Hypothermia can occur in temperatures as high as 50 degrees and in locations below tree line. But it probably won’t occur below tree line unless a nearly naked, fasting hiker, traveling alone off trail and unknown to anyone, suffers an incapacitating injury.

Below tree line, the risk of serious injury from exposure to inclement elements is not very significant. On the other hand, who wants to be even miserably uncomfortable? If you plan to be more than a mile from the trailhead, a cotton shirt, long pants, and rain gear are the minimum items necessary to avoid significant risk of discomfort. Additionally, sunscreen, food, water, a sweater, and a pack to carry it all are advisable. And some hikers do manage to survive with less than fifteen pounds of camera equipment.

The alpine zone has greater extremes: The temperature varies much more than below tree line. Unfortunately, the sun will probably pour down in the morning when you are climbing and generating plenty of your own heat. In the afternoon, when you are descending and generating much less heat, clouds often will shade you while the wind picks up to a stiff gale.

While hiking above the tree line, therefore, you need to be able to add or shed layers of clothing. You should have some way of covering the full length of your arms and legs. Rain gear helps to cut the wind. Hats and jackets made of high-technology fabric are worth their expense for their ability to keep you dry and warm or cool, as circumstances require. A sweater is the minimum extra clothing you should carry just for warmth, and a hat, gloves, and jacket may be very welcome. You will need more water than when below tree line because deeper breathing and high winds suck moisture from the body.

Protection from the sun is vital in the shadeless environment of the alpine zone. People differ, of course, in their sensitivity to ultraviolet light, but tolerance experienced elsewhere is irrelevant at high elevations where thin air screens out far less UV radiation than at lower elevations. On snow, the exposure to UV is much greater than on earth or rock because the snow reflects back much of the burning radiation, greatly increasing the dosage you receive. In the Rockies many attempted suntans end up as sunburns. Colorado has the country’s highest rate of skin cancer because thin air gives so little protection from radiation.

Do everything practical to keep the sun off your skin. Long sleeves and pants are obvious. When they are too warm, apply sunscreen lotion with abandon. Turn your collar up to cover the back of your neck. Wear a hat with a brim. Sunglasses are essential.

As frequently as people underprotect their skin while hiking in the mountains, they overprotect their feet. Plain old over-the-ankle work shoes with cork composition or rubber soles or athletic shoes are adequate for most trail hiking. For off-trail hiking (for example, to mountain summits) or for backpacking—times when it is more important to keep feet dry—heavier (but not very heavy) hiking boots made of full-grain leather are helpful. The all-too-familiar lug sole is the best sole for traveling over rock, but it also causes wear and tear on meadows. Step as gently as possible in these areas.

Many hikers carry more food than they need. If you are enthusiastic about food, eating in the unequaled beauty of the wilderness certainly will enhance your gustatory delights. On the other hand, that same beauty can compensate for a good deal of deficiency in the food department.

High-calorie food that is bad for your health at home, such as hard candy or chocolate, could be just what you need for dragging your body up a steep slope. Most dried fruits and the multiple variations on the familiar mixtures of fruit, nuts, and candy are good.

There is an undeniable relationship between amount of food consumed and amount of defecation, and human defecation has become a serious pollution—not to mention aesthetic—problem in wild areas. Small garden trowels for the burying of human wastes are not carried and used with nearly enough frequency. Many mothers would recommend visiting the trailhead restrooms before the hike.

Mummy Range

Do not drink from streams. Although you might get away with it for a while, making a habit of drinking unboiled or untreated water eventually will cause illness—usually diarrhea, and always at the worst possible time. Refilling water bottles from safe sources avoids natural resource issues of buying bottled water. Even for short hikes, a quart per person is not too much. For climbs to mountain summits, the National Park Service recommends 3 to 4 quarts per person. Yes, it does weigh 2 pounds per quart, but it’s best to be prepared.

Just as preventing illness is preferable to curing it, preventing accidents is preferable to practicing first aid. Still, one member of your hiking party should carry a first-­aid kit. Adhesive bandages, in particular, are useful and have magic healing powers far beyond any rational explanation. First-aid knowledge is usually more important than first-aid supplies, and it is infinitely more lightweight. The reading list at the end of this book contains a good reference for wilderness first aid; it should be learned from rather than carried along. The extra weight would be no fun, and if you have to take time to look up a first-aid technique, you probably will be too late in executing it.

On the other hand, the book you are reading is well worth its weight in the energy you save by not getting lost. A map is the absolute minimum reference needed by hikers not intimately familiar with the terrain they hope to cover. You probably can get along without a compass if you can orient yourself in relation to prominent mountains, especially Longs Peak. But if rare low clouds obscure the peaks, a compass may help you to get out of the wilds at a time when you do not care to waste hours in being lost.

Finally, there is no need for such equipment as an ax, saw, sheath knife, or cavalry saber. The only necessary cutting tool is a pocketknife. Some multibladed pocketknives have a lot of useless extra stuff attached, but screwdrivers, scissors, file, awl, magnifying glass, or tweezers can be very handy for makeshift repair of equipment or body.

Backpacking, of course, requires much more equipment than hiking: frame pack, sleeping bag, tent, stove, mattress, ropes, telescope, wetsuit, inflatable raft, hot air balloon, helicopter, whistle, four Sherpas, this trail guide, and a partridge in a pear tree. Further information on what backpackers need can be found in the excellent books on this subject listed at the back of this book. If they fail to mention a down-filled necktie, please remember that it is very hard for even the best of us to stay current.