Hiking 101 for Beginners | Useful Knowledge

hey this is Jamie useful knowledge this video is going to be for those of you who've never been day hiking before but you want to go on a day hike we're gonna go over tips on what we think you need to carry and then we're going to go over some trail hiking tips to help keep you safe stay tuned so everything you see here is what we are gonna suggest that you take with you on a day hike and this video is going to be for those folks that have never been day hiking we're gonna call this hiking 101 okay to get started what we suggest is to hike somewhere that's easy to moderate so find you a trail in your local area that's easy to moderate to hike if you can get a paper map of that trail and get you a compass now I'm a realist I understand that most people nowadays are not going to do that they're gonna use their phone the compass on their phone and they're gonna actually have some type of hiking out just a note you can and will lose both cell service and GPS signal when you're deep in the woods so before you get to the trailhead download a map of where you're gonna be hiking onto your phone and check it regularly so you'll have an idea of where you're at just in case you do lose both of those services okay once you determine where you're gonna go and when you're gonna go you need to let someone know that can be a co-worker it can be a good friend family members even conservation officers that are local to the area what you need to do is tell them where exactly you plan on going and when you're going to return and ask them to call or text you at a certain time then that way they can know if you're back or not and plan to limit your hike to about two to four miles round-trip for your first time okay clothing we understand this is your first day hike you do not have to go out and purchase any new clothing to go on a short day honey what we suggest is some loose-fitting comfortable clothing I do suggest some long pants just to help with a bug so if you've got some cargo pants or just some loose fitting jeans now let's move on to shoes so I wear hiking boots if you don't have hiking boots you do not need to go out and purchase hiking boots I just some leather shoes something like some tennis shoes that will be just fine I do not suggest wearing running shoes because they have no lateral support and I've seen several folks on the trail where they busted out their shoes as a matter of fact I gave a lady some tape a couple of years ago because she has absolutely busted both for shoes out ok next rain gear if you're gonna invest anything invest in some good rain gear do not get one of the dollar ponchos from the dollar store because that's not gonna help you much if you have a pop-up thunderstorm so what I have is I have a top and bottom I've actually used these a lot in pop-up thunderstorms you don't have to go purchase name-brand there's some pretty decent stuff in some of the box stores now if you're in a cooler climate I suggest some layers so you might want to carry just a an extra shirt carry a beanie and some gloves okay socks what I wear is wool socks the reason I like wool socks is because that's the original cool in the summer warm in the winter type sock if you don't have a pair of wool socks that's ok just get you a pair of socks that are comfortable in the shoes that you're going to be wearing ok one of the most important things I think that you should purchase for a day hike is a pair of hiking sticks and I got these I think was off of Amazon for about 25 bucks and I've had on for about three years and they've absolutely been great you can adjust them to whatever height you need so what this does is it gives you four points of balance instead of two if you're just hiking and you don't have hiking sticks you just have your feet okay if you have this you have two more points of balance so if you go on somewhere that might be slick these are gonna help you maintain your balance and it's going to reduce Falls okay all this stuff we're going to talk about you're gonna need something to put it in so there's a lot of day packs on the market now this is about a $75 day pack and I got this for my birthday a couple of years ago you don't have to have something like this there's actually a lot of big-box store type day packs that work just fine in a matter of fact I'm going to show you on that I've had for about 10 years before I got this one and this thing's been through everything ok one thing I do suggest though when you're buying and daypack no matter what you get buy one that has a hydration pack in it that's going to help you out over having the tote bottles ok talking about hydration packs this is a two and a half liter know one thing I do suggest you do before you start hiking is go ahead and hydrate get you some water in you before you get going then fill this up and it's gonna last you for your day hike especially if you're going only about a a 2 to 4 mile round trip so if you don't have a hydration pack that's ok just carry you to 1 liter or 20 ounce water bottles with you and make sure they're full when you get going ok first day for when you're day hiking most of your issues when you're day hiking where you need first aid are going to be cuts scrapes splinters and blisters so what I like to carry is some hand sanitizer because you can clean the wound easy because hand sanitizer is about 2/3 straight-up alcohol I'd like to use some antibiotic cream once you get the wound clean and you can use a band-aid at that point I'd like to carry a larger band-aid in case you get bigger wounds I carry some pain medication that's just ibuprofen and if you do get a splinter you need some tweezers and a safety pin to help get that splinter out and don't forget chapstick you get out of the woods and your lips get dry chap sticks great to have trail food so what I'm gonna suggest is you take something that you like to eat I actually love these bars and I like these kind bars as well so that's what I like to carry but if you don't like these find you something that you would like to eat when you take a break on the trail ok insane repellent now I carry insect repellent in my vehicle so I will spray down before I actually start hiking and then I will carry something like these towelettes or actually this spray with me in case I stay in the woods a little bit longer than I expect next is trail marking tape I suggest that you carry a small roll of orange trail marking tape with you and the reason is you can use this to mark where you leave the trail and you go off the trail all you have to do is tie a little bit of this up say every 20 or 30 feet so you can look this up and verify it but most people get lost because they leave the trail either to go use the restroom or to look at something cool that's off the trail say a waterfall or something like that so you can use this marking tape to actually find your way back to the trail and stay tuned we're going to demonstrate how to use the trail marking tape later in this video okay speaking of leaving the trail and marking where you go when you do leave the trail don't forget your toilet paper now this toilet paper doesn't have a roll in it you can get these at most of your camping and hiking sections in the big-box stores next you need to carry some tape and not just any tape I suggest that you carry gorilla tape because it's a lot stronger than duct tape now what I do is I'll take the tape and a pen like you see on the right and I'll wrap enough tape around that pin to basically make what you see on the left now folks ask me all the time how much tape do you carry well I carry enough that I can wrap around the boot at least twice in case you need to repair a boot or if you need to repair a backpack strap you can wrap that around several times just so you can make it back to the trailhead just to say it again only this is gonna go in your day pack okay next we're going to talk about in case you need to build a fire while you're hiking some people carry matches some people carry things like a fire still what I like to do is I go no-nonsense I carry two small lighters just like shown here I like to use the bright ones in case I drop them I can easily find them in addition to that I carry at least two of these fire starters now this type of fire starter here will last 10 to 12 minutes so you can easily get a fire started with it and you can get a fire starter cube like this at your big-box stores in the camping section ok flashlights now you can carry a handheld flashlight if you want to that's fine but what I suggest is to go hands-free and use a headlamp now this is a rechargeable headlamp so what do as I charge them up before I leave to go on a day hike and then I actually carry an extra battery with me just in case I'm there after dark or even there for a couple of days in case you get lost okay one thing I'm going to suggest is to carry a way to charge your cell phone when you're hiking and the reason is when you get in the backwoods your phone's going to be searching for a tower it's probably going to burn battery down than what you're expecting so Kerri you want these little pots this one will charge the phone I think three or four times and don't forget your cable most people are going to say carry an emergency sleeping bag with you but what I'm going to suggest is to carry that sleeping bag which is in this and also carry you an emergency tent so you can actually buy this pack off Amazon for about nine bucks it's got an emergency tent an emergency sleeping bag and it also has the rope so that you can actually type between some trees to make that ten okay one thing that I really suggest that you carry with you is a whistle and the reason you want to carry a whistle with you is because people can hear this a long way off so if you get lost and you can hear somebody looking for you you can blow this whistle and they can hear it okay one thing I like to carry with me just in case is a small mini water filtration system I carry one that's got the straw or it actually can screw on to the end of a water bottle so if you did carry a water bottle with you then make sure this will screw on the end of it and you can actually filter some water from a source along the trail if you need it to I suggest that you carry about 25 feet of paracord now you can get this paracord pretty much anywhere there's camping equipment paracord basically has endless uses some that come to mind are bootlaces shoestrings emergency lashings and emergency belt or even a pet leash in case you carry your pet okay I do suggest you carry some type of knife it doesn't have to be a survival knife just some type of cutting tool in case you need to cut something like the paracord or things like that okay one thing I do like to carry and this kind of old-school but I love to carry a stainless-steel canteen cup you can actually stuff a lot of this stuff in a canteen cup and if you needed to actually boil some water you can pull it in this canteen cup because this is actually stainless steel you can set it right next to the fire right in the fire and it's got this little handle here so you can pick it up easily so that's one of the reasons I like to carry a stainless steel canteen cup okay one more thing that I forgot because I don't wear glasses but if you wear glasses or contacts carry you a spare pair especially if you're hiking with contacts because if you lose a contact or you get your ice crash and you have to take a contact out you can use your spare pair of glasses and be able to keep hiking safely [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] and just a note everything you see here is gonna weigh ten pounds or less don't forget your pooper scooper in case you do have to use the bathroom in the woods ready to go I can tip number one tell someone where you're going when you're going and when you expect to return if you're not local to an area you can always call your conservation officers in that area to let them know you're going to be hiking and when you expect to return I can tip number two if you're going to use a hiking app for your hike make sure you download everything you need before you get to the trailhead a lot of these trail heads are remote and they may not have cell signal also about your mobile device your GPS will work if you don't have cell signal but you can get deep in the woods and absolutely not have GPS signal this has happened to me several times like we always say carry a map and a compass hiking tip number three carry you some hiking sticks now I got these for about twenty five dollars online but what this does for you it gives you two extra points of balance for when the trail is slick or when the trail is steep I can tip number four if you come across a fallen log like this in the woods do not step over it like this the reason is there could be a snake up under there and they can strike you in the leg what you want to do is you want to step up on that log and then you want to step off that's going to help you clear that snake and this is some of the training that we received in the National Forest when I worked there in high school okay hiking tip number five if you decide to leave the trail to go to the restroom or there's a really cool waterfall just down the hill you need to mark where you left the trail you can do it on your app if it's working what I do recommend though as a backup is some orange marking tape now what you can do you can put you can actually put this on trees about every say twenty feet as you walk off the trail and then as you come back you take them down okay so I got off the trail to see this Creek that was just over the hill and just as an example I marked about every 20 feet so you can actually see where I marked we've got one there and then on past it I've got one and then you can see the other two and the final one is actually out at the trail now obviously you want to take these down as you walk out if you absolutely forget to these will biodegrade in about a year but we really need to be nice and take them down as we walk out okay hiking tip number six if you do feel like you're lost just take a deep breath and just stop right where you're at and get real still and just listen that's all you got to do you can even sit down and just listen a lot of times if someone else is walking up the trail and they're talking you can hear them and you'll be able to get some bearings off of just that also listen for vehicles if you're close enough to a road you may actually hear vehicles going up and down the road so if you can do this you might be able to find your bearings just off the noises around you so we hope you gained some useful knowledge on how easy it is to prepare for your first day hike have fun hiking [Music]

Channel: Useful Knowledge

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Keywords: hiking essentials, hiking 101 for beginners, hiking 101, hiking 101 essential tips, hiking for beginners, hiking for beginners on a budget, hiking gear for beginners, gear, hiking, hiking clothes, hiking trail, day hike, what to take when hiking, tips, 101, for beginners, essentials, Southern Living, 10 essentials, ten, 10 essentials for hiking

Id: edElLWvSVLk

Length: 15min 58sec (958 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 16 2020