In the last Walking 101 post, I was mainly making the point that you don’t need a lot of stuff or to spend a lot of money to get outdoors and get into walking. This post is “what to carry on a day hike”, aka all the stuff you do need. But you still don’t need to spend lots of money!
So, this is a follow-on from the last post’s “how to go outside for the first time and all the stuff you don’t need“. This one is for people who want to do a their first longer walk, where you might find yourself an hour or two from help, rescue or escape. This is the stuff you’ll need to look after yourself and keep yourself safe either until help arrives or until you can rescue yourself. This isn’t “a couple of hours on your local trail passing through villages”, it’s far too much for a gentle local walk. This is “easy day hike on Dartmoor or the Lake District” territory. As ever, use your judgement but bear in mind it’s almost always better to have something and not need it than not have it when you need it.
Clothes
First of all, you’ll need suitable clothes. You don’t want to be hauling around your entire body weight in extra unnecessary stuff but you’ll need warm enough, waterproof enough clothes. Throw in a waterproof jacket and an extra jumper. Any old jumper will do (except the extra-heavy ones my parents like, made of wool as thick as my thumb!) but if you’ve got a choice, microfleece is good because it’s very lightweight & very warm, so it makes an excellent spare to carry. And if you’ve got the space or the extra weight in your bag, it doesn’t hurt to have waterproof trousers too.
You might not ever put them on but if the temperature drops or the heavens open, you want to be prepared. As I said last time, you’ll be miserable if you’re cold and wet and if you’re a good distance from safety, being cold and wet risks hypothermia.
Unless it’s the height of agonisingly hot summer, I’d stick a pair of gloves in my bag too, just in case. You’d be surprised how often a pair of gloves is wanted on a lunch stop on a miserable day. A spare pair of socks can be a godsend, either because yours are wet and soggy or just because it feels nice and refreshing to change them when your feet are hot and tired.
Food & drink
Depending on how long you’re out, you’ll probably want to take lunch with you. Something that doesn’t mind getting a bit battered and squashed, something that’ll give you energy. Sandwiches, chocolate and pockets full of snacks. At least a litre of water, or flavoured water, or squash or juice or whatever you can drink that’s nice and hydrating. It might be a a good idea to take a flask with a hot drink in it too, especially if the weather’s looking unpleasant. I’m not a huge hot drinks drinker personally so mine tend to come back home with me and get drunk in the tent in the evening when they’re on the cool side of lukewarm but my occasional walking companions like to stop about halfway to lunch and have a cup of tea and a snack whatever the weather.
If I’m planning to be out for more than about two hours, I take pocket nibbles – a little ziplock bag of cereal and chocolate buttons. Other people take trail mix, which involves more in the way of nuts and seeds. You can buy it ready-made but if you make your own, you can put in whatever you want, whatever seems handy to nibble from a pocket as you’re walking. That’s the point of your pocket nibbles, that you don’t have to stop and dig in your bag for a snack. I sometimes bring a second drink. I have my biggish one in my bag for lunch and I have a smaller one in a collapsible folding bag bottle that shoves in a pocket after I’ve drunk some of it and clips to my bag’s straps otherwise. I’m a huge fan of bag-bottles, although they do have a terrible habit of springing a leak after a few weeks. You might like a reservoir, Camelbak-style, to allow you to drink from the tube as you walk. Lots of people swear by them but they’ve never really worked for me personally.
Equipment
The most important equipment to take with you on a hike is a first aid kit. You can buy them ready-made and they’re great, full of everything you could possibly need to fix any minor medical issue on a hill. Lifesystems do a huge range of kits for every occasion. I have the Pocket kit but you might want to go up to the Trek or the Adventurer or even the Mountain. I think they’re far too big for my sort of day hikes but first aid is a personal thing, especially if you have additional needs so putting together your own might suit you better. I’ve got a post coming on the subject later in the month.
Then there are miscellaneous safety bits. It doesn’t hurt to have a whistle for attention, which you can have in your first aid kit or tied to your backpack’s straps. A silver emergency thermal blanket is a tiny thing to carry but really useful in an emergency. They fold down to about the size of your palm. A survival bag might be useful in bad conditions – it’s a thick plastic bag about the size of a sleeping bag in bright orange. My Rangers slept out in them at camp in about 2014 and woke up drenched from their own sweat – they’ll absolutely keep your body heat in but they’re not at all breathable. They fold down a bit bigger than the silver blankets. I have a survival shelter and I love it but I admit that I don’t carry it often because it’s quite bulky and it’s very unlikely that I’ll ever need to get in it when a survival bag would be just as effective and far easier to carry, especially when I’m on my own.
If there’s a risk you might get caught out after dark, then take a torch. An LED headtorch is lightweight and long-lasting and it means you’ve got your hands free to navigate or scramble.
Other
It’s best to try to keep your stuff dry. No use in having a spare jumper and a dry pair of socks if your bag is soaked through. The securest way of ensuring everything is dry is a big drybag the size of your backpack but your backpack might have a built-in cover hiding away in an underneath pocket, or you can buy separate covers or you could even wrap everything up in a bin bag inside your backpack. Stops your sandwiches getting soggy as well as your emergency equipment.
A waterproof map case is a very useful thing to have. It’s not even the waterproofing that’s the primary objective here; it’s the fact that you can hang your map around your neck and have it close at hand without actually having it in your hand. If it’s windy, your map tends to turn into a sail and the case’s strings wrap themselves up so tightly that you get stuck in it but it’s a small price to pay for the functionality. Pacing beads tied to your compass can be handy too but I’ll explain those when/if I do the map & compass post.
I have a small piece of foam somewhere that lives in the long back inside pocket. It weighs nothing but it means I have something dry and cushioned to sit on at lunchtime. Highly recommended.
I know, it sounds like a lot. Use your judgement. If you’re going out as a group, you don’t all need to take everything. If one person has a first aid kit and one person has an emergency bag and one person has a whistle, and so on, it saves a lot of carrying. But by and large, it’s better to have it and not need it than need it and realise you left it behind.