Quick Summary
In this next post in Carl "Professor" Stanfield's series about backpacking confidence, he argues that logistics anxiety, not actual difficulty, is the biggest barrier keeping new backpackers off the trail — and that apps like AllTrails (for finding and vetting routes) and FarOut (for on-trail waypoints, water, and conditions) make planning far less intimidating than it feels. It also reframes thru hiking as nothing more than a long chain of manageable 3–6 day segments between towns, supported by established shuttle and trail-town networks, rather than one massive logistical puzzle. The takeaway: a couple of successful short trips quickly build the confidence needed to tackle longer ones.
Words and Photos by Carl “Professor” Stanfield @prof_carl
Logistics are often the most intimidating component of backpacking, especially for folks just getting into the sport. It’s one thing to acquire all the gear and pack a pack for a trip: It's quite another to find your way out to a suitable place for a stroll through the backcountry. As with so many things today, technology has made it much easier to figure it all out, but even so, a lack of confidence in one’s ability to plan and execute a successful trip remains one of the greatest barriers to entry for new backpackers.
It can be daunting not only to figure out where to go for a trip, but even how to figure out how to figure out where to go. I remember the feeling of being a young adult in 2011 who had been allured into the concept of adventuring with everything I needed on my back, but having no idea where to go to figure out how to get started. Permits intimidated me, trailheads seemed a risky place to leave a car, and it felt downright dangerous to rely on finding water out in the woods to survive on. I was worried most about my own safety, and also unknowingly breaking the rules out there. These backpacking anxieties are exactly why it is so important to develop a grounded sense of confidence in the backcountry.
PLANNING THE FIRST TRIP
In reality, it doesn’t take all that much to plan a safe, successful backpacking trip. There are many places here in the US where permits are not required that offer plenty of excellent camping spots with plenty to see on the route. It usually only takes a couple of successful trips before that confidence takes a massive leap, and the feelings go from intimidated to excited. Once people see how easy it can be to pull off planning a weekend backpacking trip, the wide world of the sport really starts to open up.
There are several digital mapping sites that are excellent for finding and planning trips. My favorite site for planning weekend and weeklong trips (20-80 milers) has been AllTrails. It offers a searching feature that is basically optimized Google for hiking routes. You can search trails based on parameters of trail distance, type of hike (out and back or the ideal loop trail), difficulty, and even proximity to yourself. Once you’ve narrowed your search, you can read information on that stretch about requirements for the hike (such as hiking and/or parking permits) as well as read reviews from other hikers. Opinions on trail difficulty admittedly vary wildly, but the reviews are actually quite helpful to learn about trail and water conditions. It’s always helpful to know if you’re getting yourself into a 12-mile bushwack, or if maybe a major bridge is out. AllTrails makes finding a suitable route about as easy as possible.
There are of course other sites that do similar things, and my overall favorite mapping app is FarOut. FarOut (formerly known as GutHook) is *the* ultimate guide to long distance hiking, and it adds smaller trails to its catalog all the time. It features a trail map covered in points of interest (most of which include pictures), which also allow comments to be left by users. On popular trails, this means up-to-date information on water sources, privy conditions, and places to expect cell service.
Both of these apps (and many others) also offer the ability to download maps directly onto your smartphone to use in the field. This has become the primary method of navigation for backpackers, at least in the US. Even without cell service and/or while in airplane mode, smartphones still have active GPS signals, so these mapping apps will always tell you exactly where you are on trail. They will also tell you how far away you are from other waypoints on trail, making it simpler than ever to keep up with your breaks and goals throughout the hiking days.
THRU HIKING
The logistics for a longer hike, even a 2,000+ mile thru hike, are not all that much more complicated to plan than a good local weekend loop hike. I know that’s a bold claim, but let me clarify. Every thru hike I’ve ever completed, from the 77-mile Foothills Trail to the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail, has a dedicated support system of trail-loving volunteers who want to help make the hike work for people. You aren’t simply dropping your car in a parking lot to hike the AT, but there are excellent networks of shuttle drivers all over the trail to help get you to any trailhead you want between Georgia and Maine.
So sure, it’s a bit more complicated to get to the trail, but once you’re there, it’s no different than any other stretch of trail you’d do over a weekend or week of backpacking. For one thing, nobody needs to make their hiking itineraries for any longer than it takes to get to the next town. For most popular long trails in the US, this is most typically 3-6 days at a time. I’d say a good 95% of the time on these long trails, if you have a plan to get to the next town, you can figure out the rest from there. Thru hiking is nothing more than a (very long) series of 3-6 day backpacking trips. So really, other than the extra leg work to get to and from the trail, once you’re out there, a thru hike is not so different from any other singular backpacking trip.
At the end of the day, the difficult barrier of logistics in backpacking is much more of an anxiety than it is actually, well, difficult. As with most things, it just takes doing it a few times to develop the confidence necessary to overcome that anxiety and get to spending more time out on trail. Check out those apps, plan those trips, and get those backpacks out on the trail.
Stay tuned for more confidence-building tips!
