8 Tips For Trekking On Unfamiliar Terrain

There are 8 tips for trekking on unfamiliar terrain to consider when planning your next outdoor adventure. Even the well-experienced hikers can get lost and in trouble on the trail just as quickly as novices.

There are 8 tips for trekking on unfamiliar terrain to consider when planning your next outdoor adventure. An Associated Press story about a hiker from the state of Virginia who was found dead after going missing on a day hike in Mexico on December 30, 2014 provides some helpful insights on hiking on unfamiliar terrain.

First, the positive aspects of the story inform us that person did have a communication plan. He sent a selfie picture to his wife and then a couple of hours later sent a text message. This was probably very helpful information that aided the Mexican Search and Rescue (SAR) teams find his body.

However, two important pieces of information from this article that were revealed was that the man did not have any survival training and that he had gotten lost while on day hikes in his past. The story goes on to relate that he was able to self-recover from being lost on previous occasions; however, this time he was in a foreign country and navigating on unfamiliar terrain. What are some key learning elements from this story regarding hiking on unfamiliar terrain whether you are hiking in the United States or abroad?

1. Establish A Plan

First, have a plan. That means you need to have a plan for conducting your hike from start to finish. Planning your hike must involve determining your route, your expected time of return to your starting point, establishing way points on your GPS if you are using one. There should be an integration of an emergency plan should you get lost or injured while hiking. You should ensure that you have adequate food and water for the area, time on the trail, and time of year. Now the question arises as to how you plan the actual hike upon terrain upon in which you have never traversed.

2. Conduct A Map Reconnaissance

The first step in planning a hike on unfamiliar terrain is to consult a map. With the advent of iPads, Tablets, and GPS devices, Google Earth, topographic terrain applications are available for most of these devices. If you cannot afford the electronic stuff, there are paper maps that can be purchased. If you cannot find a map that covers your area of interest prior to your trip, you can buy a map at your intended location once you have arrived. Another way to get information on the terrain upon which you are unfamiliar is to do an internet search. There is no reason why you cannot get some idea of the terrain you wish to hike if you are hiking anywhere in North America or Europe. Asia, Central and South America, and Africa may present some challenges in regards to obtaining information, but it is not impossible.

3. Conduct A Risk Assessment

Conducting a risk assessment of your planned outdoor adventure is critical to a safe hike. It is essential to understand the risks of the area and incorporate risk mitigation into your plan. There are several ways to conduct a risk assessment. The simplest is to take a piece of paper and list the risks, such as dehydration, then under the risk, list ways to mitigate or control that risk, such as carrying a water treatment kit. The U.S. Army Composite Risk Management Worksheet is a useful tool for conducting a risk assessment for planning a backpacking trip on unfamiliar terrain.

4. Identify The Terrain Hazards

Generally, there are two types of hazards to consider on any hike, man-made and naturally occurring risks.

Natural Hazards

The naturally occurring hazards are the most likely to be encountered.  Naturally occurring hazards encompass wild life, dangerous plants and insects, and weather. Your local bookstore, library, and outfitter store can provide information on the natural hazards pertaining to the area in which you desire to hike. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website can provide accurate weather assessments for the area you wish to hike in the United States. 

Man-made Hazards

Another risk to consider when hiking over unfamiliar terrain are the man-made hazards that may exist on your route. Man-made hazards can be construction areas, logging areas, mining areas, or places of war, insurrection, or high crime areas. A hiker from North Carolina was recently killed by members of a drug cartel while he was hiking in Mexico. His story illustrates the importance of understanding the man-made hazards on a particular hike. 

Travel Restrictions and Warnings

Another important aspect about man-made hazards to consider for hiking in foreign countries is to check and heed the warning and travel restrictions published by the U.S. State Department. Sometimes tourists in foreign country like to take a treks away from the places that are established for tourists. It is critical to understand and heed the travel restrictions issued by the U.S. State Department. We do not have perfect knowledge of any particular foreign area. Therefore, it is imperative to integrate our government’s travel restrictions and warnings into any trek that will transpire in a foreign country. 

5. Establish and Publish An Emergency Plan

Another planning consideration in regards to hiking on unfamiliar terrain is to plan for emergencies. I have watched several documentaries about mountain climbing, hiking, and endurance races. Most of the unfortunate incidences discussed in these programs center on the fact that the individuals affected were not prepared for emergencies. I have also read several news stories over the last few months where hikers had to be rescued who were lost or injured while hiking. Their testimony was that they were not anticipating any problems on their hike. The take away principle from the experiences of others is always prepare for the worst scenario that can happen on your hike. Never go on a hike, regardless of length of time or distance without an emergency plan.

6. Incorporate A Personal Emergency Survival Kit

Your emergency plan should incorporate a personal emergency survival kit. The kit should address the basic principles of survival: Shelter, Food, Fire, and Hydration. The best survival kit is the one that you develop on your own. There are several resources available that will help you understand how to build your own kit. Your personal survival kit should be tailored for your particular hike and for the time of the year in which you will be backpacking. The challenge for taking emergency survival gear into foreign countries for backpacking is the aspect of the survival knife. Consult the laws of the country in which you desire to travel regarding knives and multi-tools. It may be that you have to buy one of these items after you arrive in the country of your destination. There are some seasonal aspects to consider when building your survival kit.

 7. Incorporate Seasonal Gear

One aspect of risk mitigation for trekking on unfamiliar terrain is to understand and incorporate seasonal gear into your packing list. You can not pack for every single contingency. Your backpack will be too heavy to carry if you try. Therefore, it is important to tailor your packing for the particular season and kind of terrain upon you will trek. This is called, modularity. 

Summer/Fall Gear Considerations

At a minimum your backpack should have for a summer or early fall hike the following items: rain gear, such as a waterproof tarp or H2O proof outerwear. Wet weather will be the one weather hazard that you will encounter in most locations in the summer or fall in North America or Europe. Therefore, in addition to the basic survival kit items, consider some type of rain gear to put in your backpack. The temperatures will fluctuate as the earth transitions from summer to fall. It is beneficial to include some kind of light to medium cold weather gear, such as, a packable jacket and fleece cap. The Columbia Watertight II Jacket (Packable) is a great example of raingear for backpacking. 

Winter/Spring Gear Considerations

Hiking in the winter to early spring brings its own weather risks. Cold weather gear should be part of your packing list if you are trekking during this time of the year. One type of winter gear to bring on a hike in the winter are snowshoes. The MSR EVO Ascent Snowshoes are an example of snowshoes for hiking. Hand and Body warmers should be a consideration for your packing list. Winter outerwear such as the Columbia Alpine Action Jacket with Omni-Heat technology is the kind of winter gear to consider putting on your packing list. 

8. Get Formal Survival Training

Another aspect of the news article mentioned above was that the wife of the hiker reported that he did not have any survival training. This is unfortunate. As many resources, websites, and television programs that are available that cover survival, nobody should be without some kind of knowledge of the basics of survival.

If you have never had any training on survival techniques in the wilderness, I would recommend that you conduct an internet search of some good videos that give sound instruction on such important information as building shelters, starting fires, etc. The best information for those not familiar with survival techniques are Les Stroud’s Survivorman video series. Dave Canterbury and his Pathfinder School provide good instructional videos also.

If you can afford it, take a survival course before your next hike. There are four places of instruction that I would recommend: Dave Canterbury’s Pathfinder School , Cody Lundin’s Aboriginal Living Skills School , ESEE Knives’-Randal’s Adventure and Training School of Survival , and the Sigma 3 Survival School. Some of these schools have ex-military veterans as instructors, who have experience and expertise in training survival techniques. Having an understanding of survival basics and some, familiarity on how to use basic survival equipment, such as an individual first aid kit, is better than no knowledge at all.

Concluding Thoughts

In conclusion, hiking on unfamiliar terrain can be an exciting experience; however, failure to plan and anticipate problems increases the chances of a good hike turning bad. Stay on well-used paths and do not venture off into areas for a great selfie or a great view of the scenery. Remember that even the well-experienced hikers can get lost and in trouble on the trail just as quickly as novices. Therefore, stay informed, stay safe, have a plan, and enjoy your hike.
See you on the trail!

Book Review: Will to Live by Les Stroud

Will to Live: Dispatches from The Edge of Survival by Les Stroud. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2011, 230 pp., $17.99.

51Brdg4szNLWilderness survival and the unique and harrowing stories of real life survivors and tragedies gives author Les Stroud much to contemplate within the pages of Will to Live: Dispatches from The Edge of Survival. What is the primary mitigating factor between life and death in a survival situation? Stroud seeks to discover the answer to this question by examining the survival stories of several well-known cases in which people lived or perished in this follow-up volume to his earlier work: Survive: Essential Skills and Tactics to Get You Out of Anywhere-Alive. These stories find their setting in such diverse places as land and sea, forest and jungle. Equally, the personalities involved in the narratives are just as varied as the settings in which their survival experience takes place. The author admits that years of survival training can never substitute for the actual experiences of those who endured their ordeals. He states, “Therein lies one of the greatest problems I and other survival instructors have always faced. We rarely get the opportunity to really do the one thing we are best at: getting caught and subsequently tested in a true survival situation” (p. 1-2). Stroud offers his thesis when he articulates that discovering how people react when faced with a survival situation and how those reactions influenced the outcome of those circumstances guides the theme of the book (p. 4-5). The result is that the reader is left with a small library of case studies in survival psychology, ingenuity, perseverance, and tragedy. Stroud forensically examines each of the cases through the perspective of an expert survival instructor seeking to answer the bigger questions of cause and effect with analysis on lessons learned. The pages of Will to Live gives both novice and experienced outdoorsman a good foundation on the high cost of survival.

Les Stroud is the founder of Les Stroud productions. His work includes the award winning Survivorman television program. He is also an accomplished musician who has performed on stage with bands such as Journey and has gained the nickname, “The Hendrix of Harmonica”.[1] He is a member of the Explorers Club and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society. Stroud is also active in environmental causes and is a board member of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Organization. He has recently launched Survivorman Television, an online network to continue to promote Survivorman®, his music, and environmental awareness. He publishes a website called, Survivorman-Les Stroud, http://www.lesstroud.ca/.

Will to Live is a study in survival psychology examined through the various real-world survival experiences of others. It seeks to uncover the difference between those who survived their ordeals and those who did not. The book seeks to answer from a psychological perspective on what makes the difference between surviving or perishing when lost or stranded. It reviews seven different stories of people who lived or perished when faced with life-threatening circumstances. They form seven chapters within the book. Stroud analyzes each chronicle through four elements of survival: knowledge, luck, kit, and will to live. The author intersperses his own experiences in five of the chapters in the book. The Epilogue of the book functions as the conclusion in which the author muses the implications of the individual cases and their analysis and concludes, “In going through the ordeals articulated in these pages, a new reality has become clear to me: luck plays a more important role than I originally thought” (p. 222). This gives the reader pause to contemplate the surviving of a life-threatening experience can be attributed to luck by an expert in the field.

After a short introduction, Stroud goes into the first survival story; that of Yossi Ghinsberg. Ghinsberg survived in the jungles of the Amazon for three weeks (p. 9). He details his story in the book Back from Tuichi (1993). Critical to this account is the lack of experience and training shown by the guide, Karl, on this Amazon adventure gone awry (p. 10). However, Stroud observes that Yossi’s survival mentality and unique ingenuity seemed to be key factors in his survival (p. 22). It is no surprise that the survival ordeal of Yossi Ghinsberg finds its place at the beginning of the book. His experience serves as the analytical template that the author uses for the other studies within the pages of the book. Some of the cases analyzed are: Nando Parrado’s survival on the Andes Mountains (p. 43-69); the Robertson Family’s survival at sea (p. 79-109); the tragic tale of Chris McCandless and the Alaskan wilderness (p. 117-133); the Stolpa family stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains (p. 141-159); the tragedy of the Karluk expedition in the Arctic (p. 169-195), and the Mawson expedition at the South Pole (p. 197-219). Stroud deftly moves the reader through each of the narratives to point out both the positive and negative aspects of each.

Beneficial to the reader, beyond the stories themselves, are the author’s side bar comments that gives added information pertinent for each survival scenario. The reader will find suggestions by the author on how to test the edibility of plants (p. 23), the contents for a sea survival kit (p. 85), what to put into a survival kit for a vehicle (p. 148), or the symptoms of rabbit starvation (p. 189). The book does not focus primarily on the techniques of survival such as building a shelter, starting a fire, etc. Rather, the author takes the reader on a survival journey to discover the psychology of survival and how that influences decision-making, ingenuity, and, ultimately, the outcome of the ordeal. For example, in the Karluk account, Stroud highlights the positive influence that staying busy had on the crew and how important that was on the human psyche in the Arctic region (p. 177-79). He then has side bar commentary on how the lack of sunlight and physical activity affects the mind (p. 178).  The importance of this type of information to the reader, especially the outdoor enthusiast, is critical to understanding survival psychology.

The one observed weakness in the text of Will to Live is the lack of discussion on how physiology effects emotions and rational thinking in a survival situation. For example, it does not discuss with any detail how the lack of food or water over an extended period may cause chemical changes in the body that influence mental function. It would be interesting to include some analysis by a medical doctor or psychiatrist with each of the stories regarding the effects of the starvation or dehydration process on emotions, thinking, and decision-making. However, the book is not an academic analysis on the psychology of survival. Rather, its purpose is to target a wide spectrum of people interested in the outdoors who may have only a cursory knowledge of survival psychology at best.  Therefore, the book achieves its intended purpose on that level.

Overall, Les Stroud brilliantly argues his theme on the topic of survival psychology. The Will to Live captures the essence of what it means to persevere in a survival situation. Some of the stories have a positive outcome and some do not. Yet, all these accounts give the reader a glimpse into the mental fortitude necessary to endure the harsh realities of being in a life-threating situation in the outdoors, whether on land or sea.  This book entrusts to the reader a small library of case studies on survival that will help the outdoor adventurer or enthusiast. Survival is more than learning a technique or acquiring a tool. The intangibles of survival are luck and will. This makes the act of survival even more sobering considering the author’s analysis and commentary. Will to Live will motivate the reader to investigate further the psychology of survival.  Equally, it will empower the reader to see contemporary survival-related news reports through a different perspective. One can gain knowledge through training and reading. One can gain tools and become proficient in their employment. However, one cannot quantify luck or will. Everyone has a breaking point physically, mentally, and emotionally.  Stroud causes the reader to examine themselves against the backdrop of those who found themselves suddenly in a survival situation and ask, “Do I have what it takes to survive?” Everyone who is interested in the outdoors or is actively involved in the outdoors will do well to read the pages of this book.

William H. Lavender, II

Lynchburg, Virginia

[1]Survivorman-Les Stroud. “Les Stroud, About”, Survivorman-Les Stroud, online. Accessed March 15, 2017. http://www.lesstroud.ca/about/.