this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2025
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Get into hiking, but consider getting into backpacking or overnight backcountry camping in general. I'm a long time canoe camper and did an ambitious hike last year.
The more you do this the more you learn:
You made the right call with that thru hike. The first time I went up Longs Peak, a pathological fixation for me since I started that I was determined to do at all costs, I got within sight of the summit and was so dehydrated that it wasn't safe. Learning when it's right to turn back was a bigger lesson than I took away from any other hike because it taught me how to prepare for every subsequent one. Like with the stress and pain, I like that hiking provides you a controlled environment to learn failure and self-criticism in productive ways.
Yep, you definitely also made the right call.
Hitting your physical max isn't fun. Eleven years ago was my first and only trip where I didn't have enough food, and that has engrained into my brain a particular understanding of scarcity that I never would have otherwise (having not grown up in poverty, of course).
I can't in good faith recommend that kind of extreme to anyone, but once you've at least approached your limits, you have a much better sense of when to stop and rest, how much food you need, or how long that last litre of water is going to last you.