Take a Hike in Southern California

What Tyler, Gar­rett and I learned on that Tar/Sespe Creek hike seemed like it could fill vol­umes, but we’ll just go through a few here that we feel like voic­ing in pub­lic. The first three most impor­tant things we learned were…

• Stay On The Trail!
• Stay On The Trail!
• Stay On The Trail!

I know…that doesn’t sound very adven­ture­some, but it is much safer. And, even though the Sespe is in our back yard—it ‘is’ a wilder­ness. You just never know when you, or some­one you are with, could sprain an ankle or break a leg—or worse. It is also prime rat­tlesnake ter­ri­tory and get­ting off the trail makes it a lot harder to spot a rat­tlesnake ahead of you. Get­ting lost is not really that hard to do and if you are off the trail, you would be hard to spot if some­one was try­ing to find you.

Other things we learned are:

• Don’t hurry!

As you know, I started out the last hike with­out my hat, gloves, head sweat­band and neck scarf. It’s pretty excit­ing to be head­ing out to the wilds, but from now on, I’m going to make sure I have every­thing with me before I head out. I’m prob­a­bly not going to be as lucky in the future in find­ing a good hat on the trail.

• Take more water

We ran out of water on that hike and luck­ily we were at a point that it didn’t mat­ter to us because we were not far from the car, still…carrying more water would prob­a­bly be a good idea. Maybe some­time down the road I’ll check into a good water fil­ter­ing unit so we don’t have to carry so much. Any sug­ges­tions from any­one out there on good water fil­ter­ing units would be greatly appreciated.

• Learn more about poison-oak

Being raised in Ohio, I quickly learned that I have a bad reac­tion to poison-oak. Within two days I was itch­ing and scratch­ing in places I didn’t even know touched any poison-oak.  I guess the oil can stick on your hands and then trans­fer to other places. Any­way, I needed some quick relief so I con­tacted my doc­tor and he pre­scribed some cream and steroids to get rid of it. In the mean­time I was research­ing poison-oak on the Inter­net. I got some good pho­tos to take in my back­pack and I also found some great Poi­son Oak Soap that Cal­i­for­nia fire­fight­ers swear by. It is all nat­ural and con­tains ingre­di­ents that bond with the poison-oak oil and rinses off with water – any kind of water – and best done as soon as pos­si­ble after the occurrence.

• Look into GPS units

I did a lot of research into hand­held GPS devices. I actu­ally pur­chased one and tried it out. I imme­di­ately sent it back. For the money, it seemed to be the best for us and the reviews sounded very favor­able, but I couldn’t get it to link to the satel­lite in my own back­yard enough times to make me feel com­fort­able. When it did con­nect, the dis­play was hard to see even in the sun. I just wasn’t happy—especially after hav­ing spent $300 on it. Now I’m sure there are bet­ter ones out there for a lot more money, but I have to ask myself, if I print out good topo maps (and not loose them) and I stay on the trail, isn’t that enough? What I could REALLY use is a rea­son­ably priced satel­lite phone! Checked…there isn’t any. Any­one out there have any sug­ges­tions on good GPS units?

• Get some brightly col­ored tape

On the trail it seemed like a good idea to have some bright tape we could hang in obvi­ous spots in case we ever came to a trail inter­sec­tion and we had to back­track to the cor­rect trail. In the short amount of time that I’ve been look­ing at trail maps I’ve noticed that along most trails there are a num­ber of adjoin­ing trails. If you were plan­ning on return­ing on the same trail, it could be pretty hard to fig­ure out which trail would actu­ally take you back to your car. Espe­cially since the trail, even though you have already been on it, could look totally dif­fer­ent when going in the oppo­site direction.

• Get a loud whistle

I was talk­ing with a friend of mine about my hik­ing for­ays and one day when he was rum­mag­ing through his truck, he pulled out a bright orange whis­tle and handed it to me. He hunts a lot in the South­ern Cal­i­for­nia moun­tains. He said it was mine to take hik­ing. I started think­ing about it and it started to make sense. If you are in a group and you get sep­a­rated, what bet­ter way to touch base or find each other. Also, it seems like it would be a good, loud deter­rent if you were to encounter a large wild ani­mal on the trail.

• Get a first aid kit

I found a really nice first aid kit on Ama­zon that was inex­pen­sive and light­weight as well – 4 oz. This seemed very rea­son­able and helps me be bet­ter pre­pared for most small emer­gen­cies that might come up.

• Get Insect repellent

I had some great insect repel­lent with 30% DEET and it worked really well. The boys have it now and so I went on-line and pur­chased another one for myself. This par­tic­u­lar prod­uct works on most all insects you will encounter out on the trail—even fleas. It is also very handy because it comes in a rub-on stick so you don’t have to get it all over your hands and it is small so you can keep it handy in your pocket.

Other inci­den­tals:

• I decided to get some rip proof pants and some moisture-wicking, long sleeve shirts.
• Carry toi­let paper—and a baggy for retrieval to carry it out in. Enough said…
• Get high SPF lip mois­tur­izer. Help pre­vents dry lips and sun damage.
• Small flashlight—just in case. Can also be used for signaling.
• Each hik­ing mem­ber carry map of the trail. In case ‘some­one’ loses the map.
• Get stur­dier hik­ing poles. Yes!!!
• Take an extra shirt. For imme­di­ately after the hike.

HAPPY HIKING!!!

Any­one out there have any­thing they have learned from their hik­ing expe­ri­ences to add to our list?

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