How to HIke
By Jason Greaves
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "I know how to hike. You walk up a mountain, then walk down. It's not hard."
While this is true, we've been doing this for awhile and have formula we've developed for the best hiking experience. For those of you new to hiking, this section will show you what a day hike should look like.
Decide you want to go hiking
This is usually done the day before during a night of drinking. For new hikers this is the hardest step. It shouldn't be though. It's as easy as saying, "I want to make an amazing memory."
But how do you know tomorrow is the best day for hiking? It's pretty simple. You answer three simple questions:
1. Am I busy tomorrow?
If you work the next day, tomorrow is not the day. If you have a paper due in two days and you've been drinking all weekend so you haven't started, tomorrow is not the day. To enjoy a full hike, you need all morning and afternoon free. If you plan do to one our our SHORT HIKES, you can plan for less time, but the rule of thumb is you need the day off.
2. How's the weather tomorrow?
Always look at the weather forecast for the next day. The first time I went on a hike was DIVIDE LAKE. We climbed to the lake and it was beautiful, but then it started to rain. Then it started to hail. Hurt so much. Moral of the story is to check to the weather ahead of time.
3. Can my friends make it?
If you don't have friends, this gets a little more tough.The best experiences in life are done in groups, hikes are no exception. Try to go on a hike with a group, you won't regret it.
If the answers to these questions are: No, good enough for the girls I go for, and yes, it's time to plan the hike.
Plan the HIke
You've decided tomorrow is hike day. But now what?
First you have to decide which hike you want to go on. Lucky for you, we got the best hikes in Kelowna all right HERE. Still can't decide? Go to our FEATURED HIKE page and pick any of them. We promise you can't go wrong.
Once you know where to go, you need to decide what to bring. You're a real lucky (insert gender here) because we have all that laid out for you on our GEAR page.
Next you need to decide when to leave and meet your friends. We recommend telling your friends to meet you somewhere and everybody getting into one car. Parker usually tells the group to meet at his house at 9am. So when we all get there at 10am, we hop in the car and off we go.
Do the HIke
This is the most important section of this guide. People do this part wrong. Hikes are fun, keep them fun.
The car ride to the hike should be filled with music and stories. If you are still listening to the radio, HERE's a link to our playlists. If your car is old like ours, use the FM Radio Transmitter on our GEAR page to turn your radio into a Bluetooth speaker.
Once you hit the trail head, throw on your bags and turn on the speaker. We always hike with a speaker attached to a bag. This is done to A) Keep a noise level up to not startle bears and B) because music keeps you motivated. Please pause the music when passing other hikers, they deserve to hear nature over your music.
Take breaks when you find comfy looking sitting rocks and take lots of pictures. You'll want to remember the hike, so look around, explore, and don't be afraid to stray off path a bit.
We hope that you love hiking as much as we do.