Precautions

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"When all the dangerous cliffs are fenced off, all the trees that might fall on people are cut down, all of the insects that bite are poisoned... and all of the grizzlies are dead because they are occasionally dangerous, the wilderness will not be made safe. Rather, the safety will have destroyed the wilderness."

R. Yorke Edwards (Canadian environmentalist)

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 My attitude to hiking alone is that if you place yourself in a situation of risk then you should get yourself out of it when things go wrong. The easiest way to get out of trouble is, of course, not get into it in the first place but things can, and do, go wrong. Shit happens, and one day it will happen to you.

Severe changes in weather do occur. I have been snowed up on on Mt Howitt in summer, with days around 30°C either side of these storms. In winter severe changes are even more threatening, with good weather being the exception rather than the norm. I would rather feel foolish carrying too much gear than freeze.

Most other problems, regardless of severity, have one thing in common. You end up spending more time in the bush than you expected. Whether you need time to recover, you suffer a minor injury that slows you down or you actually need rescuing, either way you need to survive in the bush longer than you originally intended to.

This usually means packing extra food for an extra day or two, and on shorter trips, extra gear to get you through the night. A full day trip in the snow for example is always a possible overnighter so a good sleeping bag is a minimum extra item. On multiple day hikes I carry food for an extra day or two depending on the length of the walk. Together with camera gear, this usually adds up to half of my body weight in gear. Carrying this much weight can cause its own problems and requires a slightly different approach to hiking.

The other great precaution that many people ignore is experience. There are many challenges to successful (and safe) hiking and the best way to gain experience to cope with these challenges is gradually. Knowing your physical limitations as well as the limitations of your gear can only be found out by testing them. As you push the limits you occasionally exceed them, but exceeding them gives you insight into how to extend them. The trick is not to exceed them too much in one go.