View Full Version : Anyone else have a bad first solo hike?
For some background info:
up until my first "true" solo hike, I had been on the AT once with two partners and once by myself but met companions the first day that lasted the whole trip. These two hikes were my first ones being this past april and june. I caught the hiking bug quick and soon planned a thru hike of the bmt in July, ultimately for mental and physical prep for a AT thru hike SOBO in 2011, after high school.
Fast forward to July. I am on the BMT Day one. I don't see anyone on the trail all day (other than two on springer early in the day) which is a first for me. By this time I am totally paranoid of bears (silly, I know, but it gets to me when traveling solo) and I am thinking all will be well when I get to camp and there should be someone else there. No one there. Paranoia and depression eventually got me off the trail at the end of Day 2 because I could not imagine living for 20+ days like this.
I would still like to do a thru-hike of the AT but what seemed like a reality is becoming steadily more dim. Is it simply due to not enough hiking experience or should I make a better effort to find a hiking partner.
Also I went out on the AT after my experience on the BMT and did just fine, as there was plenty of other hikers out on the trail.
Mountain Wildman
08-10-2010, 23:33
I heard a saying once, Something like this: A brave man dies once but a coward dies a thousand times, I've tried to remember that every time I was afraid of something and being that I grew up in a very dangerous city I had many chances to apply the saying, Honestly, It did not help. If I was afraid of something or someone, I was afraid and that's it. Now, I try to remember that worrying or being afraid solves absolutely nothing and I'm better off just not thinking worrysome or fearful thoughts. That seems to work for me, No point in being afraid of what might happen, I go through life now with no worry or fear and have never really encountered anything to be truly concerned about. For my Thru-Hike next year I always picture it as being just me with an occasional companion or aquaintence, I've gotten so used to the idea of doing it alone I almost cringe when I read posts about there being large groups and mass numbers of people on the A.T., But once again I have an opportunity to apply the above logic, Why fear what I cannot see or hear. Anyway, I hope this helps you even alittle and I hope to see you out there next year either alone or with a companion, Who knows, We may end up at the same place, at the same time with similar hiking speed and style and be each others' company.
Appalachian Tater
08-10-2010, 23:49
I prefer hiking alone but admit to occasionally getting spooked by things moving or making noises especially at night.
Of course the same thing can happen if you are camping with many other people--I remember the most godawful noises waking me up one night. It was impossible to tell if it was a mammal or a bird and the only thing it really sounded like was a demon from hell. Eventually it went away and I eventually went to sleep. In the morning I felt better to find out that everyone else had been just as creeped out as I was. I have seen other hikers frightened by something as innocuous as a porcupine in the middle of the night and I don't like waking up with anything touching my face--whether it is a cat, a bug, a mouse, or another hiker's hand in a shelter.
If you get truly paranoid and depressed from being alone for a couple of days, it might be something you want to work with, maybe try some meditation, practice being by your self for shorter and then longer amounts of time, or even seeing a shrink about it.
I didn't finish my hike this year, but the first day & night I went solo was discouraging. Campsite selection was limited and I bent a stake on the best site I could find, which meant I was cowboy camping. Of course that was the first night I see a mountain lion, and worse, it kept coming back all night...or at least for 5+ hours when I decided I'd ignore it. It was all good though. I'm actually going to make a stronger effort to go even more solo next time.
Jester2000
08-11-2010, 00:23
On the other hand, it might be something you don't want to work with or on. Some people don't enjoy hiking solo.
And if you're hiking on the AT during hiking season, I doubt you'd go 20 hours let alone 20 days without seeing anyone. You'll be fine.
Jester2000
08-11-2010, 00:25
On the other hand, it might be something you don't want to work with or on. Some people don't enjoy hiking solo.
And if you're hiking on the AT during hiking season, I doubt you'd go 20 hours let alone 20 days without seeing anyone. You'll be fine.
But let me qualify that last bit. As a SOBO, you will have other SOBOs around you if you start when they usually do. But they do thin out. By the time that happens, you will have found someone to hike with if you want a partner.
I should also add a bit. I also enjoy the motivation and safety of knowing I have others to share camp with. I also experience some sleep anxiety, especially when I'm sleeping alone. Although it was on the PCT, I'd like to think that my very early start in an unusually cold and wet year has some relevance to what you'll experience. I'd also like to think that you will also find plenty of section and day hikers to camp with until you start bumping into NOBO thru hikers. Either way, I found a couple ways to ease my anxiety. The first was to use earplugs. I would also leave all my planning until night, and then I'd pull out my town guides, maps and journal. That planning would put me to sleep so fast that I'd hardly get anything done.
Oops, I should back up a little. I went on a few solo training hikes earlier this year. My sleep anxiety was so bad that I probably didn't get more than 5 minutes of sleep on any of those trips. The sleep problems eventually diminished until the only real obstacle to good sleep was my "skill" at making camp on spots that would have me sliding downhill all night....I really suck at that, but even resolved this somewhat by purposely finding or creating depressions to lay in.
Anyway, don't worry. You can and will figure things out.
First off if you don't enjoy it then don't do it.
BUT
I've found camping alone is a unique and rewarding experience. There is an incredible amount of fear that you overcome. My first trip was around the Coosa Backcountry Trail. Within the first four miles I'd stumbled up on a black bear that ran away from me on the trail. I'm terrified of snakes as well but haven't seen one that wasn't a baby yet but I'm just waiting for that to change.
Realize what you have control over and what you don't. That first night I was awake until about 3am and if I could have pushed a button and gone home I would have. I also wondered if I'd just wasted nearly a thousand bucks on backpacking gear. I was planning on staying out two nights but woke up and make quick work of Coosa and Slaughter and Blood Mountain and then high tailed it back down to my car at Vogel. The idea of sitting in camp alone and bored for another night was just too much.
My second hike was up in the Smokies for four days and 45 miles. It was nice because it was in October and the trails during the day weren't too populated but at night you're in this shelter with a bunch of other people. The last night I was on Mt. Sterling and walked into the campsite completely alone. A bear had harassed our shelter at Tri-Corner the night before and I was damn glad to have fourteen other hikers with me (even if one of them left kool-aid out that attracted the bear). Sitting on top of Mt. Sterling completely alone after that was terrifying and depressing but what else could I do? Eventually some other hikers came through but not a whole lot.
I can't say what works for everyone but there's a certain power in accepting the realities of your situation. You're much more likely to die or be seriously hurt in a car accident than camping. I've been in a range of messes on the trail. There were certain points where I said, "If X happens. That's it. I'm gone." I had a bear try and get into my Bear Vault for about two hours one night. At first I yelled and clacked my sticks together trying to scare it off. Then I picked up a book and started reading. As long as the bear knocked the bear vault away from my tent I was fine. I accepted the situation.
My advice would be that hiking the BMT as your first solo hike is a terrible idea. I learned skills from my CBT that I built on in the Smokies and then built on further when I went solo on a DRT/AT loop last April. I set up my tent in a lonely, windy, gap up on the DRT one night and somewhere along the way everything kind of changed. I sort of accepted that I was out here alone and any anxiety, fear, etc might not have gone away but they were there more as tools than as boundaries.
Hiking alone reminds me of that great Hunter S. Thompson quote:
The Edge. . .There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others--the living--are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later.
But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcyles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions."
Hiking solo is a place of definition. Once you realize that you went 85 miles alone you can damn near do anything.
The trail alone is a place of definition.
kayak karl
08-11-2010, 08:39
last year the longest i went without seeing a soul is 5 days. it didnt bother me. when i was young i think it would of freaked me out.
do ya think age may have to do with wanting to be alone??
It's really an individual thing. I thought being alone for a few days at a stretch in the woods would bother me at least to some small degree, but it really hasn't.
Daydream Believer
08-11-2010, 10:01
I did my first solo hike in May this year on the AT from Hogpen Gap to Winding Stair Gap. I am a late 40's woman and new to backpacking but I have always been an independent sort. I did two shorter trips with my husband last Fall and then circumstances made it work out that I had to go alone in May or not go at all. I went alone and had a wonderful time.
I was scared and lonely a few times and spent one day and night totally alone, ran into bears, boars and snakes but I felt so empowered at the end of that week that I could not wait to go out again. I'm going back out this Fall for another solo. I also met some wonderful people out there but I got to really enjoy the solitude of hiking alone during the day.
I can't tell you how many people I spoke to were horrified that a woman would chose to do a hike in the wilderness alone much less without a gun. You'd think I was walking in Bagdad or Harlem at the danger most people thought I was in. it is kind of funny in retrospect but I just smile and tell them my risk of being murdered or raped is worse at Walmart, and I'm not going to live my life in fear of things out of my control. I will die when it's my time and as long as I'm reasonably careful, I'm not taking any unnecessary risks.
I hope you can sort this out or find someone to hike with. I do agree that it can be lonely camping alone and for that reason, I try to stop at shelters. It was at a shelter that I did camp alone that one night but a hoot owl set up overhead and kept me company (and awake) for hours...so I was not really alone. ;-)
onesocktwin
08-11-2010, 10:32
I agree with Daydream Believer. I started solo hiking after my sister/hiking partner died in 2007. I was terrified at first but I've learned that I actually prefer hiking alone. You can set your own pace and not have to consider what someone else prefers. The worst trail injury I have had was from pushing on 4 miles on a very painful knee because my partners didn't want to stop; spent the next 8 weeks in physical therapy. I do like having someone at shelters or camps. I always carry something to read in case I have to spend a night alone. In July when I hiked from Standing Bear to Erwin, I stopped early one day to avoid spending the night with a large group with 8 teenagers (I had spent 2 nights with standing room only.) Nice kids, just crowded and noisy. Silence is golden.
For some background info:
up until my first "true" solo hike, I had been on the AT once with two partners and once by myself but met companions the first day that lasted the whole trip. These two hikes were my first ones being this past april and june. I caught the hiking bug quick and soon planned a thru hike of the bmt in July, ultimately for mental and physical prep for a AT thru hike SOBO in 2011, after high school.
Fast forward to July. I am on the BMT Day one. I don't see anyone on the trail all day (other than two on springer early in the day) which is a first for me. By this time I am totally paranoid of bears (silly, I know, but it gets to me when traveling solo) and I am thinking all will be well when I get to camp and there should be someone else there. No one there. Paranoia and depression eventually got me off the trail at the end of Day 2 because I could not imagine living for 20+ days like this.
I would still like to do a thru-hike of the AT but what seemed like a reality is becoming steadily more dim. Is it simply due to not enough hiking experience or should I make a better effort to find a hiking partner.
Also I went out on the AT after my experience on the BMT and did just fine, as there was plenty of other hikers out on the trail.You basically say that you have an extreme fear of bears and need the close proximity of other's while out there to be able to be "pacified". It appears you could benefit from some type of counseling and/or medicine. Other than that you sound as if hiking solo/camping for yourself is simply not an option. Your ending statements for your posts are basically an encouragement for one to "take risks" and to "think outside the box", however you remind me of Bill Bryson's irrational fears of black bear attack:rolleyes:
It's interesting to compare reactions to this sort of thing --- with the AT I finished my second thru-hike recently, and on two long trails I only had a couple of days where I never encountered anyone. Those days, for me, were particularly good days, days when I was totally alone on what are often fairly well traveled paths seemed kind of precious.
A couple of semi-random thoughts. Perhaps an MP3 player (music or audio books) would give you a feeling of "company", and units that sport a radio could give you NPR or the like. I also find that just talking to myself (out loud or otherwise) sometimes helps the miles pass by. Singing out loud, however, inevitably leads to turning a bend and finding a group of people staring at the crazy man ... I do it anyway, mind you, but it's bound to happen to you sometime if you do.
In terms of "feeling safe", what works for me is to just be aware of the statistics. On most trail sections I reckon I'm generally safer by myself, so long as I don't do anything dumb or screw up in some significant way. Bears and snakes and the like are statistically low on the list of things likely to hurt you. Road crossing (or hitch hiking) are a bigger danger.
For thru-hiking the AT, I'd suggest you just start "with the crowd" going NOBO and I think it's highly, highly likely you'll find folks to walk with. And perhaps some of those will even keep going past Neel's Gap ... :-) By the time you do split up and end up walking by yourself for a while, if you ever do, I'd wager that you'll feel a lot more at home in the (very populated) woods that run from GA to ME. The sense of "trail culture" all around you, of thru-hikers you've heard of or are acquainted with that you periodically meet up with, that all helps to meet some sort of "minimum socialization requirement" I think.
kayak karl
08-11-2010, 11:32
benefit from some type of counseling and/or medicine.
i guess there are pills for everything now. :rolleyes:
i guess there are pills for everything now. :rolleyes:Just need one to cure machismo:)
Shutterbug
08-11-2010, 12:43
Your question brought back memories that I hadn't thought about in a long time.
My first multi-day solo hike was the worst hike of my life. It was on the Colorado Trail. To start with, my pack was way too heavy. If I remember right, it was over 70 lbs. I started at Multinoma Pass and hiked downhill all day. During the first night, I had a kidney stone begin to move -- the most severe pain I have ever experienced. I knew what it was because I had experienced kidney stones in the past. I kept telling myself, "People don't die from kidney stones."
My choices were to try to hike back up the mountain for one day or hike downhill for two days. With that heavy pack, I just couldn't see climbing back up the mountain., so I headed on down the mountain. In the two days, I saw only one other person. He was too far away to make contact.
I ran out of asprin by the middle of the first day, so I hiked a day and a half with no relief. When I finally reached the trailhead, my wife was waiting and took me straight to the hospital where I had surgery to remove the stone.
After that first awful experience, it is a wonder that I continued hiking.
flemdawg1
08-11-2010, 13:02
If you can overcome your fears, solitary hiking is so much more rewarding. The most spiritually atuned I've ever been wasn't in a church, it was in Death Valley under a night sky that was a black viel bejeweled w/ stars, or in Sipsey Wilderness in a small canyon that ended in a 50 foot waterfall surrounded by moss and ferns, or atop a mountain in TN with fall colors literally as far human eyes could see. It would've possibly been nice to share these w/ another human, but I was accompanied the One who made it all. Those were definatly some of highlights of my entire life.
A hike where you don't see anybody for a few days? Sounds heavenly to me.
Still, I remember my first solo hike. I woke up a few times that night. Once I was certain I smelled gas leaking and woke up thinking my cooking fuel was going to explode. I could smell no gas once I woke up. Later that same night I was certain I heard footsteps and someone in my camp and whoever they were they were going to rape me. I tried to shout "Who's there!" but was paralyzed. I was so scared I woke up and realized that I had been dreaming, the footsteps I heard were not real.
Somehow I survived and felt so much better by morning. I had accomplished something, but I didn't know that I wanted to do it again.
A good strategy is to hike until late in the day. If you don't want to do a lot of miles, take a few hours out in the middle of the day to swim in a lake or something, but hike into camp around dinner time. Then read a book or something after dinner.
Give it another try. Unless you are someone who cannot tolerate being alone at all, you may find it's not as bad as you think.
interesting insight:-?
I am still not sure of the best way to approach the situation, but I guess the best way is just to get back up on the horse. Maybe just do a 2-3 day hike on a popular trail. And eventually when I feel more comfortable move onto longer hikes. Then I guess I can reassess the situation from there.
interesting insight:-?
I am still not sure of the best way to approach the situation, but I guess the best way is just to get back up on the horse. Maybe just do a 2-3 day hike on a popular trail. And eventually when I feel more comfortable move onto longer hikes. Then I guess I can reassess the situation from there.
I'd highly recommend the Coosa Backcountry Trail. It's not very populated but it's a nice overnighter. That way you spend one night alone and you know in the morning you'll be heading back to the car. There's a decent amount of smaller overnight hikes like this very close to you in Georgia. You could also go down to Pine Mountain where I haven't been but it's near Americus/Plains and apparently gets a good deal of Boy Scout activity. Another advantage is it's beyond the black bear range in Georgia. Ease yourself into it and you should gain confidence. After you've got the confidence if you're just sitting out there miserable then there's no shame in saying you don't like hiking solo.
fredmugs
08-12-2010, 08:19
Gee - thanks a lot for reminding me of my first solo hike. Mine was trying to hike a section SOBO starting at the Blue Rocks campground and going to the Harrisburg area. I had never hiked in PA before and already had a history of blistering badly. By the time I got to the 501 shelter I had blisters on every toe and between my toes. It was a mess. I've learned a lot of lessons since then and rarely get blisters anymore but I still hate PA.