Being prepared for any endeavors you undertake is paramount to either experiencing them to the fullest, or being prepared for the worst. Specific tools, pieces of equipment, or even foods, beverages, and medicines can prove invaluable in situations that may or may not crop up.
The specific tools you bring should be catered towards the adventuring you intend on doing, and even more specifically, fitting into the environments you’ll be facing. For example, if you plan on hiking in snowy areas, you’ll more than likely want to bring some durable gloves so you can not only protect your hands from the cold, but they should also provide you with ample grip.
This article will go more in-depth on what specific tools you should bring. We will also have some affiliate links involved for you to check out along the way. Continue reading for more information.
Why Is It Important to Bring Gear While Hiking?
Hiking is a delightful activity, providing a much needed break from the monotony of day to day life, especially for those of us who spend far too much time either in an office, or staring at a computer screen for countless hours a day.
Still, unlike the relative safety we enjoy from these spaces, hiking can be perilous for the unprepared. Things like copious amounts of water, shoes that have sufficient grip to prevent you from slipping on uneven surfaces, and low-weight, energy-providing food can be the deciding factor of you enjoying yourself, or struggling to make it back home.
Aside from traditional safety gear, you could prepare yourself with a detailed map to ensure you can find your way back home too. Things like paper maps, or GPS-generated ones via apps, will allow you to make it to your destination and back, without the innate fear of getting lost in the woods, or on the side of a mountain. With apps like AllTrails paving the way (full pun intended) for travelers all around the world, you may end up trading one screen for another.
What Are the Best Tools to Have While Hiking?
The best tools you can bring alongside you on these arduous journeys are ones that are both lightweight, as not to burden you and slow you down, but also versatile, allowing them to fulfill many roles at once. Savage you storage space, an in-expensive swiss army knife may sound silly on paper, but having so many unique baubles packed into one neat little design could make a world of difference when you aren’t sure of what you need in the moment.
1. Screwdriver
While taking a single screwdriver may not sound very important at a base level, particular kinds of gear can be taken apart or fixed with one. If you are going along a hiking trail on a bike for example, having a spare screwdriver (that is put away safely as not to injure yourself in the event of a fall) can allow you to fix issues that occur, like loose handles, or something similar. In a pinch, a screwdriver can be used to mark areas, carve larger pieces of wood into usable objects, and more.
2. Knife
The utility of a knife in the wilderness cannot be overstated, everything ranging from protection to allowing you to practice outdoor DIY can be done with a trusty blade. Aside from its general use, you should be keenly aware of what type of material the knife itself is made of, how much it weighs, and how it is to be stored, and how easy it is to gain access to.
All of these factors will inevitably culminate in how useful the knife is. The material of the knife is a key factor. You will also need to note how much durability the knife has and how much of a beating it will take before it is rendered useless.
3. Water Filtration Bottle or System
We recommend getting a water filtration bottle or system going. Firstly, you can invest in a water bottle or even a filter survival straw. However, there are other ways you can go about drinking water as well.
Finding yourself stranded without easy access to water is almost certainly a do-or-die moment, as we cannot survive very long without clean water. You can survive with a few handfuls of dirty water, but the consequences for that fleeting relief can make your situation far more dire within just a few hours.
Drinking dirty water can give you a mild cough or irritate your throat in the best-case scenario. Still, in harsher situations, that water can provide you with dysentery, which will flush out even more water from your body, leaving you severely dehydrated and likely waiting at death’s door.
To stave off such a perilous situation, you’ll want to have the supplies and knowledge to build yourself a quick water filtration unit, on a DIY scale, all you’ll need is a reasonably large bottle, cutting it in half, and turning it upside down, inside said bottle you need to layer in some cotton or other misc fabrics, then layer by layer add in, activated charcoal on your cotton layer, fine sand, a pebble/sand mixture, and larger rocks at the very top.
As your dirty water flows through the top layers and down to the bottom, it will slowly begin filtering out impurities and chunks of debris that may be floating in your water, eventually leaving only “clean” water entering the collection cup you have stationed under your filtration device.
It’s imperative to note that if you intend on drinking this water, you’ll still need to take the time to boil it afterwards, as there will still be certain undesirable bits remaining in the water itself. Still, thankfully enough, a little heat and you’ll have yourself a nice, refreshing cup of water.
4. Comfortable Sleeping Bags
Sleeping is our body’s way of regaining energy, healing tired and fatigued muscles, and taking some much-needed strain off of your brain. Doing so in comfort will make the rest you do get of a higher quality, meaning less pain the next day, or a better attitude at the very least.
The kind of sleeping bag you get should once again be catered to the environment you plan on sleeping in, with appropriate protection against bugs, weather, and other challenges you might face. In cold weather, for example, you should elevate your sleeping bag and yourself by association to avoid damaging it or getting too cold while you are resting. Falling asleep in poorly heated areas is a quick way to get frostbite or worse.
5. Food and Water
We noted how important having stable water is in a pinch. Still, the water filtration system is something you should only rely on in an emergency. If nothing catastrophic happens, you should have ample amounts of food and water at the ready for the journey you plan on taking.
The food you bring should be lightweight, easily stored, and non-perishable in an ideal circumstance, so that if you get lost, you can ration what you have and not worry about losing it if you don’t gorge yourself before it spoils. We recommend getting freeze-dried food for those packing lightly.
Alternatively, you can portion out enough for however long you intend your adventure to be, and get one day extra just in case you need to share with someone else, or give yourself a bit more cushioning in a dire situation.
Foods like granola clusters, oatmeal, dried fruits, nuts, and jerky all make for fantastic food choices when hiking and adventuring outdoors, and because most of these don’t go bad quickly, you can rely on them for a long time, and they store nicely.
6. Magnifying Glass
While a magnifying glass might not sound like the most essential tool in an outdoor adventure, the creative mind can see almost infinite uses for this delightful little gadget. Firstly, if you find yourself getting splinters, severe wounds, or needing to get a better view at certain kinds of plants and markings, you’ll have one of the most intense views you can get with one of these lying around.
Pivoting into a more utility situation, angled correctly, rays from the sun can be angled on to piles of kindling and other collected burnable items to start a fire, which can then be used to cook, or sterilize water, perhaps even both, making this little beauty a shoo in, assuming you can store it in a place where you don’t crack the lens of course.
7. Saw
A more nature-oriented adventurer may want to use a saw to make their tent, using a tarp or other creative means to keep the weather out. Some people have been known to use incredible amounts of Saran Wrap around trees to make awe-inspiring, if not slightly wasteful, floating tents and houses.
While most people can easily fathom how a saw might be used in other situations, such as clearing pathways, collecting wood, or even carving through spare materials to make more DIY ready pieces that can be woven into something more useful than their originally intended purpose.
8. Binoculars
Having a bird’s eye view has always been a remarkable turn of phrase, but getting a better understanding of the land around you, or helping to chart a path when you can’t see one is made easier by binoculars. Even at night, binoculars can be used to spot distant lights from fires, or houses to help you get a better understanding of how to get back to civilization if you find yourself lost.
9. Liter Backpack
A liter backpack is a backpack whose raw storage volume is measured in liters, typically designated by size. With large backpacks, for example, usually being able to store 50 liters or more, these backpacks normally have unique features and clips that allow you to get the absolute most out of them. They are made of more durable materials made ideal for those who intend on travelling.
10. Cooking Pot
While you are in your home, you have the luxury of utilizing everything in your kitchen, all the pots, pans, cutlery, and nuanced pieces of your silverware. However, in the wilds, you will need something reliable and basic that can cook a wide variety of foods, endure harsh conditions, and ideally, not rust out if not stored correctly for a day or two.
Enter the good ol’ fashioned cooking pot, which can be bought relatively cheaply and allows you to make a wide variety of soups and other sustainable meals, giving a warm belly and a calm mind, and can even serve as a portable water storage unit if left up during rain and in open skies. Overall, there is no need to collect spare twigs and leaves from under the nearest tree!
11. Rain Gear
Nature happens, and while there are places on Earth where rain doesn’t happen very frequently, if you happen to live in an area where it does, then you’ll want to ensure you don’t end up soaking wet. If you do, it isn’t for hours, where fungus and other irritations can begin settling in, especially around your feet.
When most people think about rain gear, the mind usually bolts directly to things like an umbrella, or a rain poncho, now. In contrast, an umbrella isn’t completely useless, they typically are a hassle to store, and given that storage makes the adventure, you’ll ideally want something more compact and versatile. To that end, items such as shoe covers, the poncho above, some gloves, or even a tarp that you can drape over yourself and your backpack can prove invaluable.
The material any jackets, pants, hoods, gloves, and even shoes are made of is very important to be aware of too when purchasing these kinds of equipment, as you’ll want something that can stave off water, but also not retain it, or in extreme situations, maintain heat if you are in colder areas.
12. First Aid Kit
Better safe than sorry has never been more accurate than when taking into account how you might deal with an unexpected injury, far from a hospital or anyone who is readily trained to treat wounds.
A first aid kit will allow you to potentially stop bleeding from a particularly nasty cut, to splint an arm or leg and allow you to stabilize someone who will need additional help to get back home, these kits come with a myriad of different items that can sooth pain, and keep things like infections at bay, if you fail to bring anything “Extra” on this list, make sure you get a first aid kit with you.
13. Headlamp or Flashlight
As we’ve evolved, vision has, and continues to prove to be one of the most vital sense we have at our disposal. While very few people can see clearly at night (even with a perfect moon in the sky) headlamps and flashlights can help bridge that divide between man and beast, giving us the ability to navigate confidently, knowing what dangers may lie stalking in the dark.
While said perilous threats may indeed be sentient, more often than not, a steep drop, or uneven surface can prove to be just as much of an issue as anything that might want to injure you directly, to that end, you’ll want to keep some source of light on you at all times, even if you don’t plan to travel at night.
One final thing to keep in mind regarding flashlights (or torches in some communities), would be that you can utilize them to signal where you are, and allow people to triangulate on your position when you do need help more easily, but can’t move any further, be it from injury, or fatigue, the flashlight is a handy tool to bring with you.
14. A Multitool
Suppose you wanted to combine almost every valuable item you could need into something that fits into your pocket. In that case, the multitool is the answer to your prayers, some know it by the name above, others know it as a swiss army knife, regardless, this delightful little device has a blade, screwdriver, pliers, and more all built into it, usually being compact, lightweight, and even clippable to your belt in some cases, they can be a real game changer depending on where you are, and what you are doing.
Assuming for a moment you don’t have one, take some time to shop for a pair that is made of highly durable materials and has solid grip handles that give you extra leverage. Nothing is worse than your vital tool breaking when you need it most, just because you wanted to save a few dollars.
15. Portable Charger
While prepping for technology failing you in nature might seem slightly counterintuitive, bringing a spare charge in today’s modern age is a brilliant idea, as things like GPS, access to 911 (or whatever emergency services apply where you are) can mean a dramatic change in how good or bad your situation is.
If you have a phone that works, and you find yourself stranded, you could be a call away from getting rescued. In contrast, someone whose phone died would have a very nice paper weight for their map in the same situation. The simple idea here is that adventuring is all about just how prepared you are. Utilizing everything you have at your disposal will save you time, energy, and perhaps even your life.
Final Thoughts
Before you invest in any particular piece of gear or equipment, make a list of what kind of weather challenges you will need to deal with, how you intend to travel (Walking, Biking, whatever the case may be) and make specific contingency plans to help facilitate making that easier should it become harder, or making your bare needs easily obtainable, between balancing these two key points, any adventure you go on should become a breeze.