Real hikers NEED to read this

A big problem I’ve seen throughout my years of hiking has to do with hiking culture. Yes, hikers are the problem! The level of rights is incomparable. I think people think they are superior because they are doing something very hard and physically demanding. The fact is that we are choosing to live that life. No one owes us rewards, extra respect OR help.

I often see hikers demanding help from the general public. For example, hikers are sometimes seen bragging about how they can eat people’s «yogi» food. Referencing Yogi Bear stealing picnic baskets. In my opinion, running out of food due to poor planning is nothing to brag about. Sometimes hikers, like Yogi Bear, tend to overestimate their own intelligence.

Taking advantage of the angels of the path

If you can’t go on a hike without the help and generosity of others, you have no right to exploit those people you need so much. We’ve recently heard stories of hikers having sex in the back of the truck of a person who picked them up while hitchhiking.

I also personally know someone who used to drop his trekking poles and walk towards a car waving his hands in the air as if there was an emergency for a ride. This behavior is unacceptable.

Suffering is not the same as deserving

Hikers often have many difficulties along the way. Walking for weeks and months relieves stress. Because of this, hikers often feel like they can camp in places they shouldn’t, take free food they don’t need, and treat people a certain way. Yes, hiking is difficult, but your suffering does not give you the right to do things that are simply not right.

There are many more examples of hikers taking advantage of others and situations, often bragging about it. Instead, let’s focus on what we can do as hikers to curb this right. When you get magic on the trail, just take your share, we’re all hungry and hungry, but if you know there are only two cases of soda and 40 hikers behind you within a 20 mile radius, just take one. Actually, just take one of everything unless the path angels insist you take more!

We can all do our part

I’m not trying to get on the high horse here, I know I’ve made mistakes similar to these at times too. I do my best to be very considerate, and even more so to deny negative behavior from hikers. Even with this in mind, I still see ways I can improve and not expect things from anyone, but just be very grateful when things happen.

I didn’t know the rule: the hiker going up a hill has priority when I started walking, I thought it was the other way around. Please move out of the way of hikers walking up the hill. I know some hikers who believe that day hikers should give way to them no matter what, and that’s just not right. Trails are for everyone, and chances are the day hiker on that trail is local and you don’t remember them, you’re just a visitor to every space we encounter.

I also used to enjoy feeding granola and snacks to little bugs and birds, but the more I learned about wildlife safety, I realized that it’s actually pretty bad for them. Stop feeding any wildlife, through hiking can sometimes feel like a party with friends, but remember, we are in the great outdoors first and foremost.

Help me help you

On the PCT, I once had a catastrophic shoe failure. I tried calling the city ahead of time to find a place to ship a new pair of walking shoes. When I called a small bed and breakfast, the moment I mentioned I was doing the PCT, the woman on the other line closed. She got very aggressive with me and told me that they don’t allow hikers to stay at their hotel and when I tried to reason with her, she hung up on me. I was already very stressed about my shoe situation and burst into tears when I hung up the phone. I felt very discriminated against for such a crazy reason: being a hiker. While I still feel like that woman is wrong, I can only imagine what crazy, rude, inconsiderate thing several hikers have done to make that business feel so strongly about it.

Here are some of the terrible things hikers do in hotel rooms: Leaving piles and piles of resupply trash in their rooms. You should look for a garbage container or better place to throw it, if there is none, at least break down all your boxes and leave the garbage in neat bags near the door. A hiker I knew came out of the shower with his feet still so dirty there were brown footprints on the white carpet of the hotel floor. Some hikers use the continental breakfast as a refueling option and take numerous muffins and such in excessive quantities. Some hikers wash their clothes in the bathtub, which is sometimes a necessity, but leaving all the smelly hiker clothes, including dirty brown socks and underwear, to dry all over the front porch, in view and in the path of other hotel guests, is not okay.

If all hikers treated people and businesses like they would friends and family places, we would all be in better shape. In that case, I don’t think a nice little B&B would turn away hikers, so help me help you so we can all enjoy nice things.

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