How much can you lose by hiking? You have to burn 3,500 more calories than you consume to lose a single pound, which you could accomplish with a single 7- to 10-hour hike if you ate nothing all day, but that’s no way to live, much less hike.

The sanest path to 3,500 is a combination of eating less, getting out more, being doggedly determined and most of all, exercising extreme patience. You don’t have to hike every day — a speedy 60-minute walk around the neighborhood will do.

How I lost 37 pounds in three months by walking, hiking and watching my diet:

1. Cut out Cokes and cookies. Cokes have 150 calories, cookies have about 250. Cutting these 400 calories, combined with exercise, was all I needed.
2. Walked on hills for an hour a day. Hills add resistance, which significantly increases calories burned. It also builds muscle mass, which is good for overall health and bone density. Combining 400 lost calories with 300 burned calories from exercise creates a 700-calorie deficit: that’s a pound in five days; 10 pounds in 50 days; 30 pounds in 150 days. When I was really determined, I was putting in six-mile walks with 1,000 feet of elevation gain … it took the weight off fast, but the pace was unsustainable.
3. Took long hikes on the weekends. A nice 10-mile hike in the hills and forests of the Bay Area could last about five hours and burn between 1,800 and 2,500 calories.

Bottom line: If you check my math, you find that producing a 700-calorie deficit five days a week plus 2,000 calories in a nice long weekend hike takes off 5,500 calories. At this rate it’d take you just under six months to lose 37 pounds, about twice as long as it took me. That’s because I worked out a like a fiend usually for two hours a day rather than one. Once I got the weight off, my body chemistry adjusted to the new level of activity and wanted to put weight back on extremely quickly.

It would have made far more sense to develop a sane, sustainable hourlong workout combined with watching my diet, and to have taken the weight off gradually over six months or even a year.

Being healthy has to become a habit: taking off weight too quickly gives you all the false confidence you need to blow off your daily workouts, go back to consuming Cokes and cookies again, and kid yourself into believing it’s no big deal that you’ve regained the weight you lost.

So, take your time and work diet and exercise into the rhythms of your life. You’ll be much better off.

Previously: Hiking for Fitness: The Basics.

From Dicentra:
• Take smaller steps. Those big long strides are hard on your knees and lower back (they compress your lower vertebre!). You may have to take a lot more steps with a smaller stride, but it will take a lot of pressure off of your knees and back.
• Look to your local pharmacy for TINY zip lock bags. They are designed to hold daily med, but are also great for carrying small quantities of things - like spices or safety pins.

From Susan Alcorn:
• It’s always important to have clean dishes, yet sometimes water while backpacking is at a premium. I recently wrote a piece for Backpacker Magazine (April 2008) on keeping clean, etc. Funny thing is, they made some additions to my article. Interestingly, one of them was something I always do but hadn’t mentioned: lick (or use your clean fingers to wipe out) your bowl before you start washing the dishes–more food for you, less dishwashing required, less garbage to dispose off.

From Justin Poehnelt:
• I have all my trail crews add a quarter cup of water to their personal dish and use their spork to brush the food scraps into the water. Then they get to drink it.
• Limit ankle flex on steep trails to reduce the strain on the Achilles tendon and the chance for tendinitis. Use the larger leg muscles to do the work instead.
• Do not dry leather boots by a hot fire or in the sun. The extreme heat leads to cracked leather and reduces the life of the boots. When out of the backcountry after a hike, use a balled-up newspaper to get the rest of the moisture out of the boots.

Got a groovy idea for your hiking buddies? Let us all know.

A guy named Dan from someplace called Expert Village (great place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there) has crafted a collection of knot videos for advanced loopers. Dan sports a long beard, ties loops to his legs (and his piano’s) to demonstrate, and has a slightly junky backdrop that fairly screams “real live hiker and camper.” He also pronounces “bowline” as “bow-len” like all good sailors.

One more handy link: Seven knots every Scout should know.

Never forget that blisters are a medical condition that require first aid. They can get infected, and infection can put you in the hospital and (a Pacific Crest Trail through-hiker was nearly killed by septic shock resulting from infected blisters in June 2007 — an extreme case but it shows they are not to be trifled with).

The best thing to do about a blister is to stop making it worse and let the body’s healing powers take over. Few humans have the time or inclination to do this because blisters always happen in the middle of a hike with several miles of foot punishment between them and the trailhead.

Blisters requiring treatment come in two shapes: either a layer of skin has been rubbed away completely by friction (usually on the heels or between the toes), or a little fluid-filled pouch between layers of skin has formed, causing pressure pain (usually on the more calloused areas of the feet).

The skin-rubbed-away blister

This has the most obvious treatment: clean it thoroughly with alcohol wipes and antibiotic ointment, put some gauze over the exposed area and tape the whole thing closed to prevent further friction. The exposed flesh will harden a bit when exposed to air, so let it breathe awhile before you apply the dressing and tape over the wound. Be extra careful not to tape over any loose skin, because it’ll just peel back off when you remove the tape.

The fluid-filled blister

This guy is much trickier: you have to judge whether to drain the fluid. What happened to me once: 10 miles of punishing terrain stood between me and a trailhead on an overnighter, and a fluid-filled blister was giving me fits. I decided the risk of making it worse outweighed the risk of puncturing the blister and draining the fluid.

On most day hikes of no more than a few hours, you’re probably better off taking it easy and letting the blister heal on its own, but if you’re going to be on your feet for a long time (all day or on a backpacking trip,) draining the blister is going to be pretty much mandatory.

If you do this, you must sterilize the tip of your puncture tool (preferably a needle to keep the hole as small as possible, but a knife can work). Don’t do it with a match: it won’t burn long enough to sterilize and it might introduce bits of soot if the metal oxidizes. Standard advice: Clean your hands and the wound area; using a lighter, burn the tip till it turns red, then let it cool. Make a tiny puncture at the edge of the blister and let the fluid drain.

Once you’ve done all that, clean the wound with your alcohol wipes and antiseptic ointment and let the remaining skin protect the wound. Cover with gauze and tape it closed, taking care not to tape any loose skin.

A milder fluid-filled blister might best be left alone or taped over to reduce friction. Walk more slowly, take more rest stops and air out your foot to cool it down when you rest.

Note that all this implies having a first aid kit. If you hike without one, you have to be doubly zealous about prevention.

These tips summarize several suggestions I’ve found at sites around the Web:

• This post at a blog called Montana Jones has lots of in-depth advice, and says the ever popular “moleskin” isn’t all that great.
• Dr. Stephen Pribut notes that diabetics should never treat their own blisters.
• Pacific Crest Trail Association has a great page of foot-health tips.
• The Happy Feet blog has tons of interesting info on pampering your tootsies. This page on lancing a blister is excellent.

Blisters are the body’s natural defense against excess heat and friction. Tips on avoiding them:

Start by reducing friction:

• Duct tape: If you know you’re hiking many, many miles, try putting some duct tape on your trouble spots. The smooth outer surface is a natural friction fighter, and the tape provides a foot-protecting barrier.
• Bar of soap: Rub some bar soap like Ivory inside your boots just before you start. Don’t get carried away or your foot sweat will turn your shoes into lather factories.
• Trim your toenails: My nastiest blisters happen when a sharp edge of my pinkie toenail digs into the toe next door. Once it starts, it can be a full-blown pain in a half-hour.
• Liner socks: Heavy duty hiking socks, especially the wool ones, are rough on your feet. Liner socks reduce that roughness, though they do increase the heat, so make sure you really need them before adding the extra layer.

So, you get the idea: anything that reduces friction should help keep blisters at bay (except your favorite water-soluble hanky-panky lubricants; foot sweat will dissolve them). That’s only half the game, though, because friction isn’t the only thing that heats up your feet.

Cool your heels

• Get the right shoes: Unless you’re carrying a 30-pound-plus load and/or have weak ankles, you really don’t need heavy-duty hiking boots. Also: you may not need GoreTex or E-vent or any of the other so-called waterproof fabrics — all are notorious heat-trappers — unless you encounter a lot of wetness on the trail. Light, good-fitting shoes with ample ventilation go a long way toward preventing blisters.
• Get the right socks: You want fabrics that wick moisture away from your feet in hot weather and still insulate in the cold. Cotton is the worst because once it gets wet, it stays wet, and it loses its insulation power. I’m a big fan of synthetics, but there are wool socks these days that work just as well without all the scratchiness of old-fashioned wool socks.
• Get grit out of your shoes now: The tiniest burr, pebble or bit of grit can rub through your skin in minutes — especially in areas like the back of your heel where the skin is not as tough (happened to me just last week). As soon as you feel something in there, stop and get it out. The longer you wait now, the more you suffer later.
• Keep grit out of your shoes: Gaiters are like condoms, except they prevent blisters instead of babies. Gaiters also trap heat, so they’re not a cure-all. Often hiking in long pants will offer almost as much protection, but if you hike with naked legs, you’ll find yourself wishing you had gaiters.
• Rest and rub: On an all-day hike, I try to stop about half-way, take off my shoes and give my feet a good massage. Just taking off the socks and airing things out cuts heat considerably.

Outside the heat-and-friction category, the best thing you can do is reduce the load on your feet. I’ve gotten more blisters on overnight backpacking outings than on all my day hikes combined. If you’ll be on the trail several days hauling all your camping gear, prevention is all the more important because you don’t want to be backpacking on feet that are killing you.

You can do all this and still get blisters: Go here for blister treatment tips.

• Staying Warm When It Is Colder Than You Planned For:
  
  A couple years ago when I was first going UL I spent the night shivering, wondering if I would survive the night. My problem was I had a 45-degree bag and it dipped below 32 that night! I was utterly miserable. Lesson learned.

  I now always carry one of the disposable emergency blankets ($1-2 at Walmart or any outdoor store) in all of my packs, be day or overnight.

  Last fall I used it finally - I was caught in a snow storm with a warm bag but howling winds/wet ground. I quickly lined my solo tent with the E-blanket, then put my sleeping pad and bag on top. The snow turned to a driving rain that was soaking through my tent wall near the ground, so I unrolled the blanket up the walls.

  My tent stayed dry inside, the wind didn’t come in and best of all - I could sit on the floor of my tent and wasn’t cold. I couldn’t feel the cold coming up from the ground like normal.

  In the morning I left the blanket in my tent and rolled up my tent like normal.

  It was one of the best nights sleep I have ever had in the outdoors. I now line my tent in cold weather with the blankets. If the temps drop too low you can also roll the blanket over you to trap in heat.

  You do need to make sure you have good ventilation so you don’t get condensation - but otherwise it can mean the difference between wondering if you will freeze to death and being snuggle warm.

Sarah’s legion of outdoor culinary tips is at www.freezerbagcooking.com.

They do this at a price: rechargeables are rated by how much juice they store, rated in mAh: 2,900 is the highest number I’ve seen. Low-discharge batteries are rated at around 2,000 mAh, which means they store about a third less power, but they store that power a lot longer. If you use your digital camera every day and always keep a bunch of high-powered batteries charged, low-discharge probably won’t matter and you’ll be able to take a lot more pictures.

But if your camera, like mine, sits on the shelf all week and you take it out on weekends, you’ll get sick of “low battery” messages resulting from your batteries losing their charge.

Perhaps the best-known low-discharge batteries are Eneloops by Sanyo. I put a pair of these in my electric toothbrush and it runs like crazy for days on end; my previous rechargeables would start losing power within days because of their natural tendency to discharge. They’re also great in things like wireless keyboards and mice.

The batteries pictured above, however, are from Maha, a company known for supplying high-end rechargeables to professional photographers. They come in packages of four, with a cool carrying case included. The brand: PowerEx Imedion. A company called Thomas Distributing sells them at a bit of a discount.

This page at ConsumerSearch has links to reviews of many of the batteries out there. The Maha batteries are fairly new to market and haven’t been as extensively tested, but I’m thinking they’ll bear up well.

Novices who’ve just tossed their shiny new compass in their pack think they’re covered till they break it out in the middle of said fog bank and realize they have no earthly idea which way to go, based on what that little floating magnetic arrow is telling them. So, it points north. Then what?

You can train yourself to use a compass in your living room; stuff you’ll need to learn:

• How to take a bearing: all this means is looking straight ahead and figuring out where you’re going, relative to magnetic north.
• Combining a map with a compass: This is your only sane option in the aforementioned fog bank. You put your compass on the map to find a heading telling you which way to turn (this is why most compasses are transparent).
• Declination: Your map is oriented to true north, but your compass points to magnetic north. Declination is the difference between the two: for instance, Northern California is a about 15 degrees away from true north, so you have to adjust your compass readings accordingly (though if you’re hiking on established, marked trails you’ll probably never really need to worry about this. But if you’re going overland with topographic maps, it’s vital. Failing to account for declination can throw you off by several miles.)

A site called Compass Dude has all you need to know about the specifics of reading a compass. Check it out, then get out there with a map and see how it all comes together.

Once you’re good at it, you can get into orienteering — the sport of finding one’s way without trails. Steve Sergeant at the WildeBeat has this intro at his podcast.

• Don’t Reach In, Pour It Out!
  When you are sharing GORP/trailmix and other bags of food with others, everyone should pour out what they want, not reach in. Experts suggest that improper hygiene (not washing hands thoroughly after bathroom breaks, etc.) causes many backcountry illnesses such as E-coli and Giardia.

Susan is the author of “We’re in the Mountains, Not Over the Hill.” Check out her backpacking site.

1. Patching: tents, tarps, packs, etc.
2. Preventing: Blisters. Tape your trouble spots.
3. Splinting: Help immobilize a broken bone. (I shudder to think of how it would feel to peel it back off your skin, though.) Best to know how to immobilize a broken bone first, though.

Duct tape advice known to hikers the world over: wrap some around your hiking pole and you’ll always have a bit ready and won’t have to carry a big roll.

I know the rest of you have some duct tape tips: click on comments and add yours.