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Hot take: I was planning my routes in the wrong direction for 4 years and a $3 gas station map in Truckee showed me why
I always planned my backpacking routes backwards and did not figure it out until a trip near Truckee two summers ago. See, I would pick a route, start from the trailhead, and just sort of hope the miles worked out by the end of the day. That meant I kept ending days on big climbs when I was already wiped, or camping at spots with no water because I never checked what came after. What tipped me off was this cheap paper map I grabbed at a gas station off I-80, and I started tracing the route from the campsite back to the car instead of the other way around. Suddenly the water sources, the steep parts, and the bailout points all lined up in a way they never did before. I tried it on a 22 mile loop in Desolation Wilderness the next weekend and finished with gas in the tank for the first time in ages. So now I plan every route from the finish line backward, even short overnights. Does anyone else do this, or am I just late to something everyone already knows?
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tyler36810d ago
Backward planning changed everything for me too, glad you figured it out.
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