Being mindful of the unlimited possibilities which walking affords for renewing youth the first task is found in the revolution of habits of living and the adjustment of the daily routine to include say two hours a day in road tramping. If persisted in a remarkable change will result—a notable clearness of mental power, keenness of appetite and a zest for life’s work. It won’t be long until one automatically increases the range and endurance.
Tramping may be arbitrarily divided into (A) Road Tramping and (B) Forest Cruising.
Road Tramping or real pedestrianism comprehends short walks as a training for physical well being which, as one becomes experienced, may be lengthened to include an occasional all day country tour as a wise utilization of holidays, or, one who becomes an adept may even plan to spend his annual two weeks’ vacation period in a lengthy walking trip upon some of the better known highways in any civilized section of our country or in our National Parks or as a tourist in foreign lands. Road tramping is for those to whom walking appeals yet who do not care to bother with the details incidental to camping. The trip should be so planned that the day’s journey assures a comfortable bed and warm meals at hotels, inns or at ranch homes. This broadens one’s walking opportunities up to the point where civilization and wild nature touch.
Such a trip is good recreation and a splendid sport and in no other way can one better familiarize himself with the country’s topography and the characteristics of its people. On the longer trips a very simple kit suffices his needs—he wears suitable walking clothes, and carries a notebook, some few toilet articles, a change of underwear and hose and a rain-proof over garment—all packed in a rucksack of some sort.
The daily local walks taken by the pedestrian to secure health with the longer weekly jaunt, indulged in perhaps as a member of some walking club, afford an admirable preliminary preparation for more arduous outings such as a week’s Forest Cruise, carrying in a back pack the shelter, bed and food and thus equipped one may break entirely away from civilization and eat and sleep independent of hotels or ranches.
Those who feel the vim of outdoor life, those interested in any phase of Nature study, those wanting to get away from the city’s humdrum existence, in short, all who want to recreate can plan no more repaying or zestful days than those spent with a back pack outfit touring the unknown wilderness near home. It may be for any one of a variety of purposes—camping, hunting, fishing or trapping, it matters not what, the main thing is that one gets near to Nature in her primitive state. Amateur exploration has the interesting element of mystery which leads one into all sorts of country right around home and which one never dreamed to be in existence. There are still greater opportunities if one gets off the beaten tracks and steers his course far into the back country.
One returns from such a trip with renewed and abundant vital reserve and with a veritable storehouse of happy memories. He has tasted the woodsman’s life in all its elemental qualities—its seclusion and originality; he has learned the good there is in simple, hearty things and the exhilaration of spending nights in the mountain land or forest aisles under snapping stars in a moonlit solitude. He knows no greater pleasure than that afforded by experiencing the charm of wilderness adventure which enslaves him for life. A walking trip then becomes a real hike when one leaves the highways, beds and meals of civilization and hits the woods trails which lead him far into the wilderness.
On a recreation trip good companionship cannot be overestimated. Firstly, on a light pack trip most items of outfit can be used as well by two as by one. Again if one walks alone the trail is apt to become monotonous and doubly so after a half of a day’s trip has been completed. Good companionship stimulates a pleasant mental attitude and gets one away from the monotonous physical features of the walk itself. There may be also a pride in rivalry to spur one on to more worthy effort; otherwise he is apt to think only of his arrival at destination. Furthermore in the solitude of the great forests the establishment of the little bivouac home and the fathoming of the many secrets of the trail calls forth man’s gregarious nature.
Look well to the choice of your bunkie for nowhere else do weak and strong characteristics come to the surface so forcibly as when men are thrown together in camp. As a matter of fact a wilderness pal of proper qualifications is really hard to find. He may be a jolly comrade in town but that does not qualify him as a first rate camp mate. He must do an equal share on the trail and in camp, he should be physically fit, generous, fair minded and big enough to overlook the petty griefs incidental to rough trail life every where.
He who adventures into the big timber must look also with exactitude to the choice of an outfit, for the wilderness tramper matches himself against the forces of nature, and he must have equipment as well as the personal qualifications to surmount the difficulties successfully. The weight of outfit must be nominal since the packer must bear it alone from day to day, often through almost impassable country where the effort necessary in going forward alone is quite sufficient a strain without that of having to carry a single unnecessary ounce on his shoulders. A mistake in outfit may mean discomfort at least and possibly a spoiled trip. Life outdoors calls for a knowledge of equipment and methods which a large number of persons, because of their environment, cannot gain except from trial, or such as is imparted by some one more fortunately experienced.