Hiking, Backpacking, and Camping

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Thanks! When I was there earlier this year, I was a tad spooked by the two bad falls (one fatal) in the weeks preceding my attempt. My next try will be guided.

I like it but have not done much recently since I am in college.

Its not that easy. Europe has much higher population density, than the US. Even when Columbus started on his exploration, there had been centuries when hunting and fishing was restricted in many countries, not because of fun and party, but because otherwise there would be no more deer or fish around anymore. Dont know of ireland special but in central europe hunting and fishing is not generally forbidden: So the owner of a land is responsible for the hunting permissions he gives to other people who wants to hunt on his land. Normally this lands belongs to hunting groups anyway or if you are a loner you can buy a permission with a small amount. The money is spent for the expenditure the land owner has (maintenance of forest paths, forest huts and so on). The number of deers that has been hunted, have to be counted to make sure, the population keeps stable. (Since there are less and less hunters anyway nowadays there are more problems with too much deer in some areas. ^^ But its just the hunter who are getting fewer, normal citizens are coming more and more to the woods and the deer becomes to kind, i am living 30 meters away from a forest and in the morning i often see the deer standing on the meadow between my house and the forest. ^^) With the fishing its equal, (permitance, count the number), with the difference, that there are still many fishers and so bred baby fishes (The expenditure of the growing up of the baby fishes are payed with the money of the fishing permittance.) have to be set free every year to keep the fish population constant.

To the hiking and the fire making: There are owner to these lands. I do not think, that you would like it either, if foreign people, whose reliability you dont know, came without registration into your kitchen and started cooking while you are not there. And when a fire breaks out, you can pay the damage by your own, because the insurance will say lawfully: "He, you allowed everyone you dont even know to go into your kitchen and play around with the stove. And now we shall pay your damage?" But that does not mean that its completely forbidden. So its normally tolerated if your in a group, which is known to know the risks of open fire. (Scouts and so on....) For hobby campers, who often underestimates how to handle open fire correct, there are normally special areas in the woods where it is allowed to make open fire (for example in my surrounding woods there is one place in front of a cave where there is only rock and sand at a spot, a place along a small riverbank where there are only stones, some places in unused old quarries and some more, so even when you do not know much about fire, its hard to create a mistake leading to a burning forest on these spots. With the hiking its equal: There are just too many people, so if everyone could hike where he wanted, there would be no more untouched forests left but in most forests you have many spots (no caravan places) where hiking is allowed.

So yes, because of to too high amount of human population you cant just run around, shoot around, fish around, gather wood to create fire and destroy wood areas by wild camping as you wish. But the fact that i still have the possibility to live beside a wood, walk and hike in it, climbing in nature, doing sports, walk along rivers who are still healthy and bear fish, even hiking and camping, is linked to these restricting laws. There are just too many people, so if there was no restriction, there would be no healthy forest too enjoy it anyway.

Why someone is forced to get fat and not move around, just because at the end of the hiking day he has to watch on a forest map to see, where are the next allowed camping and fire spots (As I said, i mean no caravan places, they are distributed around the forest, to be reached only by feet, and only two times i had to share them with a group other people who had also chosen this spot.) i really dont understand. I also did not need to kill a deer or a fish until now, to have a motivation to move around in the surrounding nature.

Most people just get fat because of eating s**t all day and avoid every move they can. I dont think, that someone who isnt even willing to take the stair instead the elevator, will be motivated to go hiking just because he is allowed to make fire everywhere instead of marked spots. ^^

I like to camp and hike but need a campsite. I have never tried hiking and setting up temporary camp only to move on the next day or a day after. That sounds like it would be more challenging and I haven't experience in knowing what to bring along.

If there's a university near you, it probably has a recreation office that does group backpacking trips with guides and lists of things that you should bring; there are also non-university groups that do this, but they can be harder to find.

Not sure if they have one here. I haven't heard anything about backpacking trips. I don't know if I am up to carrying everything on my back and hiking twenty miles a day.

Not 20 miles! Most common starter hikes are 5; a moderate one is 10. You have to be in pretty good shape, or insane, to do 20 miles uphill and down, with 40 lbs of stuff on your back.

You should think of, that you cannot walk all day long. So whenever you make a rest with hot cooking you can spent about 1 hour because you have to wait until the fire is hot enough. You also begin with the search of a good tent place some hours befor its get dark, so that you have enough light to built up the tents. In the morning you must pack it again and so on...

So if you could really start in the morning and walk until the evening with training 20 miles would be no problem. But you start the day with packing, building down the tent, meanwhile you are doing fire and so on...then you start, having some rests with brad and ham and so on... (during the day we normally dont cook hot, only in the morning and in the evening) and around 17:00 you should at least be on the way to your campsite. The roman soldiers were able to walk about 40 miles a day, but only on the roman streets and with groups that was in front of them, so they could walk all day until they catched up with the group in front of them, who made already parts of their camps. You should also not underestimate the difference it does if you have a standard army rucksack where every peace has its own place and you packed it already 1000 times against noobs like us who think they are done with packing and then you forget again two parts and have to pack again and so on. ^^

I love going camping, but where I live camping is not exactly a great thing. The only time I get enough time to camp is in the summer, and in the summer can get up to 100 F. * not fun at all *

I am a few days away from finishing the Bibbulmun Track (South-Western Australia). And I am completely and utterly obsessed.
I'm from America (sort-of) so looking forward to going back and doing some of the long-distance trails there. Also loved hiking in New Zealand, would like to do the Te Aroea.

Thanks for the pictures Soham.

I like Hiking near to my areas................
it is good for health...........

I'm from Missouri and I've spent a lot of time camping, canoeing, hiking, survival camping(just a knife), hunting, trapping, fishing and anything else associated with nature. I find that in a crazy world that is man-made the only escape is to nature. I understand nature because it has clear and defined rules. I love animals because they are more predictable than people.

I think hiking gives you the opportunity, to think about whats really important. So you really start to think, about what you yourself really want and need, when you are forced to carry the stuff around with you the whole day. Everything that is connected to the fashion part of our society is reduced to its real practical worth. You stop thinking about style and everything, and start to worth practical properties. How is the shoe made, do they have good seems, do they have good treads? How much use does an item really give me and is it worth carrying around?

After camping it is as if you had the opportunity to look into an mirror and you see yourself during the year, how you and the people surrounding you are troubling yourself with concern to achieve this and that, and social status and knows hell what, so you can allow you to be happy. And then you did some days of camping and you know that the only things you really need are something to eat, water, warm cloths and a dry place to sleep. And when you return home all the "small normal things" you normally dont even worship and dont think of, become a gift again. Water toilette. Stove. Warm shower! ^^ Bed. Water coming out of an pipeline. ^^