Getting back into backpacking w/ fiancee

Hi everybody!

I've been away from backpacking for almost ten years and I've decided to get back into it (and camping in general). I recently went camping in east Texas on my fiancee's family land and it got me all fired up to spend time outdoors again. I forgot how much I enjoyed it, and even a pack of coyotes showing up in the middle of the night didn't deaden my enthusiasm (neither did not having a proper sleep roll).

I used to go on weekend trips with the Boy Scouts a couple times a year back in my teens, and looking back it occurs to me that the backpacking trips were my favorite. The best was definitely three days in the Delaware Water Gap in northern NJ. It's one of those memories that I can tell is going to stick with me.

I still go hiking once or twice a year, but I haven't gone backpacking since leaving the scouts and I really want to get back into it with a vengeance. I kept trying to get my friends to go camping with me, in an attempt to lure them towards backpacking, but it never really came together. I've mostly given up on getting my friends to go, so now my major obstacle is including my fiancee without overwhelming her. She's interested, but she's also (only half jokingly) told me that she wants one night in a hotel for every one spent on the trail. I'm definitely going to ease into it real slowly.

I've read a couple other threads that touch on getting significant others into hiking, and have gotten a lot of great advice from them. Once the spring comes, I plan on doing a couple day hikes, then if those go well planning one overnight trip where we could just hike a couple miles in, stay the night, then spend the day with some real easy hiking and then come back. I've got a couple candidates in our area picked out already (we're in Philly, so we've got the area around Harrisburg, then the Poconos and the Endless Mountains, not to mention the DWG).

I mostly just wanted to say hello, but if anyone has any other suggestions / tips / warnings about hiking and backpacking with significant others who don't have much experience, I'd be real interested in that, as well. My biggest concern is the camping more than the hiking, since I know one bad night on the trail can make an awful first impression regardless of the rest of the experience.

You might want to start with a couple overnights in the public car-camping campground - preferably one that doesn't have electric hookups, so you won't have to contend with RVs and loud yahoos next door. Use backpacking gear and menus, and basically live out of your packs, not the car - it's a very non-threatening way to get her comfortable and familiar with how the gear functions. If things go downhill, you can always head for the motel and plan how you'll do things different next time. You can carry your loaded backpacks on the short day hikes during these trips, which lets her get a feel for how to pack and how to hike with a pack.

Then head out on the overnight you described above.

Wish someone had given me the above advice out before I took my bride on her first (and last) backpacking trip.

That's a great idea! I think I'll definitely do that before a real overnight trip - I was wary of going to a campground because I didn't want to just bring tons of stuff in the car and then live out of it, but your suggestion of basically "backpacking simulation" sounds perfect. Plus, that would open up a bunch of new possibilities for the destination.

I still use that "simulation" approach each spring, just to give everything a shakedown trip after a few months' layoff.