Hello and greetings from Maryland! I have been camping with my step-father for many a year, and lucky enough my wife and kids love camping as well.

Several buddies of mine (including myself) want to start getting into backpacking and so here I am trying to get my feet wet on the entire subject. This forum looked to be the best place for the information im looking for!!

I love all things tech and outdoors (weird combo huh!?) and would love to eventually get into the whole survival training bit (not for several years...but its one of my goals).

and just on a curious note: what kind of class would i take to learn about navigation (by both map and stars) or is that a dumb question to ask??

I look forward to the mass amounts of knowledge here!

Begin with easy, comfortable day hikes, and scale it up from there. Do pay attention to safety. You probably don't need a formal class for learning navigation. Any of several good references will do you quite well. You can literally start in your own backyard. If you take a class, get some first aid training.

My personal reference for a single best handbook would be "Mountaineering: Freedom of the Hills." Much of it is more than you need, but it addresses the basics quite well.

I wouldn't worry about survival training. That will come naturally in due course. Fate has a way.....There are good courses out there, but some just drain your finances.....

There might be guide(s) in your area that can take you backpacking and teach you things. It'll certainly be cheaper than buying gears and realizing it not for you because you had a bad experience, the latter happens a lot. I'm 23 and I hate GPS. They'll work okay in some areas but in some places the forages will block signal for a short time.(least with an el cheapo) I just get a really good map, and know where I'm at all time. I have really good memory, so before I venture out I study a map extensively. So, if I lose my map the trails and landmarks and nearby landmarks of that landmarks are all saved in my head. (I cannot explain it but can give you an example.)

I was backpacking at the Linville Gorge one time, I knew the river runs north and south. So, if I got lost I had to locate the river, anywhere east and west of the river and I keep climbing I will stumble onto a forest road. The Linville is very small (12,000 acres) but the same concept applies to the Smokies (where I primarily backpack) I study the entire area where I'll be in event I lose my map. I don't know if everyone can utilize this, but in college I could study PowerPoint all day and during the test I could connect definitions because I can remember seeing words associated with one another on a slide. Which is probably why accounting was the only class that challenged me due to the complex nature of math problems and accounting procedures. I couldn't memorize math.

Anyway, I don't know what class you could take as I learned from others. If you're reading a topographic map, the closer the lines are, the steeper the landscape. If they're apart, the less steep! It comes in handy in trip planning to get an idea of difficulty without reading trail descriptions. Why read trail descriptions when you can discover for yourselves. Also, get a compass! Compass that have inch measurement on it are useful since maps give you a line to plot the mileages. I've been able to remember sharp turns on a trail and be fairly certain where I'm on a map, then use the mileage line giving on a map to see how much further to go. I tried this last August on a trip and I was accurate. my friend was impressed. It was the first time I was THAT accurate.

Welcome aboard!

The best survival training for the leisure backpacker is learning how to reduce risk and prevent problems before they happen.

Look up symptoms of hypothermia, dehydration and heat exhaustion/heat stroke. Find a group to go hiking with and start looking at their stuff, what they do, and why they do it - I'm sure there's a group local to you, check Meetup.com or google "hiking group [your town]".

As for gear - start with the 10 essentials and a compass class. There's a lot of compass lessons online, too. monosar.org has a number of them on their outdoor safety page.

Call some of the local outdoor stores and rent some backpacking gear, and try a very short overnight trip in fair weather. Something close enough to the car that you can get back to it by flashlight within an hour if you decide things just aren't working.

I think that a local group might be a good place to start. Beginning backpacking classes can vary a lot (I've been working a lot lately on a project to build a new one in my area), but so long as you're careful to try to sort out instructor personal opinions from any sort of "universal truths", it can be a great approach.

One to look at in your area might be the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. I know nothing about this personally, FWIW.

Navigation is something you can get start on (at least) by yourself. One good site to work through is this one.

You can print out topo maps for free; a couple of us put together some instructions on how to do this here.

So print out a map of somewhere in your area, study up on navigation ahead of time, then walk about a while and just practice at tracking yourself with the map, keying in on whatever terrain features you can use to follow along. This is a skill that takes time/work to get better at.

RAD!! Thanks so much for the advice everyone...i have much more to read on now lol.

I will definitely be picking peoples brains and hopefully will be finding some groups about. Really though, thanks for the advice!!

Also, you may have already started, but if not, be sure to read the articles located on the home page of this site.

EDIT: And as one newbie to another, welcome aboard!

If you have an REI nearby, they offer a few courses, but just reading online should suffice unless you're a real slow learner or don't get basic concepts well. That is all I have done, but I love to research and things like navigation are quite easy for me to understand (I'm an engineer). If you were going to spend the funds, I'd suggest a Wilderness First Aid class over Wilderness Survival. Should cost in the area of $150 for a decent one.

Here's a paper I wrote that should be helpful for most newbies in terms of gear. You'll note, however, that having knowledge and skills is more important than gear.

thats actually what i have been getting and i think ima start looking for that...and the rei thing...how much stuff do they offer? The closest rei to me is about 2 - 3 hours away...so if i was gonna make a trip over there (which i want to btw) then i want to make it worth the trip!




i have actually and there is a ton of knowledge! ty sirs!!

Depends on the store. Go to rei.com and there's a classes and events tab. Select your store and you should see what their schedule is.