In my region we're building a new backpacking course, and as part of that we thought it would be helpful to assemble a sort of "best practices" document for both new and not-so-new trip leaders. The point here would be to aggregate ideas about LEADING trips, not just generic "how to do backpacking better" ideas.

We realize that the relatively few of us aren't going to think of all relevant trip-leading tips & tricks, so we hope that others will help (via this thread)!

I'll add a few, each as a separate entry, and hope to see other ideas here.

Thanks in advance!