It's a big subject for such a small question.

The main advice is to understand your limits, understand your environment, and understand your risks. The less hiking experience you have, the smaller your base of knowledge about all of these. The benefit of hiking with others when you have little experience is that your hiking partner(s) can pool their experience with yours and the available knowledge base gets that much bigger. When you are on your own, you're the whole show.

The good news is that no one is born with hiking experience. We all learn as we go. Just don't jump into the deep end right away. Ever hear the expression "a babe in the woods"? Until you have a good base of knowledge about what to expect, that's you.


Start small and feel your way forward when you enter zones of experience that are unfamiliar. Leave yourself an out and give yourself permission to turn around. Read books. Study maps. Learn to read the weather. Practice with your equipment before you need to rely on it and discover you can't.

That should get the discussion started.