Eco Hiking & Outdoor Guides
Practical writing on hiking preparation, sustainable hiking and trail etiquette. Where the calculators give you a number, these guides explain the thinking behind it — what to check before you leave, how to cut waste on the trail, and how to behave around wildlife and other people.
Hiking preparation
What to sort out before you reach the trailhead. Most difficult days outdoors trace back to a decision made at home.
Hiking preparation
How to Prepare for a Hike
A week-by-week and hour-by-hour run through: picking a route that matches your fitness, reading the right forecast, working out timings, and the checks worth doing the night before.
Read GuideHiking preparation
Beginner Hiking Checklist
The short list that covers a first hike properly: what genuinely matters, what can wait until you know you enjoy it, and the three things new hikers most often leave behind.
Read GuideHiking preparation
What to Pack for a Day Hike
How to load a daypack so the weight sits right, which items earn their place on every trip, and how the list shifts between a summer valley walk and an exposed ridge in autumn.
Read GuidePut it into practice: build your list with the Hiking Packing List Generator, or plan the whole trip with the Eco Hiking Planner.
Eco-friendly hiking
Sustainable hiking that holds up on real trips. Habits and gear choices that cut waste without turning a hike into a project.
Eco-friendly hiking
How to Reduce Trail Waste
Where hiking waste actually comes from, why stripping packaging at home beats dealing with it on the trail, and how to handle food scraps, tissue and micro-trash properly.
Read GuideEco-friendly hiking
Sustainable Hiking Habits
The choices that make the biggest difference, in order: how you travel to the trailhead, where you put your feet, what you eat, and what you buy. Most of them cost nothing.
Read GuideEco-friendly hiking
Reusable Gear Guide
Which reusable swaps are worth making, which are marketing, and why repairing and keeping the gear you own beats replacing it with a greener version.
Read GuidePut it into practice: run through the Eco Trip Checklist before your next trip.
Safety
The unglamorous parts that decide how a day ends: knowing when to turn back, reading conditions honestly, and carrying enough water.
Safety
Hiking Safety Basics
Turnaround times, telling someone your route, what to do if you lose the path, and the small margin of daylight, warmth and food that turns a problem into an inconvenience.
Read GuideSafety
Weather Preparation
How to read a mountain forecast rather than a town one, what wind and wet do to perceived temperature, and the signs on the ground that a forecast has already gone wrong.
Read GuideSafety
Water Planning
Working out how much to carry, when refilling is realistic and when it is wishful thinking, treatment options compared, and why heat and altitude change the numbers.
Read GuidePut it into practice: check your figures with the Hiking Water Calculator and the Trail Difficulty Calculator.
Trail etiquette
How to share a trail with wildlife and with everyone else who came for the same reasons you did.
Trail etiquette
Respecting Wildlife
Why distance matters more than intention, what feeding does to an animal’s long-term prospects, and how to handle encounters with dogs, livestock and nesting birds.
Read GuideTrail etiquette
Trail Courtesy
Who yields to whom and why, where to stop for a break, noise and speakers, group size on narrow paths, and parking without damaging the verge everyone walks past.
Read GuideTrail etiquette
Leave No Trace Basics
The seven principles of outdoor ethics explained in plain terms, with what each one looks like in practice on a busy day trail rather than in the backcountry.
Read GuidePut it into practice: work through the Leave No Trace Checklist before you set off.
Guides explain it, tools work it out
Once you know what the numbers mean, the calculators do the arithmetic — water, timing, difficulty and packing, in a couple of minutes each.