Five amazing time hacks to try when you’re hiking
If youve ever been frustrated with your pace, or tired of things taking so long, or generally feeling like youre fighting time when youre hiking, try these five hacks to change your relationship with time on the trail.
1. Set your watch or phone clock an hour ahead. I learned this seemingly ridiculous tip decades ago on a wilderness trip in late spring in the Cascade mountains. Heres the reason it works: Most of us have a certain time that seems reasonable to wake up. When Im planning a high-mile day, 6 a.m. seems like a reasonable wake up time while 5 a.m. does not. If my clock is set an hour ahead, it tricks my mind into feeling great about the time Im waking up. I can rise when it gets light and be on the trail by 7 a.m. (6 a.m. real time) without feeling like a crazy person. It also means that in the summer it doesnt get dark for me until after 9 p.m or even close to 10 p.m., giving me more flexibility in the evening as well. Of course, this trick does not make the actual amount of daylight longer, it just makes it more likely that Im not sleeping away those precious morning hours, ultimately giving me more hiking time and more likelihood that I get the bulk of my miles done before noon, when Im mentally and physically fresh. (Dont forget to adjust your time back whenever in town or planning to meet someone.)
2. Avoid checking the time at night. Over the years of sleeping out at night, Ive learned that no good can come from checking what time it is when its dark once youve officially gone to bed. If you go to sleep easily and then wake up feeling all refreshed and check the time and its only 11:30 p.m., you feel ridiculous and like you are about to experience the night that never ends. If youre having trouble sleeping and then you check and its 4:00 a.m., youre frustrated because you felt like you didnt sleep well and now youre going to have to wake up soon. No matter what, checking the time at night engages the thinking part of your brain, and that can also mean engaging the worrying part of your brain. If you wake up and its still dark out, just roll over. Tell stories to yourself. Toward the end of my thru, if I woke up and couldnt sleep, I would recollect my whole hike. I would start on day one and remember every place I camped until I would fall asleep again peacefully, with no worries about what time it actually was.
3. Try clock-free days. This is harder to do now that most of us are using our phones for so many things, as they tell us the time whether we want them to or not, but If you can, try freeing yourself from time completely. If youre in the woods with no plans to go into town, try acclimatizing yourself to the rhythms of nature. Eat when you feel hungry. Take a break when you feel tired. Youll have plenty of warning about when it will get dark and plenty of time to decide where to camp. Trust that you can simply hike in the woods without constantly checking the time to calculate your mph or decide when youre hungry and when you deserve a break.
4. If you are going to check the time, estimate first. Youll be surprised at how good you get at knowing what time it is without actually looking. See how close you are. Youll learn to know what time it is simply by the quality of light, or by your own internal clock that knows so much more than you might give it credit for when youre surrounded by technology that thinks for you.
5. Use time to motivate you. When youre having a tough day on the trail and you come to an obstacle – a mountain say, or a big rock cliff, stop for a moment. Try timing yourself to see how long it actually takes to traverse. Your mind will make an estimate somewhere along the lines of forever. In reality, it might take you just 30 minutes (or sometimes longer – it took me 3 hours to come down The Priest in Virginia – I thought that down hill would never ever ever end!) No matter how long it takes, note that it was a finite amount of time. It was not “forever”.
How would you have spent that time in the real world? Would you have frittered it away scrolling through your phone or watching mindless TV? Instead, you just spent that 30 minutes or an hour or two or three being a badass, climbing a crazy-challenging mountain or crossing a muddy rocky expanse of trail.
Whether you change the time on your clock, use your watch as a motivator, or simply abandon looking at the time altogether, have fun playing with all the ways you can put time on your side when youre hiking. Have other time hacks youve used and loved? Share them in the comments!
This website contains affiliate links, which means The Trek may receive a percentage of any product or service you purchase using the links in the articles or advertisements. The buyer pays the same price as they would otherwise, and your purchase helps to support The Trek's ongoing goal to serve you quality backpacking advice and information. Thanks for your support!
To learn more, please visit the About This Site page.
Comments 3
Thank you for the tips! I’ve been doing #4 already, but I’ll try the other ideas, too.
Great! So glad these ideas are inspiring you!