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Trail Safety & Courtesy

Although generally very safe, the sport of hiking does involve a certain level of risk. In the Portland/Vancouver area the risks are relatively minor, but they are real, and good preparation is important to help minimize the potential dangers.

Preparation & Equipment

The most important preparation for a hiking trip is being in good physical condition. The trips in this book range in difficulty from quite easy to extremely strenuous. Each trip is rated as easy, moderate, difficult, or strenuous. Trips rated as “easy” are the easiest and should be enjoyable to anyone, although a small degree of conditioning is always helpful. Trips rated as “strenuous,” on the other hand, are beyond the abilities of all but a handful of the best-conditioned hikers. Before selecting a hike, be honest about your physical condition. Don’t overextend yourself by taking a trip that is beyond your fitness level. After all, you go hiking to enjoy yourself, not exhaust yourself, and, most important, a wilderness trail miles from your car is not the place to suddenly realize that your body is not prepared for strenuous activity. On average, about one hiker a week has to be rescued on the backcountry trails of the Portland/Vancouver area—don’t let yourself become a statistic. There are plenty of hikes in this book at every ability level. Work your way up to the more difficult trips, so you can enjoy every outing comfortably and safely.

Although the weather in the Portland/Vancouver area is often cold and wet, we humans are most comfortable and perform best when we stay warm and dry. The proper clothing is the best way to resolve this discrepancy. For strenuous activities like hiking, your best bet is to wear several layers of synthetic or wool clothing. It is relatively easy to regulate your temperature by simply adding or removing layers. Years ago hikers had only two options for clothing fabrics—cotton and wool. Wool kept you warm but was scratchy and uncomfortable. Cotton was comfortable but provided no insulation when it got wet—a certain recipe for hypothermia in our rainy climate. The science of fabrics has come a long way since then. Today there is a dizzying array of synthetic fabrics and special wool blends that wick moisture away from your body, are lightweight, feel comfortable against your skin, keep you warm on cold, rainy days, and help you stay comfortably cool in hot weather. More new fabrics are developed all the time.

The first layer against your skin should be something like Capilene or Coolmax, which are warm, comfortable, and wick away your perspiration on hot summer days. The next layer depends on the season. In colder winter weather, opt for a long-sleeve wool or synthetic shirt. On warm summer days, you may go for cotton. Regardless of the season, you should carry or wear some sort of outer shell. A waterproof windbreaker is ideal. In the Columbia River Gorge, where the wind never seems to stop blowing, a windbreaker is practically indispensable. In winter, you’ll also need to carry a warm coat. A fleece jacket is a good choice because it provides insulation with minimal weight.

Below the waist, forget cotton jeans and go instead for lightweight nylon pants, which stop the wind and provide insulation even when they get wet. In winter, you might consider wool pants to keep your legs warmer. Few local hikers travel in shorts, but on hot summer days you might do so, as long as you also carry long pants should the weather turn ugly or the trail turn out to have lots of brush or poison oak.

Gaiters are also nice to have along, and some hikers wear them all the time. These usually cover from your shoe tops to just below your knees. They keep your feet and lower legs dry, especially when you are traveling through brushy or grassy areas that are often covered with dew or water from the last rain shower. Gaiters also keep snow and mud from crawling over the tops of your boots and getting your feet wet and uncomfortable.

The miracle fabrics discussed above have also done wonders for socks. Today’s high-tech hiking socks provide cushioning comfort while wicking moisture away from your feet to reduce the chance of blisters. I usually wear two pairs of socks. The first is a synthetic wool blend and the second is made of thick, cushy wool. With this system and comfortable boots, I haven’t had a blister in almost a decade of rugged hiking.

As for footwear, the debate about hiking boots versus lightweight shoes has gotten an amazing amount of attention in recent years. For decades, the standard advice was to wear heavy leather hiking boots to keep your feet dry and your ankles supported and to protect your feet on rough wilderness trails. Proponents of super lightweight hiking, on the other hand, scoff at this advice and wouldn’t hike in anything but comfortable running shoes. Luckily, you don’t have to choose because there are a whole range of lightweight hiking boots that rely on synthetic fabrics instead of heavy leather to keep water out. They also provide necessary traction, with soles designed to grip the ground. A good pair of these will meet your needs for most trails. If you are backpacking or traveling on particularly rough or muddy trails, however, you will probably want to rely on a pair of tried-and-true leather boots.

Being Properly Equipped

Except when hiking on gentle trails in city parks, hikers should always carry a pack with certain essential items. The standard “Ten Essentials” have evolved from a list of individual items to functional systems that will help to keep you alive and reasonably comfortable in emergency situations.

1.	Navigation: topographic map and a compass or GPS device.
2.	Sun protection: sunglasses and sunscreen, especially in the mountains.
3.	Insulation: extra clothing that is both waterproof and warm.
4.	Illumination: a flashlight or headlamp.
5.	First-aid supplies.
6.	Fire: a candle or other firestarter and matches in a waterproof container.
7.	Repair kit: particularly a knife for starting fires, first aid, and countless other uses.
8.	Nutrition: enough extra food so you return with a little left over.
9.	Hydration: extra water and a means to purify more on longer trips.
10.	Emergency shelter: a tent for overnight hikers or a large trash bag, bivy sack, or emergency blanket for dayhikers.

I strongly advise adding a small plastic signaling whistle and a warm knit cap to this list.

Just carrying these items, however, doesn’t make you “prepared.” Unless you know things like how to apply basic first aid, how to build an emergency fire, and how to read a topographic map or use a compass, then carrying these items doesn’t do you a bit of good. These skills are all fairly simple to learn and at least one member of your group should be familiar with each of them.

More important to your safety and enjoyment than any piece of equipment or clothing is exercising common sense. When you are far from civilization, a simple injury can be life-threatening. Don’t take unnecessary chances. Never, for example, jump onto slippery rocks or logs or crawl out onto dangerously steep slopes in the hope of getting a better view. Fortunately, the vast majority of wilderness injuries are easily avoidable.

Some Special Hazards

Sadly, venturing out into the natural world doesn’t guarantee an escape from the problems of civilized life. Car break-ins and vandalism are regular occurrences at trailheads, so hikers need to take reasonable precautions. Don’t encourage the criminals by providing unnecessary temptation. Leave your shiny new car at home, and drive a beat-up older vehicle instead. Leave nothing of value in your car, especially not in plain sight. My car has been broken into three times over the years; the last two times, the thieves only took home some pairs of ratty old tennis shoes, to which they were welcome. If all trailhead vehicles held only items of similar value, the criminals would soon seek out more lucrative targets.

In general, all water in the backcountry should be considered unsafe to drink. Dayhikers can carry all the water they need. Backpackers, however, will have to purify the water. Boiling is the most effective way to kill the nasty little microorganisms that cause the problems, but the simplest purification methods are filtering and chemical treatments like iodine.

A special hazard in autumn is hunting season. Hikers need to advertise themselves with a bright red or orange cap, vest, pack, or other conspicuous article of clothing to avoid being mistaken for a suitable target. Hunting is prohibited in state and city parks and in some wildlife refuges. It is very popular, however, in state and national forests. Oregon’s general deer-hunting season usually runs from the first weekend of October through early November. In Washington the season usually starts one week later and runs farther into November. In both states, the elk-hunting season is in late October or early November.

Ticks are a minor annoyance in spring and early summer, especially in grassy or brushy areas and in the Columbia River Gorge. Ticks in other parts of the country often carry serious diseases such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Lyme disease. Fortunately, only a handful of cases have been reported in Oregon and Washington, so ticks here are more disgusting than dangerous. Still, it’s wise to check your body and clothing regularly when in tick habitat and to remove the little buggers quickly.

Also not terribly dangerous, but extremely bothersome, are mosquitoes. These annoying invertebrate vampires can be numerous enough to ruin your trip if you’re not prepared with bug repellent, long pants, and a long-sleeve shirt. The flying blood suckers are most abundant around lower elevation marshes and near lakes and ponds in the Cascades. At low elevations, they are at their worst from spring to midsummer. At higher elevations, they peak for a period of about three weeks following the snowmelt at any given elevation.

Two other bits of common wisdom also deserve mention. The first is that you should never hike alone. This is probably good advice on rarely traveled wilderness trails, but I would never forego a trip just because I couldn’t find a hiking partner. You can simply choose a more popular trail. These routes invariably have a fair number of other hikers around, so you’re never really alone.

The second bit of advice is that you should let a responsible person know where you’re going and when you expect to return. That will greatly aid in any search-and-rescue efforts, should they become necessary. If you stay on the trail and stick to popular areas, this caution may not be necessary, but it never hurts, and it’s a good habit to develop.

Being a Good Neighbor

All hikers take with them a responsibility not only for their own safety, but for being good stewards of the natural environment. Be respectful of the land you are visiting, and leave it in the same condition as you found it. Common sense should make the following rules obvious: never litter; never pick wildflowers; never cut switchbacks; and never let your dog or children chase wildlife. Less obvious guidelines help not only to preserve the resource but to leave it in even better shape than before you arrived. One easy thing to do is to pick up any litter left by others. You should also do some minor trail maintenance as you hike by removing rocks, limbs, and debris from the path.

These rules are either common courtesy or carry the force of law: avoid disturbing other hikers and wildlife with shouts or any other unnatural sounds; leave all plants, mushrooms, logs, and even rocks where nature put them; do not damage or remove any item of historic or archaeological interest, such as Native American vision-quest sites or pits, old trapper cabins, pottery, or arrowheads, all of which are protected by federal law; stay on the trail and avoid trampling plants, especially delicate meadows and streamside locations that tend to draw crowds.

If you are backpacking, be especially scrupulous to follow “no-trace” principles. Camp well away from water on an established site that won’t be further damaged by your tent and your activity around camp. In wilderness areas, the rules generally require that all camps be at least 200 feet from any trail or water source. Leave the site in as natural a condition as possible. Avoid building a campfire and rely instead on a small backpacking stove to cook your food. Finally, deposit human waste in a small “cat hole” about 6 inches deep and cover it.