Hiking and How Planning at Home Can Help You Stay Safe

Planning your trip before you take it can make sure that you are safe when hiking. It can also make sure that you have everything that you might need while you are in the wild. If you are planning on hiking with someone that needs medication on a regular basis, this can be extremely important. For instance, if you have a diabetic family member or friend they may need insulin or sugar on a regular basis in order to be able to not go into diabetic shock which can be very dangerous in the wild and which can kill a person if it is severe enough. This is part of the reason that medication planning is important as well as planning other parts of the trip.

You will also want to call the local rangers or sheriff ahead of the time that you will be traveling to make sure that the area is safe and that there is nothing you did not know about such as a fire that had happened and made it unsafe to hike or anything else that could have possibly happened. Bringing a map can also be an important part of safety because then you will be able to find your way around and know that you will not get lost or will at least be very much less likely to.

When you have a map that you are planning on bringing, you may want to mark what water areas are safe unless they are already marked. It can be very important to know what bodies of water in the area you are hiking in are safe or not because many of them may have bacteria or algae that could be dangerous when consumed or when touching the skin. You will also want to mark if there are any areas that you would prefer to stay away from and what plants you want to watch out for. There are plant that are known throughout the world such as poison ivy, but you will want to find out ahead of time if these and others plants like them are able to be found in that area.

If there are only some areas of the hiking trail or area that you will be going to where fire is allowed then you will want to know where these are so that you will be able to stay close to them to be able to use fire for heat and for food is needed. This also means that you will want to pack a fire source ahead of time as well as a first aid kit. First aid kits are needed when hiking so that you can clean and bandage but so that they will not get infected and also so that if you do happen to come across poison ivy or other harmful substances you will have something to combat the side effects while you get to a safe area of treatment.