PROBLEMS HIKERS CAN FACE AND HOW BEST TO AVOID THEM.
As a hiker, you enjoy a challenge and tend to push your body to new limits which feels great, but it can mean you encounter your fair share of problems along the way. You will probably recognize at least some of these problems listed below and you may have some helpful tips to add to your experiences.
These include:
1. FATIQUE: This sets in when you are physically and mentally exhausted, which can easily happen if you have had long day walking and carrying backpack. The best way to keep fatigue at bay is to make sure that you have had a decent night’s sleep before you descend on a trek. Your body needs the rest to have enough energy for the physical exertion of hiking. Food and drinks are of huge importance, drinking a lot of water whilst walking even in cold weather.
2. DEHYDRATION: It is not enough to simply sip away on your water as you walk, you need to make sure you have drunk ample before set off and after you finish.
3. ALTITUDE SICKNESS: If you are walking at altitude then this hiking problem can be nasty. Altitude sickness or AMS-Acute Mountain Sickness happens when your body can’t acclimatize to the new oxygen level. The higher you climb the lower oxygen level and the worse you might feel. Your body really feels like it is giving up with symptoms of nausea, headache, breathlessness, and sleep deprivation, which can leave you feeling absolutely rotten. To try and keep altitude sickness at bay, it is important to ascend slowly so your body has time to acclimatize and adjust to unfamiliar environment. There is also a pill that you take to help with altitude sickness.
4. FOOT PAIN: This seems a little obvious but pain is a real hiking problem that can literally stop in your tracks. Common of these; are blisters that ruin many hikers’ experience. When you start to feel a niggle get a special blister plaster on the real area to try and prevent the blister emerging. Wearing well fitting walking shoes and comfortable socks that that are from a material that draws sweat away from your feet will really help.
5. KNEE PAIN: As with the feet, knees are doing a lot of hard work whilst walking and are common hiking problem. Trekking poles can really help ease the pressure on your knees joints since you are spreading your weight more. Knee supports can help this hiking problem too and definitely worth trying. Don’t try to do much too quickly, it is fantastic to challenge yourself but just raise your targets in small amounts at a time so that your body can cope and works with you NOT against you. All in all, make sure to learn from what your body tells you on each walk and try to rectify it for the next hike.
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