3 Absolutely Essential Things We Always Pack in Our Hiking Backpacks

Hiking is one of our all-time favorite outdoor activities. There is just something magical about driving on a dirt road to a trail head and spending the day out in nature with nothing more than what you can carry in your backpack.

We have found that there are three absolutely essential items to carry besides food and water when we hike.

1. First Aid Kit

   We hope we absolutely never need it, but it we always carry one. You can find pretty cheap and compact first aid kits online, but we highly recommend the “Mountain Series Medical Kits” that you can buy at REI for $25. This is not a paid ad, it’s literally just us recommending a really good product. The Hiker kit comes with enough medical supplies for 2 people for 2 days with pretty standard injuries - burns, cuts, blisters, etc. While we personally haven’t had to use the kit, we have handed out band-aids and antiseptic wipes to hikers that have taken a tumble and didn’t have their own med kit.

2. Sunscreen

   Let’s just say, one of the worst sunburns you can ever get is one where you are well above treeline and there is not a cloud to be seen. Yes, speaking from experience here! Let me just say, OUCH. A few years ago, I was hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park and didn’t bother to put sunscreen on my arms as I was wearing a very lightweight long sleeve over a short sleeve tech shirt. It was cooler on the trail in the shade of the trees, but once we got out of the trees, it got hot so off came the long sleeve layer… An hour above treeline later, I had a sunburn that lasted me for the rest of the summer season. I have never forgotten to carry sunscreen since!

3. Rain Gear

   Unless there is literally a zero percent chance of rain for more than 24 hours, we always pack a rain coat. Living in Colorado, the weather can change in a matter of minutes the higher you hike. We check the weather hours before we hit the trail-head and again right as we start our hike and if there is any chance at all of rain, we carry rain gear. Not super heavy, weigh your pack down gear - but gear that folds into one of their own pockets. You can find a rain coat that zips into one of its pockets (see this one here - again just a fan of this coat, not an affiliate), and same for rain pants. If you have to pick between a rain coat or rain pants due to room in your pack, we would go with a rain coat 100% of the time over pants.

If you are curious about what else we always pack on our day trip hiking packs, check out our free guide section and download our FREE day trip hiking pack list!

Let us know what you find absolutely essential to pack by leaving a comment below. See you on the trails!

~Liz

Our Top 5 Quarantine Activities

We have officially been on “self quarantine” orders for a month now. To say the adjustment hasn’t been easy is an understatement, which we are sure the entire world can relate to. We miss our trails, the mountains, the freedom of happy hours and time spent with friends and family. But through this all, we’ve found a new routine and a few favorite activities to help us compensate our need to be in the mountains somewhere. We hope you enjoy these as much as we have been!

1. Walking and Biking on Local Trails

   We talked about the fact that we live very close to bike trails in our blog post on how to not feel as cooped up inside (check it out here!) and we have been making daily use of them. We can walk or ride down to the trails - which are paved bike and running trails - and have our pick of which direction to head. One way heads toward a brewery (major bonus that they are still open for to-go beers!), the other heads toward downtown Denver. If we really wanted to, we could easily get a 40+ mile bike ride in on the same trail.

2. Bonfires in the Backyard

   We are making use of our fire pit on a weekly basis! We love camping, and having a bonfire makes us feel like we are enjoying a peaceful night at a campsite. Bonus points if you make s’mores and extra bonus points if you pitch your tent in your backyard (or living room)!

3. Watching National Park Documentaries

   Hello, Disney+! If you have been on the fence on subscribing, let us be the first to tell you that the National Geographic Documentaries they have are 1,000% worth cost of the subscription! Our favorite is the 8 episode series “America’s National Parks”. Each episode highlights a National Park and the wildlife that lives in the park. Basically, it’s trip planning material for us! Leave us a comment below on what you think of the series if you have watched it!

4. Working on Puzzles of National & State Parks

   We were puzzle people prior to the lock down, but now we are constantly working to put puzzles together. Since we can’t enjoy the outdoors as much as normal, we decided to bring the outdoors to us with a couple of our puzzles. We have put together one of all Colorado activities and places, and are currently working on putting together a Yosemite National Park puzzle. Both have been fun and ways for us to think about places we want to go or book trips to when the lock down is lifted.

5. Reading and Working While Sitting Outside

   Prior to the lock down, we would enjoy our deck on weekend nights, and once in a while through out the work weeks, but not as often as we are now. These days, we are spending as much time as possible out there. We both work from laptops, and our wifi reaches to the deck, so as long as we don’t have video conference calls and the weather is nice, we are setting up shop outside. Post work, it’s nice to relax with a book and beverage on the deck before making dinner.

What have been your favorite activities during the “stay at home”/ “self quarantine”/ “lock down”? Leave us a comment below - we’d love some suggestions!

Burning Bear Snowshoe Trail

This past week has been hard for most Coloradoans, and honestly, most people across the US and world with what is happening with the Coronavirus, aka COVID-19. We’ve all been asked to “social distance” ourselves from others. Liz is a full blown extrovert, so being told to stay away from others is her absolute nightmare.

We have been trying to combat the cooped up feeling (see our blog post here about our favorite ways to not feel cooped-up) by getting outdoors as much as possible.

Yes, we are extremely fortunate that we live where we do but we challenge you to think about how you can get outdoors even if you live in a major city. Fresh air and sunshine? Sign us up.

This weekend we drove about an hour from where we live to check out Burning Bear Trail. We had never hiked or snowshoed this trail before, so we were really excited to see what it offered. Spoiler alert: it’s now our favorite snowshoe trail we’ve done. Yep. Favorite. Boom.

I mean, who wouldn’t immediately fall in love with a trail when this is how it starts? Yes, it’s as wonderfully peaceful as it looks in the photo. The sound of water flowing under the bridge and not much else? Happy sigh.

Alltrails.com rates this trail as “easy”. Our rule of thumb is to add one level of difficulty to Alltrails’ ratings when going snowshoeing. You hike differently. Your stance is wider, your steps are different, and your legs burn from the effort of pulling yourself out of knee deep snow if you happen to find a soft spot.

This trail is a 7.4 mile, out and back trail. There is a gradual incline on the way out, which means you get a really nice and easy hike coming back. The views were top notch. The parking situation was really easy, with a designated parking lot just around the corner from the trail head. All in, we loved this trail.

The best part for us? We are in the middle of a nation-wide ask to social distance and we ran into maybe a handful of people the entire time we were out. That’s about 20-30 people less than we were expecting. This is either one of the best kept trail secrets, or no one was wanting to drive an hour-ish from Denver to get there. Either way, we’ll take it.

If you want a really relaxing, beautiful hike/snowshoe, we highly recommend this trail. It’s great for beginners and experienced snowshoes alike.

As always, be sure to do your trail research. Just because we loved this hike and had the most perfect day out there does not mean it’s perfect for you. Know your surroundings and what you are going to get into before you go.

Happy future trails!

- Team Be Outdoors

Additional Posts You Might Like:

Beginner’s Guide to Snowshoeing

Beginner’s Guide to Hiking

Lost Lake Snowshoeing Review

Our Favorite Ways to Not Feel Cooped Up Inside

Times right now are crazy, to say the least. We have never seen anything like this - all restaurants, bars, gyms, and so many stores are closed for business - either by choice or by the local governments ordering them to be closed.

If you are like us, we have been asked to “social distance” ourselves from everyone. We have been asked to work from home for the foreseeable future. What that means is that we are stuck inside all. day. long. No gym, no in person human interaction other than ourselves, no happy hours, no meet ups.

Because of all of that, we’ve put together a list of ways we are trying to beat the “cooped-up” feeling.

1. Take Walk Breaks

We are all outdoors people right? We here at Team Be Outdoors are not under a city-mandated lock down, and really are hoping it does not get to that point. Our day jobs have asked us to work from home to support the “social distancing” act, so we told ourselves that we will get outdoors at least once a day, twice if the weather is nice. We take a walk on our lunch break and then eat as we work when we get back. It helps break up the day and it gives us some fresh air!

2. Eat Lunch and Dinner Outdoors

If you have a deck or patio, now is the best time to use it! We don’t have a full deck furniture set up - read, no deck table appropriate for meals outdoors - but we have eaten lunches and dinners outdoors multiple times over the past week. We are comfortable holding our plates in our laps and eating with no table in front of us, so it works for us! Also, on one of our many walks this week, we’ve seen couples sitting in the park having a makeshift picnic. We LOVED seeing this and loved the idea if you don’t have a deck or patio.

3. Hit the Local Trails

We live about 30 minutes away from some really cool trails in the foothills of Colorado and an hour from nice mountain trails. There are so many trail choices, that we feel confident that if we hit a trail, that we will not be endangering ourselves or others by getting into too close of a proximity of others. If you have trails nearby, we highly recommend getting out and getting some exercise in the fresh air!

4. Sit Near an Open Window

This sounds so simple, and it is. Opening up the shades and blinds of your windows and getting some natural light into your house or apartment is game changing on your overall mental state. We typically leave our blinds closed all day, but with having to be cooped up, we’ve been opening them up to let in natural light. Instant mood booster!

5. Go for a Drive

Not into hiking or walking or physical activity outdoors, but still feel like you need out of the house? Fill up your gas tank (gas is cheap right now!), pack a lunch and some snacks, and hit the road! Now is the time to check out areas you’ve never been to before but have always wanted to. Yes, the restaurants, bars, and shops might be closed in the area you head to, but you will still get a good sense of what the town or city is like. Then you can plan a return trip with more knowledge of the area once the “social distancing” limitations are lifted.

Stay safe and healthy out there!

Additional posts you might enjoy:

Beginner’s Guide to Snowshoeing

Beginner’s Guide to Hiking

Lost Lake Snowshoe Trail

Let’s start out by saying Alltrails rates this trail as “moderate”. What we soon found out is a “moderate” trail for hiking should be classified as “difficult” for snowshoe season. This trail is straight up. And up some more. And then up again.

But once you get to the top? Totally worth the fact that our hip flexors are going to be screaming at us for the next couple days.

This is not a trail we would recommend for beginner snowshoers. If you have any sort of knee injury that does not allow for you to go up or down hills easily, we’d recommend you avoid this one. Overall, the elevation gain is just shy of 1,000 feet, which isn’t bad when just hiking, but add a heavy layer of snow and it’s definitely a lot harder than it reads on paper.

You have to park at the Hessie Trailhead. There are no facilities and no parking spots other than side of the road parking. If you are the first one there, you will know you’ve arrived when the road dead-ends.

The hike is beautiful. You will cross over two bridges that, in winter, are heavily snowpacked. Having gone in the middle of March, the snow was starting to melt and we could hear the river running below us, but could not yet see the water as it was still under a heavily layer of ice and snow.

The last push to get to the lake is extremely steep. We ran into a couple people heading back down when we were almost to the top. They gave us the motivation to push through the steep incline and also gave us a pro tip that the view is best from the middle of the lake and to turn around to look back on what we just hiked up. They were right. The view was stunning. And totally worth the sore calf muscles and hip flexors the next day.

Additional Posts You Might Enjoy:

Snowshoeing Meadow Loop and Ridge Trail

Beginner’s Guide For Snowshoeing