Hiking

Today in class, we talked about hiking. We were asked to compose a list of 10 items that we would NEED in order to do a thru-hike, which is when you hike for days, weeks or months. The list included: water, food, fire-starter; bookbag, clothes, boots, baby wipes, protection and etc. For each item, our teacher showed us images and elaborated on why and how we would use them. As I learned about hiking, I became interested in wanting to hike but it would most likely be a day-hike meaning I would hike a trail and return on the same day. When we talked about protection, the teacher informed us that bears would probably be a problem so we would need to buy bear bells and bear spray. Bear spray paralyzes the bear and bear bells alarm the bear so that we don’t take it by surprise resulting for it to attack. He also showed us videos of how powerfully dangerous they are when they attack. I immediately became astonished because I never knew how vicious bears could get and how harmful one could be. Because of this fear, I am even more curious but mostly afraid to hike. I enjoyed today's discussion and realized that there are a lot of things that I never knew about hiking; if I were to hike without knowing anything of what I learned today, I don't think I would last one second.