Hiking Safety Tips: Gear, Clothing, Shoes, Emergencies and More

Hiking Safety w/ Alyssa (REI)

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[00:00:49]Alyssa: I work out of the Arizona Adventure Center. We're based in Scottsdale, Arizona. It's like a gear hub office space. Lots of storage, lots of tents and sleeping pads. You name it, we've got it here.

We support all multi day trips that leave from our hub here. That includes all of Arizona down to Tucson, up into the Grand Canyon and over into the Navajo Nation in the northeast corner , and then we go into California Joshua Tree and Death Valley, and all of Southern Utah.

So the big five of Southern Utah which everyone always wants to go see. We do everything from lodge based trips. , you go stay in a lodge for three nights to classic camping where your guides set up everything for you and then kind of a mixture of both. In Southern Utah we have signature camps where there's a permanent base camp set up that you go visit.

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[00:01:53]Alyssa: A little bit of everything. I would say the bulk majority are individuals who have signed up to join on a published excursion date. We set dates a couple years in advance, so we're already selling 2025 and planning 2026 right now. On our website you can look up REI experiences and say, hey, I'm really interested in Southern Utah.

Look at the different offerings, look at the different activity levels and think I really want a more casual, easy, active hiking one, a level two. I want to sink my toes into it, but not go really crazy and just see what it's like. You could do one of those, or you could say, you know, I really want to hike across the Grand Canyon, a level five the hardest you can do. You can sign up either by yourself as a single traveler.

You could gather a group of friends and sign up all together if there's space. If you and your family wanted to sign up for one of our family trips, you could do private departures and it would just be exclusively your family. Typically you'd see between six and twelve guests per trip.

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[00:03:35] Ciaran: And I will say also, Des, I am worried for you because my daughter actually works at Zion. She is one of the two archaeologists in the park, but on the side, she does search and rescue. She has been very, very busy rescuing people in the parks because a shocking number of people do not prepare appropriately and do not do their research and show up and think that flip flops are great hiking attire and a bottle of coke will do them for the trail.

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[00:04:23] Ciaran: don't want to lose

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[00:04:25] Ciaran: Um, Uh,

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[00:04:31]Alyssa: The biggest thing is to really be hydrated ahead of time. The days leading up to going out, make sure that you're taking care of yourself. Have you had enough water? Are you eating well? Do you feel good? You don't want to go out thinking, I don't feel great today.

That's probably the first wrong choice. So make sure you're taking care of yourself ahead of time. If possible , if you're going to go there for four days,

don't go hiking on day one. Spend that day in town acclimating to that heat, especially in the southwest. I know people say it's a dry heat, but

105 is hot, no matter where you're coming from. It is a dry heat, but it can hit you quickly.

So spend that first day acclimating a

bit, seeing how it feels. Ease

into your hikes on day two and three to really be able to enjoy yourself.

And then also make sure you grab the right clothing and gear. And I can dive more into that if

you have some questions about what

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[00:05:26]Alyssa: Yeah. So first I would make sure that you look at your clothing. I know a lot of people think, oh, I want to wear less. It's hot out. I just want to feel cool.

That's actually the opposite of what you want to do. Long sleeves are your friend. you want to protect your skin from the sun.

It's really intense here. We're lower in the U. S. so we're closer to the equator.

You really want to make sure that you keep that into account. So not only sunscreen on your skin, but also clothing that has uPF properties in it. Long sleeves. If you want to

wear shorts, that's fine, but long pants too. Go for the lighter color pants. Black pants get really hot in the sun. I have a black dog . She goes out and she comes in and she's hot to the touch, your pants will do the same thing.

And then a sun hat. Most people grab their baseball cap, but you want to be able to protect the back of your neck and the sides of your face. A baseball cap will expose those tops of your

ears really easily and those will sunburn first.

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[00:06:33]Alyssa: Yeah, there are. A bunch of different companies make them. REI, they're called the Sahara Hat. They're ventilated, there's mesh so it can breathe easier.

One thing that I love to do is wet my hat before I go on a hike or along the hike, just dump a little bit of water in there.

One of the nice things about being in the desert and going to Zion, you'll be in pretty low humidity, which means that you get the evaporative cooling qualities.

If you get yourself wet, your hat, you get the evaporative cooling, which is a game changer.

It makes you feel a lot cooler at that moment and it can help cool your body off if you start to get pretty warm.

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Forward.

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you probably want to have at very

minimum a half liter of water per hour for yourself.

I would err on the side of

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The nice thing about those is they have that hose, so you can just be sipping as you're hiking which is a really good way to maintain your hydration and not get to the point where like, oh man, I am so thirsty and try and chug a Nalgene full of water. And then not feel well for putting so much water in your body at once.

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[00:08:33] Desiree: I actually own one of those from when I was going to hike Kilimanjaro and I didn't. I went down to the basement. I'm like, Oh,

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It's right here.

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[00:08:55]Alyssa: It's not a bad idea. In the Southwest in particular right now, when it's so hot, you sweat a lot and you're sweating out all of those salts. So having something like liquid IV Element, Salt stick there's a ton of them. Having something to help replace those salts is not a bad idea.

I've even gone so far as just to put some pink Himalayan salt in a little bottle of water and drink it, just to Super easy. I know salt stick makes chews or tablets

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It's not the common thing to go to oh, I should, Wear more clothes.

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My son had an encounter with the bison. It almost turned deadly because there was another camper there at the site who was screaming and offering advice that was completely the opposite of what they should be doing and telling everyone Oh, they're more afraid of you than you are of them, which definitely is not the case with bison They're definitely less afraid of you. What kind of education and prep do you recommend people do before taking the trips?

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What's going on in the park right now. Do they have any alerts? Are there traffic problems that you're going to encounter, any of that kind of thing, just so that you understand what you're going into. How do you get around? At Zion, you need to take a shuttle bus into the park. You can't drive your own car unless you're staying at the lodge inside the park.

Knowing that ahead of time and how to navigate that system is really helpful. I, along with a bunch of the people I work with, are big weather nerds. We monitor the weather a lot.

We use the weather. gov. You can get really precise with location.

If you know, I'm going to go hike right here, you can go to exactly that on the map and see what

it's really going to be like there and not just somewhere near it, which I find super helpful.

And then if you have an idea of what you want to hike there's so many resources out there on understanding what that trail looks like, from buying a guidebook and reading through it, going onto the websites for Zion National Park to read what is the trail, are there closures on that trail and then there's a couple of really good apps.

I use AllTrails when I'm going to go hiking somewhere new. They have a free version of it and you can see what other people have said.

I always take that with a grain of salt because everybody's interpretation is different. But it's a really good way to get a general overview of what you want to do.

And like, Oh man, this person said it was the worst thing they've ever done. Maybe I should reevaluate.

Those are some things that we like to do

ahead of time.

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[00:12:03]Alyssa: Sure, so you're going to get heat exhaustion first. It's the more common one. You're going to start feeling a little dizzy, maybe a little nauseous, really sweaty. Your heart rate might be a little bit elevated. And if you start to feel that way, it's really important that you Stop, find a good shaded area.

If you're on a trail that has rocks near it, so big rocky walls, finding an area near one of those is going to be cooler than trying to sit under a tree

because that's probably shaded for more of the day than that tree. It's going to be naturally cooler anyway.

Just being aware of that as you're walking, like, Oh, this is a really good shady spot.

If I need to sit, maybe I should do that. Take those breaks before you need them.

I think a big thing is to really be aware of how you're feeling while you're hiking, checking in with yourself. Am I drinking water? Have I had any snacks?

How am I feeling? How much water do I have left? If you've drank half of your water, your hike is already halfway done, so you should probably turn around.

You don't want to hike to where you're out of water and have to try and figure out what to do to come back. That's how those rescues come into play. If you're with a group of people, how is everybody doing?

Enjoy the shade when it's there. If you see it, enjoy it. When I'm out guiding. I'm like, hey guys, look at this great shade this big rock wall has provided us. We're going to sit here for a minute. Enjoy a little bite of a snack, drink some water. And then the one that can happen after heat exhaustion, if you ignore everything .

It's heat stroke. It's way less common. The biggest thing is you'll see a change in level of consciousness. That might show up as completely unconscious and unresponsive. But more often the early signs are confusion.

Sometimes delirium. People can get a little combative. And once you have That change in your consciousness level, they need to get out soon and quickly. Heatstroke is a serious thing that can become deadly quickly. That's why it's important to keep in check with yourself as you're going .

If you start to feel like you're not doing great, it's time to turn around and end your hike for the day.

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[00:14:10] Desiree: I remember playing tennis here in Atlanta in over a hundred degree temperatures and I would put ice in my bra, like, I mean,whatever it took.

Ciaran, what is your daughter seeing? Is it heat stroke and heat exhaustion?

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But usually she carries more. So she's seeing people not be prepared. People not respecting the landscape, not respecting nature. And then it doesn't respect them back. Mother nature is just full of all kinds of karma. She has a way of getting you back. People not being respectful about bears, not being respectful about bison. She has the rule of thumb, I'm sure you know this too, which is if you ever encounter wildlife you do the thumbs up sign. You hold up your thumb out in front of you, you close one eye. If the animal is larger than your thumb, you are too close. That is the wildlife rule of thumb. I thought she was going to tell me, I asked her last night that it was all heat stroke, but it really isn't. It's a little bit of everything.

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[00:15:40] Desiree: What gear should I carry? Is there emergency gear that I should have in my pack beyond ice?

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It's 100 percent cotton. You can get that wet with your water from a creek, from anything. And like you were saying, you can put it around the back of your neck.

It makes a big

difference in being able to cool yourself down and even just stay comfortable.

The other thing that I bring and all of our guides do is a little spray bottle that you would fill up with water,

because that's an easy way to wet something down.

I was actually in Zion two weeks ago, supporting one of our

women's trips that we had there. I pulled my squirt bottle out and I was misting a guest that I was

who didn't want to Complete the hike that we were doing and she was like, this is the best thing ever.

Those little things make such a difference in how you're feeling and your mood . If you're feeling cooler, you feel better.

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The idea of walking in wet socks is nasty to me.

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wildlife you're going to encounter is squirrels. Those are probably the most common wildlife. We've been talking about bison and other animals. You'll see a lot of squirrels, don't feed them. One of the most common injuries treated at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon is in fact a squirrel

bite. actually

It is the most common injury treated at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. There is a fine also that goes with it, so don't feed them. But as you're walking along that, you'll be around a bunch of people. You could wear whatever shoes you're comfortable in for that.

Then you get to the narrows and you're in and out of water the whole time. I would recommend wearing whatever you're comfortable with for that time. If that means you're wearing those water sandals, I would do that.

And once you're done, you can take those wet shoes off.

I always just carry an extra

plastic bag to put them in and hang them off my backpack. I personally always wear water sandals .

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[00:18:15]Alyssa: I'm gonna say this in a few different ways. Cotton can be bad and good. Cotton is really bad for your feet. You don't want cotton socks because it will just hold that moisture and you will get blisters and

nasty feet quickly. So some sort of synthetic sock or wool socks are great.

I suggest wearing them around and walking for a day, even if you don't go out for a hike, and see how your feet react to it. As far as shoes unless you're doing something really intensive, like you're going backpacking , you don't need a really

heavy boot. Everything that I've done in Zion, I wear a lightweight hiking boot. I like the ankle support. I prefer that, but a lot of people will wear trail runners. something with a good sole on it. I don't recommend wearing your shoes for the very first time on that hike.

Maybe wear them a couple times before then. Also, on the flip side, don't bring the pair that you've had for 10 years. A lot of people will come to the southwest from an environment where there's a higher humidity level, and when you get here, your shoes dry out because it's so low humidity, and then they just kind of delaminate and disintegrate into nothing. I've held many a shoe together by duct tape in Zion and the Grand Canyon because it just sucks all that moisture out.

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gonna say I had two other things to add to the hiking list. One is you can get duct tape that's flat. Like the flat packs of it and I carry it everywhere with me because it comes in super handy and the other one is the body sticks or the little deodorants that you can do as a chafe stick on your thighs or anywhere else that starts rubbing so that it doesn't keep rubbing.

But the shoe thing is big because I think people don't realize

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[00:19:49] Nasreen: shoes are supposed to be replaced every three to five hundred miles. Running shoes, hiking boots, things like that. You can't bring that super old pair. They're not going to be good for you.

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yesterday and my sister said, they're

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trekking poles.

There are walking sticks though. A lot of places, you can actually rent them in Springdale, the little town next to Zion. There's lots of different places where you can rent a wooden walking stick.

A lot of people buy nicer trekking poles, if they're going to be hiking a lot and want to be able to have that extra support. There's a lot of studies about trekking poles that they can reduce up to 30% per leg of your natural weight.

If you're going to be doing a lot of downhill hiking in particular,

It's not the friendliest on your knees. I'm sure we've all felt that. So trekking poles can be really great for that. You can use them

if you'd like. But I much like your shoes, and suggest trying them out. See how they feel.

You know, Go to an REI or another outfitter store and have them help you understand what height they should be at so that you don't have your arm up here as you're trying to walk. Or have them too low. You want to be comfortable with them. For the narrows, it's definitely helpful.

That way you have a third leg, essentially, as you're walking in water which can be a little disconcerting and uneven. You're walking on rocks.

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your trekking pole can actually double as your camera mount. When I was younger before I had two slipping and falling injuries I was like, no, no, this is my camera mount.

I'm cool. I'm not an old lady. Now I'm never hiking without a trekking pole because it makes me feel more secure.

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size what the smallest they get is. We had to go through three, four, five different sets, really looking at them before we found one.

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Anything else, Alyssa?

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Take those minutes to enjoy it. Really take that in. Whenever we find a little creek crossing, we sit down, we take our shoes off, we put our feet in, we enjoy it, we cool down. Then we dry our feet off completely and continue on.

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difference . Just being able to cool yourself off.

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[00:22:36]Alyssa: Yep, and this time of year the shuttle is early. You can get up and be in line. But if you wait until seven, eight, nine, it starts to A, get

busier, but B get hotter. You will have more

fun the earlier go.

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How do people prepare for something to go really wrong? How do you guys make sure that people are safe out there? What should they be doing to kind of be ready for that.

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It's a really useful tool where you can send text messages to people.

You can also contact EMS with that,but you can give a very precise location. So it gives them your exact GPS coordinates. You can say I fell and broke my leg or I'm just really hot. Or you can also send one that says I'm having a great time.

And you can do that whether or not you have cell service because it works off the satellites as long as you've got a clear view of the sky, which in 99 percent of the places in the Southwest you do. It works really well. And there's a lot of different brands. There's a brand called Zolio.

We were just playing with one here the other day. It works with just an app on your phone. Those are good things to have to be prepared.

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[00:24:18]Alyssa: One of the things that people always ask whenever I've guided a trip is Alyssa,

What do I need to eat? And my true honest answer is what you're going to eat.

If you know you love protein bars, bring some because

it's what you're actually going to consume. If you, on the flip side, hate Clif bars, don't bring a Clif bar.

You're not going to eat it. You're just going to leave it in the bottom of your pack to get squished up. Salty things are a great thing to bring though because it's an easy way to replace salt. My personal favorite is peanut M&Ms. You get a little bit of salt in there, you get those peanuts, you also get the sweet from the chocolate, which I don't mind, and they tend to not

melt too badly.

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M&

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If you're going to buy an entire box, maybe buy a couple different flavors of something first to see if you like it. Cause I know there's some brands where I like two of them and hate the other ones.

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[00:25:31] Nasreen: We're all about the science.

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favorite things. If you put them in the top of your pack close to the Sun that is going to be just the stickiest mess You've ever seen in your life Which is still consumable, but just a little more difficult.

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[00:26:01]Alyssa: I do have a favorite. The Grand Canyon is my favorite. Most people go, they show up to the South Rim, they spend 10 minutes looking out and then they leave. But there is so much more to that park than what you see just from the rim. I think of all the visitors that go there, only 1 percent visit the bottom down at Phantom Ranch.

It's a really small number. I love being able to take people down there and say you are part of the 1 percent that have been down here. It's really special.

I love geology and rocks, so the Grand Canyon is one of the better places to be able to talk about rocks for a lot of days, so I love it.

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[00:26:41] Desiree: Yeah. All I can picture is the Brady Bunch riding the donkeys down and I'm not a ride the donkey down kind of gal.

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[00:27:09] Desiree: I'm going to wear the shirt.

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[00:27:12] Ciaran: I don't want to get a call from my daughter saying, Hey, I met your friend Des.

Not that way.

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[00:27:18] Nasreen: So thank you again for joining us. We really appreciate it. I know that hiking and outdoor trips are something we could dive into further and further . We'll have to talk more about that another time. Until next time, thank you so much for joining this episode of Time to Talk Travel, and

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[00:27:35] Narrator: This has been another episode of Time to Talk Travel, brought to you by HashtagTravels. com. You can keep in touch with us between episodes by checking out our site, joining our newsletter, or connecting with us on social. We've always got the information you need in our episode notes. Until next time, happy travels, and thanks for being a part of our trip.