>>140698The only difference is that I've found a pace that I'm comfortable hiking at an almost non-stop speed - and sometimes I don't stop hardly at all during the day except to refill my water or pee. The key to backpacking is knowing that you will get there eventually, hike slow, and hike long. If you do a solid hour of hiking, tell yourself you can do another hour. If you do 2 hours, tell yourself, it's only another 2 hours before you can make camp.
In 10 hours of hiking at 2 mph, you can go 20 miles (consider a leisurely 8:00 am departure from camp, two 30 minute snack breaks throughout the day, and making camp at an early 7:00 pm with still 3 hours of daylight left). Meanwhile, a less experienced hiker will sleep in until 9:00 am, screw around with rekindling last night's fire in the morning, cook up some sausage and eggs, take a gigantic shit, belch, break camp at 11:00 am, get on the trail at 11:30, hike for 2 hours at 3-3.5 mph, get worn out because they don't know what the fuck they're doing, stop to make another fire for lunch, finish lunch at 3:00 pm, hike another hour at 1-2 mph because now they're tired and just ate a big meal, and end up collapsing somewhere before they've reached their 10th mile of the day at like 4:00 pm, and make camp wherever they drop. I've backpacked with fast hikers and I've backpacked with slow hikers, and the difference is almost exactly as I've illustrated above. Ironically, given equal physical fitness, the hikers who pace themselves and do 20 mile days are generally *more* ready to do another 20 mile day the next day, as opposed to the stupid fuckheads who can barely do 10 miles a day and God forbid they do any hiking at all the next day.
