Tricks of the Trail
People who have never hiked with a substantial load often pace themselves poorly. They fall into the sprint-and-drop routine, rushing up the mountain for a few hundred yards, then collapsing in a heap, panting. When you're backpacking, particularly at the altitudes common in the Rockies and Sierras, slow and steady wins the race. After all, the backpacker's role model – the tortoise – has its home on its back, too. One study of walking showed that the energy expended doubles with each mile-per-hour increase in speed. To reach your destination without exhausting yourself, slow down until you've adopted a pace you can sustain comfortably for an hour without resting. On really steep grades with heavy loads, particularly at high altitudes, you may want to try the rest step: After each step, let the trailing leg straighten completely and lock your knee for a second or two. This allows your skeleton to support most of your weight while the unweighted leading leg gets a brief rest.

When you do pause to rest, rest completely. Get your pack off and sit down. Try to pause at areas that won't suffer from the use. Rest stops are most effective when they're kept brief because of the way your body gets rid of lactic acid buildup, one cause of muscle fatigue. One researcher found that your body can get rid of about 30 percent of the lactic acid buildup in the first five to seven minutes of rest. In the next 15 minutes, however, you get rid of only about five percent more. Prolonged rests also let the body cool down too much, making it even harder to get back on your feet and start humping that load again.

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