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Winter is a charming season for hiker. We can have a great time in gaining outdoor survival skills, watching the bigger mountains with white snow on them, appreciating the beauty of sunset glow, sunrise and bringing nighttime stars, and enjoying the relative quiet and solitude when others stay at home. In fact, I am not a crazy hiker. I know clearly that winter hiking is not a travel that planned in a crowded tourist attraction. Conversely, it is full of dangers and adventures such as short daylight hours, fast-changing weather conditions and other more unpredictable factors, which will be life-threatening if you don’t take adequate preparations. What follows are a few that I use to stay safe in my winter outdoor state. Make a Right Plan Experienced hikers know that there is nothing more important than preparation. The first thing we should do is to definite the hiking purposes and destinations, collect as much information as possible to learn about the local terrain, environment, climate, and emergency stations, and draw the roadmap yourself whenever possible. These will play an important role when catching unexpected danger. Never Hike Alone Many accidents which happened on the hiking trail tell us: don’t hike off-trail by yourself unless you have a dog and the reliable smart devices. In fact, hiking with friends is not only more fun to share with a group, but also is much safer especially in the winter. You can get a lot of helps and protections on choosing packing list or identifying dangerous conditions in case of need. Besides, you’d better let at least one friend at home, knowing the place you're going, which route you intend to take, and when you'll be back. Pack High-quality Items That’s no doubt how important the equipments are. As usual, it all depends on the types of winter hiking you plan on doing and the conditions you expect to encounter. The common ones are the layered clothes, proper shoes, good hat, warm gloves and socks, quality backpack, sleeping bag, tent, other appropriate food, cooking gear, and survival kit. Most importantly, you must know how to use them. There are already so many wonderful articles on winter equipments in kinds of websites and magazines, so I’m not going to repeat the information here. But remind you, take only what you really need, so you can keep yourself comfortably and no burden. Take Along Smartphone and Portable Charger A GPS device or a GPS-enabled smartphone app? That is a matter of debate for avid hiker in the past two years. But now, I think there is no better way than hiking with a smartphone along. There are several nice apps on GPS Trails, map types, weather radar overlays and the ability to download maps ahead of time. It also can act as “signaling and rescue” item in case of emergency, spare flashlight, camera, offline Wikipedia copy and so on. Meanwhile I can carry my iPhone anyway for pictures to record where I have been and log interesting natural history features. The biggest issue I had was battery drain. So I invested a premium portable charger with named KINKOO Infinite One (www.ikinkoo.com) to protect it, which carries real 8000mAh power to hold a charge for about one week, and is surprisingly light and convenient so that I can easily take it in my backpack, even pocket. Besides of hiking, the Infinite One is also used frequently in my company, home, party, cafes and other indoor and other outdoor places. All in all, winter hiking should be fun, not dangerous. Pay attention to our own safety, wherever, whenever.
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Winter Hiking, hike, outdoor sports,
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