Four multi-day trips now and day one is always awful. The pack feels wrong, everything aches, I question the entire idea by lunchtime. From day two I'm completely fine and by day three I don't want to go home. Is this a fitness thing that goes away, a packing thing, or does everyone just have a bad first day?
It gets better and it never fully goes. Fifteen years in and day one still involves an hour of being convinced my pack is broken before my body settles. I treat that hour as part of the trip now rather than a sign something's wrong.
Worth ruling out fuelling. Most people have a coffee and a sandwich, walk hard, and feel terrible at 2pm. Eating properly early on day one is unglamorous and it works.
Same with sleep the night before. I'm always up too late packing and then I blame the walk.
Sore hips and shoulders on day one specifically often means you cinched everything tight at the trailhead when the pack was at its heaviest. Loosen and re-tension after the first thirty minutes once the load has settled.
@negativesplitz · last yr. · 3 replies
Everyone has a bad first day, and there are three separate reasons stacked on top of each other.
The pack is at its heaviest on day one, all the food and usually the most water. By day three it's two kilos lighter and everything is easier.
You go out too fast. Nearly everyone does, because you're fresh and excited and you've been sitting in a car. Deliberately walking the first two hours slower than feels right makes a dramatic difference.
And you haven't switched over yet. It takes most people about a day to stop thinking in emails and start thinking in weather and water sources. That transition feels like misery and it's just adjustment.
What actually reduces it: a shorter first day. Six or seven kilometres to the first camp rather than eighteen. Costs you almost nothing across four days and changes the tone of the whole trip.
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@onebag_ozzy · last yr.
Short first days are also when you discover what you left at home, while you're still close enough to a shop to care.
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@carryon_cass · last yr.
A deliberately short first day is such an obvious fix and I have never once planned one.
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