Welcome!
For many of our customers, a trip with Big Wild was their first backpacking or canoeing experience!
Don’t Worry! Our guides are always happy to teach a variety of skills, but more than anything, you’ll learn as you go. We’ll help you to learn to properly set your tent up, whether you use ours or your own. And we’ll teach you to efficiently pace yourself or paddle a canoe.
We conduct a comprehensive pre-trip orientation and safety meeting at our trip base motel the evening prior to the trip (see Connecting and Lodging for details). We’ll make sure your pack is properly adjusted for maximum comfort. We’ll hand out food and equipment and will also help you to properly pack your gear.
Pack Weight: If you carefully follow our backpacking or canoeing equipment list, your pack or canoe gear will not be too heavy! For an average-sized man, your backpack will weigh roughly 40-45 pounds at the beginning of a 7-day trek, and about 35 pounds or so for a woman. Subtract 8-10 pounds of consumed food by the end of the week. For longer or shorter trips add or subtract 1-2 pounds per day.
No Prior experience is necessary, but you must be in good enough physical condition for your trips’ level of difficulty. A reasonably fit adult who is not overweight and who doesn’t smoke, and who gets some cardio-vascular exercise on a regular basis can usually handle and enjoy most of our trips. However, the more strenuous backpack trips do require a higher level of fitness. Our system for Trip Ratings: easy, moderately easy, moderate, fairly strenuous or strenuous.
Bears: Learning to travel safely in bear country will begin at the pre-trip safety meeting. We are more experienced in bear country than just about anyone, and because we practice comprehensive safety techniques, the odds of an unpleasant encounter are infinitesimally low. On any given trip we will consider ourselves lucky to catch a glimpse of one of these magnificent animals!
Staying Together: We keep our groups close together on the trail or on the water. We won’t let you fall far behind. Our guides are pros and they know how to accommodate folks with widely varying hiking and paddling paces.
If you’re wondering which trip is “best” or which to sign up for, RELAX!The trips are all great, but each area is unique. And you’ll be back! So what you miss one year you can sign up for on your next adventure into the big wilds!
Bonding: Our groups tend to really bond, even when folks have widely varying life experiences. And a trip in the wilderness provides some of the best family bonding opportunities imaginable. Join us in the big wilds!
