Morning of the long hike day – every minute counts!

1. Do as much as you can the day before.
2. Get up as early as you can. There are many reasons for that, if you are planning a long hike:
   • You don’t want to push jerks, recently moved from Ontario, from the left lane all the way to your destination. The later you take off, the more of them will be blocking traffic on Trans Canada Highway.
   • You need to find parking. Last time we arrived at Lake Louise parking lot around 7AM, it was already 90% full. Literally, just a few spots left, – 15 minutes more, and we would have to go with plan B.
   • They won’t postpone a sunrise for you if you want to see it, it always comes at a certain time.
   • Earlier start means less people with unleashed dogs on a trail.
   • You don’t want to descent your trail in darkness and meet there an angry bear mom.
3. Check the weather one last time. Remember that all weather systems are very good with predicting sunny and absolutely ridiculous with rain. By this reason checking the weather all week before the hike is just waste of time, but forecast for the next few hours usually makes some sense, so just do it in the morning. We always ignore “30% rain” – never true, but probably would cancel the hike or go with plan B if there is “80% thunderstorm”.
4. Check the air quality. Smoke from wildfires is another good reason to cancel or change the plan: hiking in stinky haze is not healthy and does not make much sense because you probably won’t see anything good.
5. Have a good nutritious breakfast
6. Feed pets
7. Load into the backpacks:
   • Water and food from the fridge
   • Fully charged cell phones, powerbanks and other devices
8. Run