Backpacker magazine has rounded up a batch of its strangest trail tricks — the kind that sound ridiculous until you're cold, swollen-fingered, or hungry at mile 12. None require fancy gear, and several are backed by research or hard-won editorial experience.
Start with walking backwards. Studies suggest reverse walking reduces lower back pain by strengthening back extensors and firing up deep stabilising muscles. Physiotherapists recommend starting with one to two minutes and building to ten, ideally on smooth, straight terrain. Nobody's suggesting you backwards-hike the Pacific Crest Trail, but a few mindful minutes could save your lumbar region — a clip-on rearview mirror keeps you from colliding with anyone.
Then there's 'Sausage Finger Syndrome', the swelling many hikers get as fluid pools in swinging arms. The fix: hike with your hands above your head for a few minutes. It looks odd, drains the fluid, and beats fingers too puffy to grip a trekking pole.
Cold-weather camp hacks get even weirder. The 'crotch thaw' means tucking a jar or packet of solidified peanut butter or Nutella near your groin — close to your core — until body heat makes it spreadable. Staff-approved, apparently. For freezing nights, the classic hot-water-bottle-in-the-bag trick has a backup option: a dedicated pee bottle, ideally tucked under your shirt to warm your core fastest. Editor-in-chief Adam Roy notes the technique splits hikers by generation — older ones on a Banff trip nodded approvingly, younger ones flinched. Screw the lid on tight.
Food gets its own fixes. A 'food koozie' sewn from duct insulation from the hardware store keeps a dehydrated meal hot long enough to fully rehydrate, then doubles as a sit pad. Chips travel better when you smash them in the bag and pour them in like a drink — poke a pinhole to deflate the bag first, then tape over it. The 'chip drink' reportedly debuted on a Backpacker editors' trip along Wisconsin's Ice Age Trail.
The rest of the list is pure practical weirdness. Stuck with a bag of dog poo at a trailhead with no bin? Tuck it inside your car's fuel door and bin it at the next petrol station. Hardhats, plucked from obscure Reddit threads, ventilate well, shed rain, and at camp can be stripped of their liners to serve as wash basins, seats, or foraging baskets — plus they shield you from falling branches. And Wes Siler of Outside famously switched to Speedos as hiking underwear after a Guantanamo Bay anecdote inspired him: they're stretchy, quick-drying, and make impromptu swims effortless. He's stuck with them for over a decade.
Why should a regular traveller care? Because these hacks cost nothing, weigh nothing, and solve genuinely common problems — aching backs, sausage fingers, cold dinners, freezing nights. The trail has never cared about looking cool, and that's exactly the point.
— Backpacker
