Five Fun Things To Do While Mountain Trekking and Hiking

If you’re a hiking enthusiast, you’ll already know all the benefits the activity has to offer. Hiking gives you a chance to engage with nature on an incredibly personal level. You spend a significant part of your day navigating through a tiresome yet serene, undiscovered path without really knowing where it takes you. You get to explore unchartered territories and observe flora, fauna, and wildlife you probably haven’t encountered before. The experience is both relaxing and thrilling at the same time.

Additionally, a hiking trip presents you with an immense physical challenge and is probably one of the most exciting ways to exercise. Mountain trekking is like hiking but on steroids! Going up a mountain is generally much more formidable than a hiking trip into the woods and requires adequate physical preparation beforehand.

While trekking in itself can be an unforgettable experience, here are some fun things you can do to make your trip even more thrilling.

Scavenger hunts 

A scavenger hunt is a fun and informative game that can be pretty exciting for adults and children alike. When going trekking, you’ll likely encounter biodiversity you’ve never seen before. Most trekking trails are in relatively remote areas, where the fauna and wildlife have grown naturally. One popular trekking destination for this very reason is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee. For a trek to this breathtakingly beautiful world heritage site, you would want to find places to stay In Gatlinburg, one of America’s most famous mountain towns and the gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains.

To start the scavenger hunt, you’ll also have to some prep work such as research on biodiversity and prepare a list of things to collect. You can have fun trying to spot different trees, flowers, and wildlife in the densely packed, rich forest of the Smoky Mountains. You can also include items. You think other hikers may have left behind. A scavenger hunt will add more purpose to your hiking trip. Teens and adults alike can learn so much about nature by playing this game while enjoying their trek.

Geocaching

Geocaching is your chance at living Indiana Jones’ life for a day. It is a popular trekking activity and one that adults and children alike can enjoy. If you feel that the trek is getting a bit dull, get your phones out and start looking for ‘buried treasure’ or geocaches! You can visit various geocaching websites to find what’s hidden on your trail, split up into teams, and race to find it.

Geocaches are always a surprise, and you can find something as simple as a figurine to take as a souvenir or something as useful as rain gear. Whenever you see a geocache, be sure to leave something of yours behind and record your name in the logbook. Geocaching apps or websites will also tell you the difficulty of your route. If you’re with inexperienced trekkers, older people, or children, be sure to pick one that provides more details for your group’s ease.

Mindfulness exercises 

Sometimes the best thing to do on a trek is to sit down and relax and become one with Mother Nature. Mindfulness exercises force us to push everything else out of our minds and focus on our immediate surroundings and senses. Taking a break to take in the sounds, sights, and sensations of the great outdoors can be a relaxing yet energizing experience to refresh your mind from life’s clutter.

Mindfulness exercises can help us improve our life across various domains. Connecting with the outdoors and nature relatedness can boost subjective well-being. It is an excellent way to reduce anxiety and enhance vitality, happiness, and meaningfulness. On your trekking trip, take a short break to focus on what your five senses tell you. Feel the air around you, and take in the earthy aroma. Feel the earth under your fingertips, and listen to the sounds of the winds in the mountain. It is an experience that can teach you to appreciate your surroundings and boost pro-social behavior.

Trail tracking 

Tracking can be one of the most exciting things to do while mountain trekking, and you can have great fun while playing detective. Following animal tracks and trying to find out what they’re up to can be incredibly fun. You’ll likely find all sorts of animal tracks on your trekking trips, ranging from small animals to predators. Be careful in the case of the latter. Following these tracks can also lead you to discover more undiscovered paths as you trek uphill. Not to mention, the added powerful cardio workout is a huge plus.

Based on where you find the animal footprints, if they’re smudgy or dense, you can make assumptions about what the animals are up to. You can also tell if an animal is alone, with its babies, or being chased. Taking pictures is a fun way of preserving your adventure as you go.

Photography 

You don’t want to come home from your trekking trip with nothing to show! Trekking trails can be the best place for you to hone your photography skills, owing to the immense beauty all around you. You can practice taking different kinds of shots and immortalize the memories you make. You don’t need to have a professional set up to show off your photography skills when you’re hiking. A good smartphone should be good enough. And a selfies stick!

While landscape shots are the norm, you can also take pictures of any new animals or plant life you encounter. The sots would make for quite a stunning scrapbook. And if you’re into studying nature and wildlife, you’ll most likely have a lot of references to study once you’re back home.

Conclusion 

Mountain trekking is an exciting way for you to connect with the world around you and learn more about what it has to offer. These five tips can help you make the most of your trip and can let children and adults alike enjoy the outdoors to the fullest. No matter where you go, you’re sure to have an experience that you’ll always cherish.