The Trails Triad, back to basics
Planning an outdoor adventure? Don’t leave home without your Trails Triad squared away.
Responsible planning for all outdoor adventures begins with the Trails Triad. The Trails Triad is your three-legged stool providing a firm foundation for outdoor adventure planning and execution. Take away any of these essential legs and you launch your outings on unstable footings.
The social media–gear marketplace nexus centers on great gear at the expense of adequate training and experience. Great gear is a great start but gear alone does not ensure a safe and successful outing. Evey outing, from your afternoon family picnic to your weekend backpacking trip or your remote mountaineering or scientific expeditions should begin with the Trails Triad.
Well-being gets a lot of attention because there are a lot of gear solutions offered for S3 (Shields, Shells and Shelters, a future post) and fire-making (stoves and gadgets). Even so, great gear is out there to support all three legs of the stable stool, the three corners of the Trails Triad.
New devices offer continuous or regular contact with your frontcountry connections via satellite communication in addition to GPS navigation in the field (Check out Delorme’s newest Sat. Comms. device). Other new technologies support navigation and route-finding even before you leave home (remote reconnoiter via Google Earth).
Nevertheless, gear does not substitute for your personal constellation of knowledge, skills, and experience. Training and experience that integrates primitive technologies, historical technologies, and modern technologies will help you build adaptability and resilience.
Success also rises from Outdoor Mindset Adaptability. This is the center of the Triad. The personal capacity to let go of rigid concepts embodied in obsolete acronyms and survival “rules” so that you continuously adapt to avoid immediate threats and to mitigate cumulative stressors.
Tom Bain @BainOutdoors