Preppers Need to Start Hiking in 2026 (Get Fit, Build Skills, Test Gear)

By Cade Shadowlight

If you’re serious about preparedness, hiking isn’t just a hobby. It’s essential survival training disguised as fun.

Hiking is outstanding physical conditioning, real-world gear testing, navigation practice, land-reading experience, and a low-stress way to push your limits while everything is still “normal.” When the grid goes down or society frays, the people who are comfortable covering miles on foot with a pack will have a massive advantage.

Whether your goal is peak fitness, rehearsing a bug-out route, mastering off-trail movement, or simply enjoying time with family away from screens, hiking delivers. Best of all: you can start today with almost zero cost or experience.

Never hiked a day in your life? No problem.

Begin with flat, well-marked trails in local parks or even your own neighborhood. Short daytime walks with a light daypack build confidence and expose weaknesses in footwear, socks, and load-carrying technique before you ever need them in earnest.

From there, graduate to:

• Longer distances
• Moderate elevation gain
• Multi-hour or full-day hikes
• Overnight backpacking trips
• Off-trail and night navigation (when you’re ready)

Join a local hiking club or Meetup group. You’ll meet like-minded people who often overlap with the prepper community. The American Hiking Society (americanhiking.org) is another excellent resource for trail information, events, and advocacy.

Pro tip for preppers: Treat every hike like a mini field exercise.

• Wear the boots and pack you’d grab in an emergency
• Practice with your water filtration setup
• Navigate sections using only map and compass
• Identify edible/medicinal plants along the trail
• Time how fast you can really move with a 25–35 lb load

The trail doesn’t care about your Instagram fitness influencer routine. It reveals the truth, and that truth is exactly what keeps you alive when things go sideways.

Make 2026 the year you stop talking about “getting in shape for the collapse” and actually do it, one mile at a time. See you on the trail.

Recommended Reading While You’re Out There

Peterson Field Guides – The gold standard for identifying birds, trees, mammals, reptiles, mushrooms, and edible & medicinal plants. Turn every hike into an intelligence-gathering mission. Knowledge weighs nothing and could save your life. Available on Amazon.

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