There is nothing reckless about walking alone. Solo days are where many of us learned to read ground, keep a pace and enjoy our own company. What changes when nobody else is there is not the terrain but the consequences. A sprained ankle in a group is an inconvenience; alone, 6 km from the road with the light going, it can become a night out. The solo walker’s job is therefore to replace the missing partner with paperwork, timing and margin. None of it is difficult, and all of it is easier to do at home than to regret on a hillside.
What a partner actually provides
It helps to be precise about what we are compensating for. A companion does three things. They notice when we are making a poor decision, they can go for help or provide it, and they know where we are. A trip plan covers the third. Check-in times cover a share of the second, by shortening the time between an accident and someone realising. The first, the second opinion, has no substitute and is the reason solo walkers keep more conservative rules: earlier turnaround times, wider weather margins, less appetite for scrambling above the grade we can reverse without thinking.
The trip plan: what it contains and who gets it
A trip plan is a short document left with someone who will act on it. Its purpose is to let a search begin quickly and in the right place. Rescue teams say the same thing everywhere: the difference between a search that starts with a route description and one that starts with “somewhere in the hills” is measured in days, and in outcomes. A good plan is specific without being long.
- The route, named by start point, intended line, high points and finish, with the map sheet or grid references, plus any alternative we might take if the weather turns.
- Where the car is parked, its colour and registration, and what we look like: jacket colour, pack colour, the colour of any tent or shelter we carry.
- The expected finish time and, separately, the panic time: the hour at which, having heard nothing, the holder of the plan should call the emergency services rather than wait.
- Any relevant medical facts, the equipment carried, and what we are likely to do if we cannot move: stay put, seek the nearest shelter, descend a particular valley.
- Contact numbers for the rescue authority in that country, so the plan holder is not searching for them at midnight.
We leave the plan with two people rather than one, since phones get switched off and evenings get busy, and we make sure at least one of them knows what the panic time is for and has agreed to act on it. Leaving a note on the car dashboard is a useful supplement, not a replacement: it tells a passing warden which valley to think about, but it tells nobody that we are overdue.
Check-in times and the panic time
The finish time and the panic time are not the same number, and confusing them causes either false alarms or fatal delays. The finish time is our honest estimate, built from distance and ascent with a walking-speed rule and a generous allowance for stops. The panic time sits two to three hours later on a day walk, longer on a multi-day trip, and it is the point at which the absence of a message becomes information. Between the two, the plan holder waits; after the second, they act, whatever the excuses might be.
Intermediate check-ins are worth adding where signal permits: a short message from the summit or the col fixes our position in time and space and lets a search, if one is ever needed, start from that point instead of from the car park. Where there is no signal, a two-way satellite messenger does the same job, and its tracking mode can leave a breadcrumb trail that a coordinator can read. Any device is only as good as its battery and its owner’s discipline, so we decide in advance how often we will check in and keep to it.
The single most important rule is the least glamorous: if the plan changes, the plan holder must know. Deciding at the col to take the longer ridge is fine. Doing it without a message means that a search, if it happens, will spend its first hours in the wrong valley.
The extra margin
Alone, we plan as though we will be slower than our normal pace and as though we might have to stop moving. Concretely, we take the ordinary day-walk kit and add the things that turn an enforced stop into an uncomfortable night rather than a dangerous one: a synthetic insulating layer beyond what the forecast requires, a lightweight bivouac bag or group shelter, a headtorch with fresh batteries and a spare, food for an extra meal, and enough water treatment to stay for a night near a stream. The whole addition weighs well under 1 kg (2 lb) and it changes the arithmetic of every minor injury.
Margin also lives in the choice of route. On our own we favour lines we know or that are well described, we avoid ground that is hard to reverse, and we treat river crossings and steep snow as decision points rather than obstacles. We set the turnaround time earlier than we would with company, and we honour it, because there is nobody else to argue us down.
Communication that does not depend on luck
Phones are the most common lifeline and the most commonly misunderstood. In most countries an emergency call will use any available network, not just our own provider’s, but a call still needs some signal, and steep valleys and dense forest often have none. Battery is the second limit. A phone left searching for a signal all day can be flat by the time it matters, so we switch it to flight mode between check-ins, keep it warm in cold weather and carry a small power bank. In several countries an emergency text service exists for places with only a whisper of signal; in some it requires registration in advance, and it is a good winter-evening task to find out how it works where we walk. For anyone who walks alone regularly beyond phone coverage, a satellite messenger or a personal locator beacon stops being a luxury.
Coming home the right way
The last act of a solo day is closing the loop: a message to the plan holders that we are down, before the boots come off, before the drive. A forgotten message is the most common cause of unnecessary searches, and rescue teams are unfailingly gracious about it, which is exactly why we should not make them practise. Then the plan can be thrown away, and the next one written.