A shakedown hike is a one to two-night test run with your full backpacking kit, done in real terrain with real elevation, before a longer multi-day trip. It’s not a walk around the garden with a loaded bag. It’s a real hike, a real night, a real morning.
This is what we found out.
tl;dr
- A shakedown hike is a one-or two-night test run with your full kit before the main trip – the goal is to find out what doesn’t work while you’re still close enough to fix it
- Do it in real terrain with real elevation, not flat ground near the car; a heavy pack feels completely different after two hours of climbing than it does in a car park
- You will discover things about your gear, your pace, your body, and what you forgot – and that is the entire point
- Our test run was 12.5 km, 845 m of elevation, 7 hours 43 minutes total, including camp, and we forgot the water filter
- It was also one of the best nights we’ve had in a long time
What is a shakedown hike, and why does it matter?
A shakedown hike is what I call a diagnostic hike. You pack everything you plan to take on the real trip – full weight, full kit, both dogs if they’re coming – and you go and spend a night in it. You hike with the load, you set up the tent in the outdoor conditions, you cook on the stove, you sleep on the mat, and you find out what the problems are.
The reason it has to involve real hiking and real elevation is that a loaded backpacking pack feels entirely different after two hours on a climb than it does when you lift it in the hallway. Your hips shift. Your shoulders start talking to you. You discover that the hip belt needs adjusting, or that you packed something heavy at the bottom that should have been at the top, or that you are significantly slower than you expected.
Our test run was in the Pyrenees. 845m of elevation gain in about 3 hours to the camp spot. 12.5km total, 7 hours 43 minutes from van to van, including the overnight and the next morning’s hike.
How does a fully loaded backpacking pack feel on a climb?
The route went uphill immediately.
I am a hiker. I have 15 years of hiking experience. I have done via ferratas and multi-day mountain routes and all sorts of things with a day pack on my back. None of that prepared me for how a fully loaded backpacking pack feels on a steep ascent.
I was slow. Genuinely, embarrassingly slow. I had to stop every fifteen or twenty minutes in the early sections. The bag felt like someone had strapped a small person to my back and then added rocks. My legs were fine. My cardiovascular system was fine. It was purely the weight, the unfamiliarity of it, and the way it shifts your centre of gravity on steep ground.
I think eventually I got used to it. By the second hour, it felt more manageable – either the weight redistributed, or my body adapted, or I just stopped expecting it to feel normal and accepted the new normal. But that first hour was a proper test of whether I actually wanted to do this.
What happens if you forget essential gear on a shakedown hike?
We forgot the water filter.
I’ll put that plainly. We had researched water filtration extensively. We had bought the LifeStraw Peak filter bottle and Aquatabs specifically for this trip. We had packed everything else. We left the filter system on a table in the van.
We realised it the next morning, somewhere on the ascent. At that point, we had the water in our bottles, roughly 400ml between the two of us, and we were five hours from camp.
We decided to continue our hike. We rationed what we had and had an amazing time. We were thirsty, of course, as it was a really hot day, but OK.
The water filter is now the first thing on the pack checklist, written in capital letters. I know exactly what it feels like to hike a full day without enough water, and I do not want to repeat this experience. The Parc National des Pyrénées’ own hiking preparation guidance says the same thing we learned the hard way: drink before you’re thirsty, and treat any water collected on the trail, since it can be contaminated by livestock upstream.
What does reaching camp after a hard climb feel like?
We dropped the bags, and I, honestly, nearly cried. Not from relief, though there was some of that. From how beautiful it was. A frozen lake, completely still, not a single other person anywhere. We’d been hiking for three hours with these absurd weights on our backs, thirsty, sweating, and then we stopped, and it was just perfect. It was one of those moments where you immediately understand why people do this.
We set up the tent, fed the dogs, and started the stove. The Coleman system that we’ve owned for over a decade worked perfectly. We had our dinner, and we watched it get dark – well, not really, it was a full moon, and it stayed light the whole night.
What does a shakedown hike reveal about your sleep system?
I got approximately two hours of sleep.
The full story is in the sleeping system guide, but the short version is: foam mats are not a good fit if you are a side sleeper on mountain ground. Both of us woke up with destroyed shoulders. I also had not brought a pillow, which I had assumed would be fine, and it was not fine at all. I slept with my metal water bottle under my head, which worked in the technical sense of the word “worked” and no other sense.
We came home and ordered inflatable mats and inflatable pillows the same day. Both are now on the Pyrenees kit list.
The sleeping bag temperature rating was fine. The stove was fine. The tent was fine. The single thing that failed us, badly, was the sleeping system, and we would not have known that without spending a night outdoors.
The next morning, we brushed our teeth, packed the tent first so the spot looked tidy before other hikers arrived, then put the stove on for coffee. We hiked another hour or two, stopped for breakfast, then turned around. By the time we reached the van, 7 hours 43 minutes after we left it, I was tired, thirsty, and certain a multi-day Pyrenees route was going to be genuinely challenging, not because of the terrain or distance, but because of the weight.
What should you change after a shakedown hike?
I came away feeling positive, which might sound strange given that I slept for two hours and was thirsty for most of the second day.
I came away positive because I now know what I’m working with. I know how heavy the bag is on a steep climb and roughly how long it takes before my body adjusts. I know the sleeping system works now that we’ve fixed it. I know the stove works, the tent works, and the dogs managed the terrain fine. I know to pack the water filter first.
The thing I’m still thinking about is pace. I hike slowly with a full pack. That’s just true, and it means the Pyrenees will take the time it takes. There’s no shortcut there; it’s a question of getting used to the weight over days rather than hours.
| Item | Why we changed it |
|---|---|
| Foam mats (€17.99 each) → we added Sea to Summit inflatable mats (from €100 depending on size) | Foam mats destroyed our shoulders overnight, not adequate for side sleepers on mountain ground |
| No pillow → HIKENTURE inflatable pillow x2 (€24.99 each) | Sleeping without a pillow on mountain terrain isn’t something I’d recommend |
The mats were the biggest change in terms of cost. The inflatable mats are significantly more expensive, but after one night on the foam version, I have no doubt they were the right call. A full breakdown of what to look for and why the R-value matters is in the sleeping system guide.
Does a shakedown hike guarantee you’ll get the weight right?
Not entirely, and I want to be honest about that. Our shakedown hike told us the pack fit, the stove, and the tent all worked. What it didn’t fully prepare me for was carrying the actual trip weight, food, dog food, and fuel for eight days, day after day.
On the real thing, on the GR211, I struggled far more than the test run suggested I would, and woke up with significant hip bruising I hadn’t expected. It turns out that’s common: your hips are meant to carry up to 80% of a loaded pack’s weight, and some soreness and bruising are a normal part of your body adjusting to that, assuming your straps are fitted correctly. A one-night test at close-to-real weight gets you most of the way there. It doesn’t fully simulate what your body does after several consecutive days under load.
I’ll be writing the full day-by-day breakdown of that trip, including what the real weight actually did to my body. I’ll link it here once it’s up.
How do you plan your own shakedown hike?
It doesn’t have to be far, but it has to be real – real weight, real terrain, real overnight.
A few things that make a test run useful:
Pack for the weight you’ll actually be carrying, not the duration of the test. If your seven-day trip means 12kg on day one, once food and fuel are loaded in, carry 12kg on your one-night test, even if that means padding the bag out with dead weight to hit the number. What you’re testing is how your body handles the load, not a scaled-down version of the trip. A lighter pack on test night tells you nothing about how your shoulders and hips will feel on day one of the real thing, and that gap is exactly what caught us out before our six-day Pyrenees trip.
Match the terrain to your multi-day hike. If your multi-day hike has elevation, test on a climb of at least an hour; that’s when hip belt problems, shoulder pressure, and pack balance issues show up. If it’s flat, test on flat ground.
Do it far enough from the car that turning back is a real decision. Not so far that it’s dangerous, but far enough that you can’t just abandon the idea if things get uncomfortable.
Sleep in the actual sleeping system. Not inside the bag. In the tent, on the ground, on the mat, in conditions as close to what you’ll face as possible. That’s the only way to find out if the mat is comfortable, if the bag is warm enough, and if the pillow situation is going to be a problem.
Cook on the stove. Make sure you know how to use it before you’re tired and hungry and in the dark.
Note what you wish you had and what you didn’t need. Both are useful. We came back knowing the sleeping system was wrong, the water filter needed to be first on the list, and that we’d packed nothing we didn’t use.
Then fix the problems, and you’re ready to go.
FAQ
One night is enough to learn what you need to learn. Two nights is more thorough but not necessary before a first trip. The distance matters less than the terrain; choose something that matches your upcoming multi-day hike and put in a few hours of hiking under load before you reach camp.
As close to your real trip weight as you can manage, including food and fuel. If your multi-day hike means carrying twelve kilograms on day one, carry twelve kilograms on the test, even if that means padding the bag out with dead weight to hit the number. A lighter test pack won’t tell you how your shoulders and hips will feel.
Give yourself enough time to fix what you find. If a piece of gear fails the test, you need time to return it, replace it, or buy the right one. A couple of weeks before the real trip is a sensible minimum, more if you’re buying anything new based on what the test shows.
If you’ve only ever camped at drive-in campsites, yes. Sleeping in a tent at a campsite is not the same as sleeping on mountain ground with a mat that has to fit in your pack. And if you’ve done day hikes and car camping separately but never combined the two, that’s still not the same test. What you’re actually testing is whether you can manage the weight and whether your gear holds up the way it should, and that only shows up when the stove, the water, the weight, and the pack fit are all tested together.
New gear changes the answer, too. If you’ve bought anything new since your last test, especially a pack, mat, or sleeping bag, it’s worth testing again. How much of a test depends on what’s new: a new stove or filter might only need a run in the back garden, but a new pack or sleeping system needs the full overnight to know if it actually works for you.
Better to find out now than on day one of the real trip. Pack fit problems, pressure on the shoulders, a hip belt that slips, weight sitting wrong, are some of the most common things a shakedown hike reveals. If something’s wrong, most outdoor shops will help adjust the fit, and some packs need a different size entirely. Don’t assume it’ll “break in.” I also have a post on How to choose a hiking backpack where I explain each strap.
A long, loaded day hike is better than nothing. Put the full pack on, hike for four or five hours, including a significant climb if your trip has one, and you’ll at least know how the pack feels under load. But you won’t learn anything about the sleeping system without spending a night in it.
That’s the point of doing it. Go home, fix it, and go again if you have time. If the sleeping bag isn’t warm enough, buy the right one before the real trip. If the pack is causing pain after two hours, adjust it. The test run is for finding problems while you’re still close enough to solve them.
Yes. A loaded backpacking pack feels different from a day pack, and it takes time for your body to adjust, both within a single day and over a multi-day trip. The first hours of a hike are often the hardest. Most people find it gets easier as the days go on and the body adapts, and easier again as food and water get used up and the pack gets lighter.
This assumes your dogs are trained for the outdoors and won’t chase wildlife. Keep them on a lead if the trail signs say so. Make sure they have enough water; dogs need more than you might expect on a hot day with elevation gain. If temperatures drop at night, I use my jumper or jacket as a blanket for them rather than packing anything extra. On our test run, both dogs managed the terrain without any issues, but they’re experienced adventure dogs who’ve been doing this for seven years now.
Carry enough in your bottles, plus a filter and purification tablets. We learned this the hard way: on our test run, we ran out and were down to 400ml between the two of us with five hours still to go. Technically survivable, genuinely unpleasant.
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