Mountain hiking is a type of sports tourism. In this concept, many combine different types of active recreation: rafting on mountain rivers, rock climbing, eco-tourism – expedition trips to familiarize themselves with flora and fauna, the study of mountain rocks. But in general, mountain tourism is overcoming the routes that take place in mountainous terrain at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters above sea level.
Parameters that determine the complexity of the mountain route – the length of the path in kilometers, duration in days and the complexity of the passes. There are six categories of difficulty, and within the same category routes can also vary greatly and require different levels of training.
For hikes of low complexity tourists need a good physical shape and special hiking clothing, for extreme routes will require professional skills and special equipment.
Many people confuse it with mountain climbing. Of course, they have a lot in common, but we can not say that it is the same thing. So let’s look at the features of mountain tourism, how it differs from mountain climbing and in what countries it is most popular.
What is mountain tourism
The main feature of mountain tourism – the movement of a group of people in the mountainous terrain on a certain, pre-compiled, route. Typically, such hikes are made at significant altitudes above sea level. This is quite a complex load on all muscle groups, because mountain hikers do not look for easy ways, and the obstacles are encountered regularly.
Not only do you need to be able to overcome the passes, traverses peaks, and make radial ascent. One of the features of mountain tourism is that long obstacles in it are not evaluated. So if you just cross the mountain river – it does not count.
Tourist’s equipment.
For a simple campaign special equipment and clothing can be useful to the minimum. Literally hiking clothing, special shoes, protective outerwear from the weather, a tent, a sleeping bag.
Technological progress has not bypassed the active tourism, and hiking enthusiasts can choose clothing, indispensable in a temporary stay in nature: it’s breathable, but wind and moisture resistant T-shirts, jackets, hats, gloves. For particularly harsh conditions you can buy, as they call it, phantom mask – or a special hat that covers the whole head and has eye slits, it is usually used with protective mountaineering goggles. But this in winter, in summer the normal sports sunglasses will do.
Boots are the most important part of the hiker’s closet. They do not need to save money and buy shoes from a reputable manufacturer of shoes for hiking and trekking in wet weather still does not hurt to use shoe covers – socks from waterproof material, which are worn directly over the shoes.
Special equipment should be chosen in accordance with the experience of the participant, to be adequate to the route, its complexity and duration.