{"id":22962,"date":"2023-06-09T16:15:10","date_gmt":"2023-06-09T21:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.everest.com\/everestdigest\/\/?p=22962"},"modified":"2025-10-08T02:29:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T07:29:32","slug":"what-is-backcountry-hiking-six-crucial-things-to-keep-in-mind-before-your-backcountry-hike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everest.com\/everestdigest\/what-is-backcountry-hiking-six-crucial-things-to-keep-in-mind-before-your-backcountry-hike\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Backcountry Hiking? Six Crucial Things to Keep in Mind Before Your Backcountry Hike"},"content":{"rendered":"

When HIGHLANDER<\/a> production specialist and extreme adventurer Dario Šimatić<\/a> — or Šime, as most know him — traveled to the Svaneti region of Georgia last year, he and a friend had planned to spend two weeks hiking in the high mountains of the Caucasus. Almost immediately, the duo decided to stay a few days in the Shkhara range, the country’s highest point that sits at over 10,000 feet above sea level along the Russian border, and is riddled with glaciers, military bases, and wild rivers. The pair walked for days, sleeping to the sounds of glaciers moving under the clearest sky imaginable, far from any civilization.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Šime has worked in the outdoor event industry for years, and in 2018, he completed his first-ever 100-kilometer HIGHLANDER adventure, a long-distance, multi-day backcountry hiking experience<\/a> with a Leave No Trace focus that helps individuals connect with Mother Nature and other humans through educational lectures, yoga classes, stargazing, documentary screenings, and hiking dozens of miles in the world’s most untouched, breathtaking locations. It was this enriching experience that prepared him for what he was about to conquer on the Georgian expedition.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

After five days of living in the highest portion of Caucasus, Šime decided to choose a path and head toward Mestia, a mountain town in the heart of green Svaneti, which at the time was a four-day hike away. Over the next 96 hours, the backpackers hiked 160 kilometers and overcame around 9,000 feet of elevation gain. If the distance and climbing were not strenuous enough, the two also had to contend with water shortages, sunburns, altitude adjustments, crossing a wild river in near-impossible conditions, trudging through mid-summer snow, warding off Caucasian guard dogs, and — at some point between the Shkhara range and Mestia — some old-fashioned wrestling with a local of Caucasus (where severe mountain life is said to predispose its people to the martial art’s mastery).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

It was all in good fun — “an honor,” as Šime put it — but the harmless grappling resulted in an injury to the hiker’s interclavicular ligament, an ailment he was unaware of until he slung his backpack over his shoulders and set off on the remaining 45-kilometer hike toward Mestia. However, he would not have changed a thing.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

“I couldn’t lie in bed, but I could walk as long as I needed to,” Šime says, recalling the final kilometers of his unforgettable backcountry journey. “With a high level of excitement and good will — and a little help from painkillers — I came to Mestia in two days. Although, after everything, I looked like I had been through a disaster, I was happy, fulfilled, and richer for having my many experiences, and I have no regrets.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

“I believe that every kilometer of backcountry adventure makes you stronger and more prepared for all conditions that may come in life. It’s always nice to recognize the hero in yourself again.”<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

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