Heat, Shade, and Turning Back Early
We've talked about cold mornings and why I like them. This lesson is about the other end of the thermometer, and what to do when the trail gets hot enough to matter.
Utah County summers do not warm up gently. By nine in the morning in July, the canyon can already be pushing eighty-five, and there's not much shade on most of these trails once you're up past the first quarter mile. The dry air makes it worse. You sweat and it evaporates so fast you don't notice you're losing water. You feel fine right up until you don't.
Here's the plain version. Heat is not a mood. It's a math problem, and the math is water in versus water out. You already know I ran that math wrong once and paid for it on the walk back. I'm not going to tell that story again here, you've heard it. This lesson is about what to actually do so you don't have your own version of it.
Plan around the heat, not through it
The simplest fix is timing. Walk early. I mean early, six to seven in the morning in the summer months, before the sun gets over the ridge and starts cooking the trail. The temperature difference between a six a.m. start and a nine a.m. start can be fifteen degrees by the time you're on your way down. That's not a small thing at elevation.
If you can't walk early, walk somewhere with tree cover, and know that most canyon trails around here don't have much of it until you're well up the drainage. Look at the trail before you go. If the first mile is exposed switchbacks with no shade, that's your hot mile, and you should treat it like one.
Read your own body honestly
You don't need a lot of gear for this. You need to pay attention to a few real signs.
If you stop sweating on a hot day, that's not a good sign, that's a bad one. It means your body's cooling system is falling behind. If your urine is dark, you're behind on water and should have been drinking more an hour ago. If you get a headache or feel lightheaded standing up, stop, get in whatever shade exists, and drink.
None of this requires a watch or an app. I've said before I don't wear the heart rate monitor anymore. Same idea here. Your body tells you what you need to know if you're willing to listen to it instead of a screen.
Turn back early, and mean it
We've talked about turning around before you want to when it comes to distance and energy. Heat is the same principle with a shorter fuse. If it's hot and you're already low on water at the halfway point, that's not a maybe. Turn around. The trail will be there next Tuesday morning at six a.m. when it's forty degrees cooler.
This is where I have to be honest about my own gap. I build a plan for a walk and I like finishing what I planned. If a walk needs to get cut short because of heat, I need somebody to say it plainly, because I won't always read it in myself fast enough. If you're walking with me and you're hot and done, tell me straight out. Don't wait for me to notice, because I might be slower to notice than I should be.
The complaining is the toll, not the whole story
My grandson came on an easy loop with me once, height of summer, and complained the entire first mile. Too hot, too far, why are we doing this. I didn't argue with him. I just kept us moving slow, made sure he drank water at every stop whether he asked for it or not, and let him complain. Somewhere past the first mile he found a snake skin off the side of the trail, a full shed, and he talked about that snake skin for a solid week afterward. Told his mother about it twice.
What I took from that is the complaining is the toll you pay to get to the good part. On a hot day, the toll gets steeper. Kids complain louder, adults get quiet and stubborn instead, which is honestly worse because you can't tell how they're doing. Either way, the job is the same. Keep them drinking, keep the pace slow, and don't mistake grumbling for a reason to push harder just to get it over with.
What to actually pack
Bring more water than you think you need. I'd rather you carry an extra half liter home unused than run out at the turnaround. A hat helps more than people expect, mostly because it keeps the sun off your neck and out of your eyes so you're not squinting and tensing your whole body for two miles. Electrolyte stuff, I'll be straight with you, I don't know enough to advise you well there. Ask someone who actually studies that. I just make sure I've got water and I drink it before I'm thirsty, not after.
Before next time
Look up the sunrise time this week and see how early you'd need to leave the house to be on the trail by seven. Even if you don't do it yet, know the number.