Welcome to episode 158 of the first 40 miles.

If you're new to backpacking or if you're hopelessly in love with someone who wants you to love backpacking,

then this podcast is for you we'll talk about the

essentials how to lighten your load and how to make the most of your time on the

trail I'm your host Heather Legler. And I'm Josh Legler. And this is the first 40 miles.

Today on the first 40 miles, we're at the time of year when hiking and backpacking have unique challenges and we're up to the challenge.

Listen in on our planning session, then find out which hike gets the top vote.

Next, a man, a plan, a can, a can Joe.

Believe it or not, we've found another trail-worthy instrument that can help you while away the dark winter

nights and the dark winter days.

And we'll share a backpackable recipe that will probably push you over your

pumpkin pie spice threshold. All this and that's about it. Today, on the first 40 miles.

I have been looking forward to this episode for

Hikes that we want to do and we're going to let all of our first 40-milers listen in.

So the homework that Josh and I both got was to come to the table today with three to four solid ideas for a winter day hike with our family.

What if I came with eight ideas? What if I came with eight ideas?

What if you came with eight ideas?

We'll just have to whittle, whittle harder.

Wow, you are an overachiever, I love it.

Okay, so the goal here is to take a wintertime day hike in the next couple months, right?

And over the next few minutes, we're going to try to whittle down the ideas that you brought

and I brought to a list of five ideas and then

...