Music on the trail

2000 miles is a long way and most hikers will find patches where they find the going dull or their spirits sagging. For me, music has proved a pretty good way to take the edge off of the more wearing stretches of a long hike. I’ve used a few different players on the trail and they’ve all had their good and bad points and these aren’t always apparent until they’ve been used in anger.

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MP3 players range from the full size, hard disc models that’ll hold an entire record collection, to dinky solid-state models carrying a fraction of the capacity. The primary advantage of any of them over a tuner is that you choose the music that you like to listen to when you want to hear it. This is of special importance to anyone with taste at odds to the mainstream, and it allows you to pick music to fit your mood – nothing helps get up that 3000ft climb like a medley of Rocky training montage tunes.

When looking for a player, consider the following:

Storage

Storage sizes typically range from ~1 GB to ~100 GB. This typically equates to approximately 15 to 1500 hours of playback. This is the difference between listening to the same songs over-and-over again and never having to listen to the same song twice. Decide whether you need to be able to carry all the music for the entire trip. If you have the opportunity to change the selection mid-trip then you may get away with a smaller, cheaper lighter model than otherwise would be the case. Some models now use plug-in memory cards for storage, which might allow you more flexibility than those with built-in memory, especially if your camera takes the same kind. I coped happily with a 512MB player for a month on the PCT, but I couldn’t have gone three more without a change. The ‘Apple-standard’ 240 songs per Gigabyte can be greatly stretched if you’re willing to accept a little compromise in sound quality. Plenty of software utilities are available that allow you to re-encode your music at a lower bit rate and in mono. A little experimenting should help you strike an agreeable balance.

Power

Solid state players are available with either built-in rechargeable batteries or replaceable AA or AAAs. Some, like the previous model of iPod Shuffle had a built-in battery, but allowed for the addition of an external pack to extend the life. The larger hard-disc models seem to use exclusively in-built batteries.

For players with built-in batteries, typical battery life is between about 10 and 20 hours. An average leg between towns is about four days, so this would seem just about adequate for many people. Mains or USB chargers are available and, of course, need to be carried. The USB chargers tend to be smaller, but you’re then reliant upon finding a computer you can hook up to for a couple of hours. Some mains chargers can be downsized through a spot of rewiring to shorten the length of the flex. Remember that you’re going to need to find somewhere to charge in every town – simple enough if you’re planning on staying the night, but harder if you’re flying through. We found that many businesses were willing to let us leave batteries charging with them if we asked nicely enough.

Replaceable batteries offer far more flexibility than built-ins. AA and AAA batteries are available most anywhere with a store. The best batteries to use on trail have proved to be lithium-ion models, which are both lighter weight and last several times longer than alkalines. If your camera takes the same type of batteries as your music player, then life gets easier still.

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Tuners offer the promise of an endless variety of programming as well as being cheap, (generally) reliable, and easy to replace. In addition, they can provide useful weather information, keep you informed of what’s in the news, and provide an insight into the local culture. Most all tuners will pick up FM; those with AM reception too tend to be much bulkier (to accommodate the antenna) though not necessarily much heavier. Most models have replaceable batteries and I generally got around two weeks of use out of a single lithium ion AA in my player.

Radio sounds ideal on the face of things; however, it’s worth bearing a few things in mind. Firstly, there is “endless variety” in potential alone. In reality (when hiking the AT and PCT anyway), half of the FM stations will endlessly repeat a dozen or so tracks from the popular charts; the numerous “classic rock” stations each seem contracted to play Satisfaction, Alright Now, Another One Bites the Dust and Taking Care of Business at least three times a day; the only country stations I’ve ever found eschew Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard in favour of sub-Billy Ray Cyrus standard tat. Just occasionally you might stumble across an independent station that plays something outside of this selection, but their range is usually limited and a few days’ company with these is often the best you can hope for. So, be sure that you can enjoy or at least tolerate this as a selection.

Secondly, reception is likely to be very variable. As often as not you’ll be hiking up and down mountains. At the peaks you might enjoy crystal clear programming from a twenty stations, but as soon as you dip down a hundred feet you can be left with nothing more than distorted Billy Ray Cyrus. The constant need to hunt around for stations is at best frustrating and at worst exhausting to the point that you abandon the whole endeavour. Rest assured, this will happen at times when you most need the morale boost.

Thirdly, a radio can provide a great link to the outside world, but just be sure you want that. For many hikers, some of the appeal of hiking is to get away from precisely such things. FM listeners are largely limited to NPR for their current affairs programming, while AM offers the joys of live baseball coverage and talk radio (on the PCT, I could pick up a Reno talk radio station for almost an entire 1000 mile stretch – offering the curious (if not entirely relaxing) experience of a daily Savage/O’Reilly double header)

Personally, I was able to weather the storm of unfavourable programming and poor reception and generally found the radio to be agreeable company. As a foreigner visiting the US, it also added an enjoyable extra dimension of cultural tourism to the trip.

Satellite radio could be the answer to the problems of reception and limited programming inherent in traditional tuners. However, when I last looked at the options for portable players, there was still nothing that would be suitable for hiking. In time, I’m hopeful that someone will bring out a model with adequate battery life and charging options to make it a viable option.

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Hybrids

The best of both worlds? If there is a player out there that can do the job of a tuner and an MP3 player, without serious compromise, then I’m all for it. FM tuner modules are small and inexpensive and manufacturers are increasingly building them into their MP3 models with little impact on size or cost. However, in my (limited) experience they often require a stronger signal than a good standalone tuner to work. The one hybrid I’ve hiked with functioned passably as a tuner in the city, but performed miserably once out on the trail – picking up a single station intermittently where the dedicated tuner I replaced it with picked up a dozen.

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Reliability and Expendability

Failure of a player on the trail is likely to be a pain – however stoically you take the loss itself. You might be able to get to a town to pick up a replacement, but restocking an MP3 player with music on the trail is unlikely to be an option for many hikers. In general, tuners and solid state MP3 players should prove more reliable than hard-drive equipped devices - especially if you’re prone to dropping things. It’s not easy to predict how a given model will hold up to life on the trail, but at least be sure to pick up a model that feels like it’s built to last. My PCT player didn’t feel the most robust in the store and so it proved – the casing shattering into so many pieces after a few weeks use (and a few clumsy drops). Water ingress can also be a killer and while I wouldn’t rely on any player to be waterproof, if it claims to be water resistant then so much the better. There are a couple of trail-specific problems to watch out for that can be averted through exercising due care: for models with replaceable batteries sweat ingress into the battery compartment can lead to an unpleasant demise, turning the innards to a corroded mess. If you’re using DEET based bug-repellent, be aware that this can act as a powerful solvent on some plastics – one tuner I hiked with suffered plenty of cosmetic damage as my DEET covered fingers left indelible prints on the casing.

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Before splashing the cash on a fancy new player, give a little thought to what losing it would mean to you. I never gave a second thought to the cheap machines I’ve taken with me and was usually happy to leave them in my pack out in the street when visiting stores and restaurants in towns. I doubt whether I could have adopted the same laissez-faire attitude if I’d been carrying a shiny new $400 mega player and I’m not sure if the upsides of the machine could justify the worry. For me much of the appeal of hiking is the freedom from concern about such things, and in those stressful situations that the trail can throw up – such as fording chest-deep streams – nagging worries about the welfare of that very expensive and highly prized box of electronics are not going to do you any favours.

- Ben Corr