What's In Our Backpack
This past spring, my writing-partner-for-all-things-outdoors and I had the idea to try to hike New Hampshire’s 48 mountains over 4,000-feet tall in just 48 days. While an injury derailed our quest before ticking all 48 summits in the allotted period, the massive amount of trail time—and driving time—led to a few articles for Eastern Mountain Sports’ goEast blog. One such post was our article, Top to Bottom: Gear to Hike the NH 48, in which we detailed everything from how to layer and which shoes to choose to what type of pack to carry when hiking a New Hampshire 4,000-footer.
As the saying goes, one good thing leads to another, and we were able to parlay this into two more articles for goEast: What’s in Your Fall Hiking Backpack? and What’s in Our Winter Peak-Bagging Backpack? What was exciting about these pieces was the chance to share with EMS customers the systems and methods we've been developing over the years for hiking these iconic mountains efficiently, safely, and comfortably. In addition to relying on our experience on the trail, we also drew on our time in the industry to use each article as an opportunity to answer the common questions White Mountain hikers ask EMS staff.
These articles served EMS in multiple ways. First, they helped establish Eastern Mountain Sports as more than a retailer, but a resource. While the company’s motto, "not just knowledge, know how," has been retired, the spirit is still there and pieces like this help bring it into the digital age. Furthermore, this blog serves as a sales tool while retaining a sense of subtlety. By providing a well-thought-out explanation for carrying and using these items, there is an enticement for the reader to purchase them.
Although we’ve written about the three major seasons, there is still plenty of room to fill in and add on to these blogs. The best part is we can always backlink to them and update the products and hyperlinks to keep them fresh.
If you're interested in learning more about the three What's in Our Backpack? blogs, check out the links below:
http://goeast.ems.com/gear-to-hike-the-nh-48/