The first frost hike of the year is where summer confidence goes to shiver. Every October I relearn the same five lessons, so this year I wrote them down.
The short list
Warm layer in the bag even for a two-hour loop. Gloves before your hands ask. Headtorch, because four o’clock is the new dusk. A flask, because morale is a piece of kit. And half a kilometre off your summer pace — ice under leaves doesn’t announce itself.
Nothing on that list costs more than a round of coffees. All of it beats new boots.