Learn what to wear in any weather
You’ll need
- Winter hiking gear (including thermals, fleeces, woolly hats, woolly gloves and winter overcoats)
- Summer hiking gear (including sun hat, shorts, T-shirts and sun cream)
- All-weather hiking and camping gear (including waterproofs, hiking boots, gaiters, survival bag, rucksack, tent, sleeping bag, roll mat, hiking poles, water bottle, flask, first aid kit, whistle, torch, map and compass)
- An old pair of jeans and a pair of walking trousers
Before you begin
- Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
- Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers
Setting up this activity
- Spread out all of the clothing and equipment in the centre of the meeting place.
- If there's not enough clothing for everyone to use, consider printing out pictures or writing the names of items on pieces of paper and put them in the middle of the room.
- Create a list of scenarios or weather events that might be experienced during a hike or expedition.
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- Scenarios could include: A sunny day in the Peak District, winter walking in the Cairngorms, a night hike in spring on a beach in Devon or a walk from Brighton to Lewes.
- Weather conditions could include: sun, rain, wind, snow and hailstones. Think about including different lengths of hike, with anything between a couple of hours and a two-day expedition.
- If you get a moment and have some old jeans and outdoor walking trousers lying around, soak both in water at the start of the session. Hang both pairs of trousers up to dry during the session. You can then come back to them at the end to show everyone how quickly they've dried.
Explaining the game
- Gather everyone together in a circle.
- Explain that everyone will be given a scenario for going walking or hiking. From the information given and from the equipment provided, they need to decide what they would wear. They'll be working in groups and two people from each group should run to the centre of the activity area to collect the equipment that they feel is suitable for use in that scenario. The two people will then need to take the equipment back to their group, where it should be laid out on the floor as it would be worn on a person.
- Split everyone into four groups and have each one group go to a different part of the room or space.
Choosing the clothes
- Give everyone their first scenario. Groups have two minutes to collect their equipment and dress/equip their imaginary person.
- Start with a simple scenario, such as: ‘A sunny day hike in the Peak District’.
- Each time the scenarios could get harder, but try to cover a variety of different conditions and times of year.
- You could think about adding in changes part way through, such as: ‘A storm is building while you’re walking in the Yorkshire Dales in the middle of summer. What equipment do you need to protect yourself?’
- When the two minutes is up, ask each group about what they've chosen and why.
- When finished, everyone should put everything back into the middle of the room and give them the next scenario and repeat the process.
- Each group should now send two different people to collect the gear from the centre of the activity area. They should continue to swap roles for each subsequent scenario so everyone gets a go.
Showing it in action
- At the end of the session, if you prepared some earlier, check on the wet walking trousers and jeans. Demonstrate how the hiking trousers (should) have dried out over the course of the session, whereas the jeans will still be sodden, cold and very uncomfortable. Ask the group to see if anyone can explain why.
Navigator activity badge
You can tailor the scenarios to the stage that is being completed to help people get the badge:
- Stage 3: everyone needs some understanding of what equipment to take and why.
- Stage 4: everyone should know more detail about the uses of each piece of equipment, such as what’s essential and non-essential, and discuss this with their peers.
- Stage 5: everyone should have detailed knowledge of all of the equipment you’d bring on an expedition, including personal medical equipment, emergency equipment and group equipment, and everyone should also be able to explain why each piece of equipment is needed and what they’d do if something got lost, broken or was left behind.
Reflection
Understanding how to dress appropriately for a hike or expedition helps you stay safe and comfortable when you’re out walking. The weather can change at any time and bringing along the necessary equipment will keep you prepared.
It might be frustrating sometimes to have to carry more than you feel you’ll need, but you can never guarantee what’ll happen when you’re outdoors.
What should you do if you lose a piece of essential equipment on a hike? How about a piece of non-essential equipment?
You had to discuss and work together to decide on the correct items for each scenario.
How did your group agree upon the best equipment? Sometimes the most suitable equipment isn’t available. How did you work around issues like this to help your imaginary hiker cope with the scenario?
Safety
All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.
- Active games
The game area should be free of hazards. Explain the rules of the game clearly and have a clear way to communicate that the game must stop when needed. Take a look at our guidance on running active games safely.
Depending on the variables in each scenario and the size of groups, this task will get easier or harder.
For each scenario, groups could nominate a person (a different person each time) to dress in the clothes/gear they collect, though this may mean groups need more time.
Make sure all equipment is suitably accessible for everyone.
Anyone who’d prefer not to collect the gear or clothes could perform another role, like dressing the imaginary hiker, or could leave their group and help think up scenarios and variables with the person leading the activity.
All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.
Everyone should pack clothes and equipment for an imaginary, scenario-based weekend expedition and camp. Check each person’s kit and everyone should explain why they chose each item.
The scenario can be as simple or detailed as you wish, but those taking part should be reminded to check the weather forecast before packing!
They should also consider how large their group will be, as this will influence how much water, first aid and survival equipment they’ll need to bring along.
Everyone was able to choose items of clothing and equipment that they thought were useful in each individual scenario.
For a more youth-led session, young people could help come up with and decide upon the scenarios beforehand, then have the person leading the activity read them out in no particular order.