Gloucester has many beautiful trails to take advantage of this summer as hiking season kicks off.

It is important to remember that safety should always be a top priority. Being prepared can make an enormous difference in your experience.

Gloucester County Park Ranger Holly Trombetto listed some important tips to help insure a smooth, safe hiking experience in the Gloucester Park trails.

“Letting someone know where you’re going is number one, for safety,” said Trombetto. “It’s always good, before you go on a hike, to let someone know where you’re going and if you don’t tell anybody, leave a note: ‘This is where I’ll be, I’m leaving at this time, and I should be back by this time, and if not, call someone to come find me.’”

“Make sure you have enough water, snacks, you know, for how long your hike is,” Trombetto added. “Proper foot wear is key, making sure you either have durable hiking boots, or trail shoes of some kind, there’s a bunch out there now.” She also recommended checking the weather.

“Always have a trail map with you,” she said. “There’s a bunch of apps out there now, you can get trail maps and download them on your phone, or stop at the ranger station and grab a map, or you know, talk to someone who’s hiked it, or Facebook groups, or things like that. Be sure that you know where you’re going and what you’re getting yourself into for your hiking level, like skill level.”

“When on the trail, it’s tick season, making sure you have high enough socks on,” she explained. “Personally, I tuck my pants into my socks, it helps. Tucking your shirt in. Any loose fabric will catch ticks.” Using bug spray, or pretreating hiking clothes with Permethrine can help to prevent ticks, mosquitos and deerflies, she said. “There are a lot of tick-borne illnesses.”

Staying on trail is also important when it comes to hiking, Trombetto added. “Making sure you’re not trampling any native plants, but also making sure that you’re not picking up poison ivy. Poison ivy is everywhere. It climbs up trees, it climbs on the ground—leaves of three, let it be.”

Knowing the number for the Ranger Station can be important, in case you get lost. “We have a number you can call and we would come help,” she said. “Pay attention to mile markers or to your trail signs to prevent getting lost, but if it does happen, make sure you know who to call, and if not, call 911, and someone will get to you.” She also encouraged knowing where you parked and making sure you know where you’re headed is crucial to not getting lost.

“If there’s a trail sign-in, sign into the trail head,” she emphasized. “That way, at the end of the day if you’re still out there and your car is parked, at least someone knows who you are and how to get ahold of you.”

“Stop for breaks. Make sure that you’re not pushing yourself, especially if it’s hot outside,” she advised. “If you know that you have physical limitations, like a knee problem or an ankle problem, come with the right equipment. Bring trekking poles, maybe do a shorter hike if you find that it’s strenuous.” Having a hiking buddy can also offer more safety, she added.

She included bringing a first aid kit. “I like to bring electrolytes in my pack,” she offered. “They have those little packet things now you can just carry with you. It’s good if you’re sweating a lot. You run the risk of heat stroke, so you know, be aware of that.”

Like Gloucester Parks, Machicomoco State Park also offers many great trails for anyone looking to get out in nature. Joel Neville, Chief Ranger of Visitor Experience at the State Park, also offered some safety tips for setting off on a hike.

“There’s like a GI Joe quote: knowing is half the battle,” quoted Neville. “So research would be the first thing you should do before hiking anywhere, because different places have different rules.”

“Most places want you to stay on trail and most places will have water somewhere, so you should know where that water is,” he said. “If you’re hiking at a Virginia State Park, you can just look up the trail map and find out like, oh there’s a water fountain here.”

“Along with research, checking the weather for the hiking and bringing the appropriate clothing for the weather,” he added. “Dressing appropriately, knowing all of the rules of where you’re going, like can you bring a dog, stuff like that,” is important.

He encouraged knowing how long you can be out, and telling someone where you are going. “If you’re hiking somewhere new, you should probably tell someone that you’re going to hike at that place and tell them at what time you’re going to hike and that way, if some crazy thing happened and you went missing, they could tell the police exact details on where you were.”

“You should follow ‘leave no trace’ principles,” he advised. “That’s less of a hike safety thing and more of a respectful thing, but there are some safety tips in there, so follow ‘leave no trace’ principles.” He also included not eating plants along the hike.

“Bring plenty of water, bring a map, bring snacks,” he said. “Especially in the summer, you want water plus some kind of salty snack. A lot of people think that potato chips are bad, but potato chips are a really good trail snack because they’re lightweight and salty and full of fat. All of those things are good for sweating in the heat … but plenty of water is the big one. And if you’re not going to bring salty snacks, have some sort of electrolyte drink like Gatorade.”

Neville also highlighted sun protection. “That goes in line with dressing for the weather, but if you were going to hike this loop trail,” he said, pointing towards a walking trail around Machicomoco, “there’s very little shade, so you’d want to bring sunglasses, a hat, sunscreen, or a long sleeve, lightweight shirt that protects you from the sun.”

“Some trails do want you to check in,” he said, “So if you see a place to check in, you should check in. But Virginia State Parks, you don’t have to check in. If you want to say hi to one of the park rangers when you come in, they’d be happy to talk to you, and you’d get the low-down on some of the stuff.” The rangers would be able to let you know which trails are muddy and things of that nature. “It’s never bad to talk to people even if it’s not a required check-in. I mean, it’s their job; they would love to talk to you. Plus, it gets someone, like if you were to go missing, they’d be like yeah, we saw her here.”

Neville also suggested using an app with trail maps. “There’s this app called Avenza and it’s basically an app that just has a bunch of maps on it … every Virginia State Park has their State Park map uploaded … Machicomoco has a map and when we update our trails, they get updated on this map. The really cool thing about it, there’s two really cool things about it, is that One, as long as you have the map downloaded before your hike, even if you lose service, it shows you where you are. Like it shows you a little blue dot where you’re standing. The other thing is you can pin stuff … If I come across a downed tree, I can put a little GPS location and when I go back to that Park Ranger, I can say—there’s a little downed tree right there.”

“Take plenty of breaks,” he encouraged. “The average person walks I think about two miles an hour, that’s an average pace for someone to walk. So be aware of what you can do. Know your limitations. Everybody has limitations and everyone should know them.”

“You should wear bug spray,” he said. “Apparently both Becardin and Deet, you know those are like the major bug sprays, both of those only work against ticks for the first 15 minutes after application. They’re great for mosquitoes; they have like 12-hour protection against mosquitos.”

As for ticks, the best defense is tucking pants into socks, he said. “That’s like A-1 defense, and then two, check yourself when you get home. If you find a tick within 24 hours of it getting on you, biting you and latching on—if you find it within those 24 hours and remove it, it greatly reduces the chance of getting some sort of disease from it. It’s just the way the tick’s digestive system works, essentially.” He also mentioned mesh tick gaiters.

Keeping dogs on leash when hiking can help prevent negative animal interactions. “That’s the source of a lot of bad human-wildlife interactions. A dog chases the wildlife and then the wildlife harms the dog and the human tries to intervene and they get hurt, too,” Neville said.

“Any animal, you should leave it alone. Don’t try to get close to it, give it its space … and don’t feed them. People love to feed animals and it’s bad for the animals.” Not only is a lot of human food bad for the animal’s digestive system, but feeding them can cause them to think humans are a good place to source food. “Then they’re going to go bother other humans who might not have food and then they set that human up for a negative interaction with the animal. That’s a common thing with black bears, and a lot of black bears have been killed for that reason.”

“With bears, and with any predator, we were just talking about giving them their space—you never want to run. We’ve all seen someone run from a dog and the dog’s like: I’m gonna chase it—it’s the same thing with predators. If you run they’re like: oh that’s prey and I should chase the prey.”

When it comes to snakes, “leave them alone,” Neville said. “That’s basically it, leave snakes alone. Be aware that there’s a bunch of them out there and you’re going to have trouble seeing them. Some people say if you make a lot of noise it scares away snakes, I don’t know about that. I’ve definitely come across snakes and clapped at them and they look at me like: what’s this guy doing? Definitely don’t throw things at them. If they’re on a trail, I just walk around them,” he said.

If you were to get bit by a snake, he explains what to know and what to do. “Here in this part of Virginia, you’re not going to find rattlesnakes, you’re just going to find copperheads … You should know what a copperhead looks like, and if you get bit, stay calm. I know that sounds hard to do. You can tell yourself, and this is a true fact, that a lot of bites are dry bites. They don’t want to lose that venom, so it’s not like they’re injected venom in every bite. Obviously, you need to go to the hospital as soon as possible, but you don’t want to panic, so just tell yourself: maybe it was a dry bite, I’m calm,” said Neville.

“Then, go ahead and do your best to get to the hospital. Call 911, talk it out with the operator … Say you were down that trail and copperhead bit you. You could call 911, tell them: hey a copperhead just bit me, I’m at this location, I’m going to head to this location, I’m gonna try to walk back to the trail head parking lot. Then they would call our law enforcement officer who would come and meet you here,” he explained. Even if the snake is non-venomous, he recommends still going to the hospital, as you could get an infection from the bite. “Don’t try and suck out the venom—it’s proven that it doesn’t work.”

“Take a good look at that snake and be able to describe it if you don’t know what kind of snake it was,” he added. “It’s going to be way more useful for the hospital.” Knowing its head shape and color are the most important details.

“But you probably won’t get bit,” he assured. “One time I walked up right on top of a rattle snake and didn’t know it was there. It was rattling, I had my earbuds in, I was like man this is a cool/weird background noise in this song. I looked down and it was looking right at me and I—just in the process of trying to back away—tripped and then I was just on the ground with it and it just stayed rattling at me. They’re not out to get you.”

“First aid kit,” he added. “Maybe not everyone wants to bring a first aid kit, but if we’re being textbook … you should probably bring some sort of backpack with plenty of water, a first aid kit, and a map. If you know how to use a compass you can bring a map and a compass, if you don’t know how to use a compass, it’s not going to do much for you.”

“If you think it’s going to thunderstorm, don’t hike anywhere close to water,” he advised. “I don’t remember the exact distance, but I think it’s within a mile that you should not be hiking if it’s thunderstorming. And don’t stand under a tree in thunderstorms. That’s bad because trees are essentially big lightning rods. You’re safer in your car.”