Why Choose to Trek with Nature Trail?

Why would an experienced trekker choose to pay to participate on a trek led by Nature Trail?

We’re Safer than Going Solo/Independent:

Venturing solo on a trek is high-risk, should anything go wrong out there in remote wilderness out of mobile/cell phone reception range. This is irrespective of one’s trekking skills, fitness and experience, as experts will attest to. Any expert can slip, fall, get snake-bitten, become injured, fall ill, succumb to hypothermia, become lost and benighted, or have gear failure, etcetera, and worse – the above scenarios combined!

The adventurous fun lure of heading off on a multi-day trek with a few mates who may be keen but lacking in experience is fraught with mishap. Being unprepared, not knowing the route/hazards/risks, and who budget and skimp on carrying all the right gear – poses similarly inherent high-risks. Going with one or more incompetent persons can put you at a greater risk than actually going it alone. We term it ‘Two-Up trekking‘ as in the traditional Australian gambling game. The outcome odds are 50/50 – you or your group either are luckily and return ok, else not so ok.

Often times young people with naturally adventurous spirits believe that they are bullet-proof and that nothing can happen to them. They are yet without life’s gift of wisdom which comes with consciously learning from experience and the experience of others, but no necessarily with age.

Respect your loved ones by not risking becoming a solo outdoor adventure statistic – fatality or missing. No-one is bullet-proof, even the best of the best. Please learn from this video.

We’re Safer than Club Bushwalking:

Saving money by tagging along with some bushwalking club of volunteers who mean well and apply their own experience is similarly fraught with high-risk.

From our personal earlier experiences, a club trip leader is typically skill-experienced but is formally unqualified in hiking/trekking protocols, leadership or people leadership skills – so they tend to do things ‘their way or the highway’. They may not have trekked the particular route for some time, if ever.

Typically a club bushwalk is more of a mission and social affair; a culture of heading off at a cracking pace A to B ASAP, invariably all head-down in a conga line, incessantly chatting and gossiping amongst themselves on social topics, oblivious to their surroundings as if the environment walked through is merely incidental. Any cause for pausing for say flora enquiry or photos is completely frowned upon. Club bushwalking is a culture unto its own.

Often the trip leader elects enroute to go “exploratory” off-track involving an unannounced ‘bush-bash’; then remembers to warn everyone of “some exposure” – that is, you’re suddenly confronted with a narrow unfenced cliff-side track in which any slip would be fatal. ‘Clubbers’ also dabble in unqualified exploratory canyoning with a bad reputation.

Club bushwalking is cheap for a reason.

We Specialise in Trekking: Nature Trail was established in 2013 to specialise in commercial day-hiking tours and independent multi-day trekking. Quite unrelated, we offer road tours to a quite different target market.

Whereas our local commercial competition focus on different adventure activities (abseiling, rock-climbing, canyoning mainly). Our local competition also offer day hiking as an optional extra, but hiking is not their core specialty, and especially not trekking over multiple days – those that do, provide everything and charge a fortune accordingly.

Independent trekking through the Blue Mountains is our specialty.

Blue Mountains Knowledge: Nature Trail is based in Katoomba in the heart of the Blue Mountains. This has been our home since 2001, and we have been hiking and trekking here since 1995 and we have local knowledge. We are familiar with many areas, their trails, the route timings, best campsites, safe drinking water sources, the risks and hazards and the weather variations.

We know how many trail routes inter-connect with other routes which gives us added options in scenarios where it becomes wise to vary a trek, such as an incident, emergency or unforeseen track closure (e.g. recent landslip).

Compare us with mostly Sydney-based operators based some 100km away who may offer hikes in the Blue Mountains but after a 2 hour drive, there is not much time left in a day, and then you have the return 2 hour drive in traffic. With the price of fuel around $2 per litre, why pay for two long noisy mini-bus rides?

Instead, we invite visitors to catch the train from Central Station to Katoomba Station (around $6), and each train has at least two quiet carriages. We can arrange to meet you at the station. We also recommend our tour guests stay over for one or two nights. We can suggest a range of local accommodation options to suit different budgets and we can happily transfer you to and from (not in a mini-bus) in our luxury Range Rover – compliments of Nature Trail.

Committed to Professional Trek Leadership:

“Since 2013, my tour operating business Nature Trail has drawn upon my 20+ years of hiking/trekking experience and subsequent learned knowledge of our vast Blue Mountains region.

I have personally invested in a trekking operation business to offer professionally led multi-day hiking/camping). This includes self-education/training, acquiring quality trek kit, quality nav tech, quality satcoms kit, and a quality 4×4 vehicle fully restored and kitted up to be remote-dependable at considerable cost. On top of this best practice preparedness, at the end of the day on every trek my priority is people management to ensure we get every participant back home in good safety, welfare and morale.”

~ Steve, Tour Director, Nature Trail.

Other choices are always out there.

Nature Trail’s Specific Features and Benefits:

(This is a work in progress)

Professionalism: Nature Trail prides itself as a professional operator delivering reliably high standard commercial treks.

To ensure attention to detail, over the years since being established, we have applied a best practice approach to prescribing our own policies and procedures to ensure high standards of trek delivery. This is to ensure that each trek trip is delivered in a professional manner with participant safety being paramount, and is comprehensively designed.

Nature Trail’s trek design policy requires that each trek is fully scoped (by area, route, waypoints, rest breaks, campsites, obstacle negotiation, risk analysis and mitigation, schedule, transport logistics, planning, scouted, practiced with others and emergency contingency/escape route prepared.

Also, each recurring trip of a given designed trek is planned.

organisation ed, trek leadership, , skilled in trekking (hiking, camping, trekking gear usage, bush craft, wilderness first aid). – safety, reliability and within the scope of each trek’s schedule, terrain limitations and the capability of each participant.

Nature Trail treks strive to deliver to Australian outdoor industry current best practice standards. For each commercial trek delivered, Nature Trail operates to three Australian recognised outdoor industry standards applicable to multi-day trekking:

The Bushwalking Good Practice Guide (as recommended as best practice by the Outdoor Council of Australia)
The Bushwalking Adventure Activity Standard (recommended as best practice by Outdoor Victoria)
The Camping Good Practice Guide (recommended as best practice by the Outdoor Council of Australia). IMPORTANT EXCLUSION: Each individual participant on any Nature trail trek agrees to accept full independent self-sufficiency in all trekking kit/supplies, rucksack-carried camping gear, food, drinking water, cooking gear, etc to meet the individual’s needs for the particular trek scope (duration, exertion, environmental conditions) as specified/notified in advance by Nature Trail, having no reliance upon other participants or upon the trek leader.

Exclusivity: Invitation to participate on a Nature Trail Trek is only extended to previously vetted members of Nature Trail’s Alumni Trekkers – those who are experienced and advanced multi-day trekkers and who have passed Nature Trail’s Trek Vetting Process. [Read More]

Group Safety: The old idiom ‘seek safety in numbers‘ particularly applies to trekking through remote wilderness over multiple days. Certainly in an incident or emergency scenario such as an injury, a competent group of experienced and skilled trekkers can do far more than an injured solo trekker. In case of snake bite this could be the difference between life and death. It is the responsibility of Nature Trail’s trek leader to manage the group dynamics, maintain cohesion and mitigate conflicts.

Small Group Sizes: Participant numbers (excluding the trek leader) are minimum of 4 and maximum of 7 (including the trek leader). Our minimum limit of 4 participants (including the trek leader) is to avoid the inherent risks insufficient individual numbers to enable appropriate survival capacity in the event of an emergency scenario.

Nature Trail’s maximum limit of 7 participants (including the trek leader) is to respect the ecologically-based recommendations of the Parks Service to minimise the adverse tramping impact risk of a group upon sensitive remnant wilderness ecology.

The Parks Service advises a maximum of 7 participants in any one group of hikers and trekkers through national parks within the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. Nature Trail’s policy is to respect and adhere to this ecologically-justified recommendation.

When participant numbers in applying for a given trek look set to exceed the 7 limit, Nature Trail will make arrangements for the excess numbers to partake on a separate trek trip up to a maximum of 7 (including the trek leader).

Trek Design: Each trek is comprehensively designed, and each trip pre-planned by Nature Trail’s Tour Director, Steve (an experienced local hiker of the Blue Mountains region for more than 20 years, familiar with many hiking tracks throughout the region. Steve holds a diploma graduate of Outdoor Recreation in the Blue Mountains from 2016 and is well trained in professional design, planning and delivery of treks.

Planning for Every Trip:

Reconnoitred: Each trek is recently field reconnoitered start to finish, with a schedule, identified hazards and obstacles, risk assessed and mitigated (In-field Risk Analysis Report) for risk mitigation, a current conditions forecast, safe campsites selection, evacuation contingencies.

Preparation for Every Trip:

Trip Leadership:

‘Group Field Leadership’, remote navigation, safety briefings, welfare monitoring, group cohesion, advanced hiking guidance as deemed appropriate.

Each Participant is Vetted: Participants are required to have first registered as Alumni Trekkers which requires satisfying Nature Trail’s rigorous eligibility criteria and tests. Members of the general public are not permitted to participate on any Nature Trail Trek, without first having first registered as an Alumni Trekkers.

This means that participants can be rest assured that fellow participants are suitably skilled, prepared and resourced to tackle the high personal demands of a trek with complete self-sufficiency. This is a strategy to mitigate the risk of participants not being able to complete a trek once started, and so cause a trek to be terminated before finishing.

Trek Notification: The Trek leader pre-lodges the trek route, schedule, satphione number, equipment kits and participant manifest with AMSA with a printed copy held at Nature Trail Base in Katoomba.

Remote Navigation: Equipment (weatherproof topographical map(s), Silva compasses.

Remote Technology: (altimeter, 4WD fited out with remote off-road equipment, HEMA HX-1 Navigator in-car and handheld satnavs, range finder, Garmin tactical Instinct GPS watch, Telstra satphone, GME personal locator beacon).

Advanced Trekking Skills: Bush Survival Skills, Wilderness First Aid Skills

Sustainable Pace & Daily Distance:

Remote wilderness hiking during daylight hours only mostly on track. Hike distance up to a maximum 10km or 6 hours per day, which ever the greater

Track conditions can be hard to very hard and may involve some rock scrambling

Over multiple days, weather conditions can change significantly en route

Each individual participant is required to be completely self-sufficient in all respects – hiking attire, kit, camp gear and hiking sustenance (food and water)

Trek outline supplied to booked participants a week in advance

Trek safety and instructional briefings are provided at start, finish and on a timely contextual basis throughout by the Trek leader as required

Restricted group numbers including Trek Leader: a safety minimum of 4, maximum of 10 participants

Each trekking route is pre-designed, trip planned and reconnoitered at least once, and risk assessed and risk mitigated

Participating trek group leadership, navigation (maps, compass and multiple GPS navigation devices), pre-selected safe campsites, remote group first aid kit & certified wilderness first aider, group kit support gear, applicant vetting, participant fully kit inspections before departure, trek details notification to the relevant authorities (NPWS and AMSA) group contingency support while en route – 24/7 satphone coms with NT Base, wilderness first aid, emergency communications, emergency evacuation management, weather and conditions pre-assessed.

Transport from Katoomba to trek start location and return to Katoomba from the finish location

Backup transport from en route evacuation waypoints back to Katoomba in the event of an incident or emergency

Public liability insurance is included.

Participant accident insurance is included.

Trek Preparation – Nature Trail’s trek leader designs and pre-plans each trek before being offered commercially – trek scope geographic area, trekking route, daily distances and durations, itinerary (with built-in flexibility), safe campsite selection, accommodation bookings if available and appropriate, arranged transfers and transport logistics, trek risk assessment and mitigation (obstacles, hazards, alternates), and emergency planning.

Our Trek Route Familiarity

Nature Trail’s trek leader reconnoitres each trek before being offered (within a month of a trek’s scheduled delivery.

Nature Trail’s trek leader vets all participants for suitability before acceptance on each trek

Our Treks are each designed and fully pre-planned – route, itinerary, risk assessed/mitigated, forecast conditions pre-evaluated (accesses/weather)

Our Treks only include pre-vetted members of our Trek Alumni, each of whom have proven to us their trekking experience, medical condition, suitable health, fitness, aptitude and self-sufficient kit – so we are in good company. For safety treks are only undertaken with a minimum of 4 participants and maximum 10 participants.

Our Treks are personally led from start to finish by Nature Trail’s experienced Trek Leader

Vital trekking group support kit is carried by Nature Trail’s Trek Leader – including a remote first aid kit, snake bite kit, group tarp, active satphone, emergency personal locator beacon (PLB)

Nature Trail pre-notifies each trek’s details (route, itinerary, camp sites, kits, and participant manifest) to local Police, NPWS and AMSA.

All required transport is supplied and else arranged by Nature Trail from Nature Trail Base in Katoomba from Trek Start to Trek and with return transport to Nature Trail Base

Complementary 4×4 transport to/from Nature Trail Base to each Trekking Tour’s start/finish locations with capacity for five trekkers including the Trek Leader/driver. Transport for any additional participants (5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, or 10th) will need to be pre-arranged with the Trek Leader.

Features and Benefits of Alumni Registration:

Restricted authorship access to Nature Trail website’s private Trekking Forum. Forum topics focus only on trekking and include: The Hiking Craft, Hiking Best Practice, Hiking Self-Sufficiency, Long Distance Trekking, Night Hiking, Alpine Hiking, Hiking Gear Advice, Trekking Technology, Hiking Hygiene, links to Gear Reviews, Bushwalking Medicine, Bush Survival Skills, Wilderness First Aid, and links to Hiking News.
Downloadable access to Nature Trail Hike Maps (PDF)
Password access to Nature Trail website’s Trekking Library
Having an advanced say in Nature Trail’s choice of tour offerings – both hiking and trekking
Invitations to participate on Nature Trail’s Gear Workshops.