Working full-time and finding time for hiking trips...

I start my hike on Friday night with a headlamp and go out a few miles and make camp. I do the main hike on Saturday and then loop back out on Sunday, usually home by 4:30 or 5:00 pm. Mind you, I have gear for every season.

I work 60-80hr weeks (usually...90+ on a bad week), some nights, some days, and no set days off. But I get 2 wks paid vacation a year! And sometimes 2-3 days off in a row! So those 2-3 days off in a row get hoarded and pre-planned and last year I managed to make it to the Cascades and Olympics, Death Valley, a couple state parks in PA and TX and the Atchafalaya for overnight hikes. It just takes some planning and willingness to make night-time drives or take red-eye flights. And a high tolerance for sleepiness. And a patient driving partner.

Good luck!

A general hint is to have your gear and food ready to go for a quick overnighter or weekend. If you can get your stuff together quickly you are more likely to do a short trip. Sometimes just doing an overnight with a short out and back to a nice campsite helps clear away the stress of the workweek. Not every trip needs to be epic.

Living close to the mountains helps. I try to maximize my trips by including weekends, So I'll often head out on Friday afternoon and come back Monday.

My wife is the worker. The first 3 years at her job she took minimal vacation time to let her vacatin time build up. By Feb of each year she sits at the point of use it or loose it and, with her work being at a University, summers are m a very slow time for her. For us it's a bit of luck with her getting a university job.

I'm a professor, so while I don't really have summers "off," I do have much more flexibility with how I use my time in the summer. During the academic year, it's dayhikes here and there, occasionally a trip during spring break (not a good backpacking time, weather-wise). There's nowhere close enough to my house that I'm very interested in BPing, so no weekend trips for me.

This is us. My spouse is the prof, and I've stuck to part-time work so I can take extended vacations. We don't do winter camping, or we could do some in January, but we nearly always head to the desert at spring break, and can do extended trips in summer. During the semester, the spouse can't afford to take the whole weekend as a general rule, so we stick with biking or hiking on Saturdays so he can try to get some work done on Sundays.

Back when I was single, I did a lot of 1-night trips. I was living in Seattle, so it was easy to go out Friday night or Saturday morning and do a good overnight, get back in time to head to work or school Monday morning. It was tougher for a few years in Santa Barbara--much longer drive to "real" mountains. I learned to like dayhiking in the dry coastal range, which is also what we do all winter here in SF, where there are ton of great open space areas (and a few you can backpack in).