Forum Index > Trail Talk > Hiker Safety, tips, close calls, lessons learned
 Reply to topic
Previous :: Next Topic
Author Message
wiki summary





wiki summary
PostWed Dec 13, 2006 1:21 pm 
Any member can edit this post What is the point of this post? For everyone to add an emoticon one edit at a time. biggrin.gif

Wiki summmary last edited by zimmertr on Tue May 14, 2019 6:34 pm (this post can be edited by any member)
Back to top Reply to topic
Elvis
Shuffl'n



Joined: 09 Jun 2004
Posts: 1804 | TRs | Pics
Location: del Boca Vista
Elvis
Shuffl'n
PostTue Mar 22, 2011 12:17 am 
Suggestion: Learn how to use the bells and whistles on your gps. For example: Remember the fancy electronic compass that your gps has? You know, it's one of the fancy features on your gps that you've never actually tried to use? Go get your gps. Turn it on. Make sure it is locating adequate satellites to pinpoint your current location (or go do this somewhere where it can pinpoint your location). Find the electronic compass. Get your old fashioned no-batteries-required-and-much-lighter compass. Make sure the N, S, E, W that shows on your gps electronic compass matches up with what your non-electronic compass says. When I did this (just now), it was obvious that my gps compass was WAY out of whack. N was at about 220 degrees. A look in the user's manual taught me that sometimes you have to calibrate your electronic compass. It's an easy process (at least it is on the Garmin 60CSx) and viola! it works like a charm! In fact, the manual suggests recalibrating it each time you install batteries, after moving more than 100 miles or experience a temperature change greater than 68 degrees F. So... often. Sure wish I knew that before my hike last Saturday. Fortunately, we knew where we were and what direction we needed to go, but if it was anywhere else the results might have been a little more troublesome. FWIW, we did also have a regular compass with us and realized the gps wasn't pointing the direction it should have been pointing (but we didn't know why or how to fix it). Learn how to do it NOW, before you find yourself with a peakbagger in search of an off trail destination. agree.gif Happy Trails! ~E

"Ill habits gather unseen degrees, as brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas." ~John Dryden My Trip List
Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
rasbo
Member
Member


Joined: 18 Mar 2011
Posts: 373 | TRs | Pics
Location: orting
rasbo
Member
PostSun Apr 10, 2011 4:37 am 
Elvis,you are spot on with that post...

Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
packgoat
Member
Member


Joined: 15 Aug 2002
Posts: 145 | TRs | Pics
Location: Idaho
packgoat
Member
PostThu May 05, 2011 6:25 pm 
and to that lighter, add a 1/2 dozen bicycle rings, 2" long about 2 oz

Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
Dayhike Mike
Bad MFKer



Joined: 02 Mar 2003
Posts: 10958 | TRs | Pics
Location: Going to Tukwila
Dayhike Mike
Bad MFKer
PostThu May 05, 2011 7:31 pm 
A half dozen? That's crazy talk right there. Any more than one bicycle ring is overkill. And those things are expensive!

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke "Ignorance is natural. Stupidity takes commitment." -Solomon Short
Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
HundsSolo
Baby Step Hiking :o)



Joined: 06 Jun 2009
Posts: 1435 | TRs | Pics
Location: Olympia, Wa
HundsSolo
Baby Step Hiking :o)
PostSat May 07, 2011 7:31 pm 
Last weekend I up in Paradise having the usual fun in deep soft melting snow. As I was leaving my home I saw on the shelf a small kit I have that has repair parts for my MSR snowshoes plus parts for my trekking poles. Sure enough when I was heading back down as I placed one of my poles in the snow it sank all the way down almost making me lose my balance. The snow basket had come off. Was I glad I had a spare one in the kit I almost left behind.

The Mountains are Calling - I must go and PLAY! If you don't Respect Mother Nature, Mother Nature won't respect you. Wag More and Bark Less smile.gif
Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
Euler
Member
Member


Joined: 13 Oct 2008
Posts: 225 | TRs | Pics
Location: Redmond, WA
Euler
Member
PostMon Jun 06, 2011 10:17 pm 
I've survived quite a few bad situations.. Many were preventable with greater knowledge. Here is one. Last summer on Church Mtn. in the North Cascades, my hiking companion decided to stay in the meadow while I went up to the summit. So up I went. The route was a little confusing, especially near the top, but I made it up to the summit fine. There were very few people on the mountain that day - we saw maybe 3 the whole hike. I had the summit to myself and spent maybe 15 minutes up there looking at the cool scenery. Coming down off the summit, after just a few feet I took a route that seemed to be the trail, and which met up with the trail a bit lower, but in fact this was a 50-75 foot gully that was class 3 or harder. When I started down the gully, it seemed a little odd, but not that bad, so I kept going, knowing that things were often harder on the descent than they may have seemed when going up. It was pretty slow going though. After a bit, I became very concerned as I was having a hard time moving at all. It was no longer easy to go up or down. A fall would have been bad news. Maybe fatal, maybe not. Now I had no good holds and did not feel like I could easily even stay where I was. (Note: I had my light hikers on, as usual. Not great for gripping.) This place was beyond my abilities and there was nobody there to help. For those that do not know: this is a really unpleasant feeling to have. I do not like it at all. I made the decision to turn around and go back up. This wasn't an easy decision because turning around was going to be tricky. Next, I took some deep breaths and calmed down, and revisited the decision - going up still seemed like the right thing. I didn't wait very long because I was starting to get cold and didn't want to lose the ability to make good decisions, and, I wanted my muscles to be warm for what was going to follow. By this time I had been in this short section for quite a while, maybe 10 minutes. It seemed like it took another 5 minutes to turn around and go up the 20 feet or so that I had come down. I felt like I was pretty fortunate. Because I was calm I was able to confidently make a few maneuvers that got me up and out of there. Then I walked a few feet past the gully and found the trail down - much better. I was very lucky, as it started raining 5 minutes later. The gully would have been even gnarlier in the rain. A few things I learned: (1) got reinforcement of the idea that when you are in a group, not only does it help you if you get into trouble, but it may sometimes help you avoid trouble in the first place. Yes, being in a group can also cause you to get into trouble. (2) it's worth spending a few minutes hunting around if you have any doubt about where the trail goes and going off trail seems like it might have bad consequences. (3) descending is tougher than ascending, but not necessarily impossible - if you find it impossible, then stop and think about whether it'd be better to go back up and look for another way down (maybe the way you came up). Andrew

Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
pnw.hiker
Member
Member


Joined: 29 Sep 2006
Posts: 158 | TRs | Pics
Location: pacific northwest
pnw.hiker
Member
PostTue Jun 07, 2011 1:38 am 
one close call... After three days of desert hiking, alone and bushwhacking, I started to get sick - listless, snowy field of vision, couldn't think straight. Eventually, every time I took a sip of water I vomited, no matter how thirsty I was. Thing was, I was taking it easy, not working too hard, comfortable with a nice breeze. Just sweating and drinking a lot. Finally figured out that if I licked the caked salt from my hat's sweat band I could then take a sip of water without throwing up. This went on for over a day. Very scary. On the way home, MacDonalds french fries with extra salt fixed me right up.

Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
Dave Workman
Member
Member


Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 3699 | TRs | Pics
Location: In the woods, by the big tree
Dave Workman
Member
PostSat Aug 20, 2011 9:18 am 
pnw.hiker wrote:
one close call... After three days of desert hiking, alone and bushwhacking, I started to get sick - listless, snowy field of vision, couldn't think straight. Eventually, every time I took a sip of water I vomited, no matter how thirsty I was. Thing was, I was taking it easy, not working too hard, comfortable with a nice breeze. Just sweating and drinking a lot. Finally figured out that if I licked the caked salt from my hat's sweat band I could then take a sip of water without throwing up. This went on for over a day. Very scary. On the way home, MacDonalds french fries with extra salt fixed me right up.
Oh, yeah... fast food with grease and salt...the Elixir of life.

"The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted." - D.H. Lawrence
Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
ddogg7864
gather no moss



Joined: 20 Mar 2007
Posts: 30 | TRs | Pics
Location: West Sound
ddogg7864
gather no moss
PostFri Aug 26, 2011 2:01 pm 
up.gif x2
Dave Workman wrote:
Oh, yeah... fast food with grease and salt...the Elixir of life.

I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
tigermn
Member
Member


Joined: 10 Jul 2007
Posts: 9242 | TRs | Pics
Location: There...
tigermn
Member
PostFri Aug 26, 2011 4:44 pm 
Dave Workman wrote:
Oh, yeah... fast food with grease and salt...the Elixir of life.
Maybe not in general but I was on a 165+ mile bike ride and got about halfway in (thus about 80 something miles from home). My usual fare of power bars and such which was usually fine wasn't cutting it. I was bordering on the bonks. I found a gas station/mini mart somewhere on the west side of the sound which had some pizza slices that looked like they had been there all day under the heat lamp. How could bad pizza taste so good but it almost instantly perked me up and I actually enjoyed the ride home. Never made a habit of it and it may not make any sense but them were the facts that day.

Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
onemoremile
Member
Member


Joined: 26 Dec 2010
Posts: 1305 | TRs | Pics
Location: Sequim
onemoremile
Member
PostFri Aug 26, 2011 8:55 pm 
You can go to a fast food place and get some of those little packets of salt. Then when hiking on hot days and sweating a lot, just eat a packet of salt every now and then while consuming all that water.

“Arbolist? Look up the word. I don’t know, maybe I made it up. Anyway, it’s an arbo-tree-ist, somebody who knows about trees.” G.W. Bush
Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
tigermn
Member
Member


Joined: 10 Jul 2007
Posts: 9242 | TRs | Pics
Location: There...
tigermn
Member
PostFri Aug 26, 2011 9:17 pm 
onemoremile wrote:
Then when hiking on hot days and sweating a lot,
Haven't had to worry about that too much this "summer"... lol.gif

Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
brianle
Member
Member


Joined: 13 Nov 2010
Posts: 67 | TRs | Pics
Location: Bellevue, WA
brianle
Member
PostThu Nov 17, 2011 12:06 pm 
One lesson I learned at the start of a long trip this year in June was that the safety rules we learn in backpacking classes or from books or the like can be a bit simplistic; in the real world, often it's about trade-offs rather than one approach or another being universally correct. The morning of day two of our journey, my hiking partner and I had crossed a quite difficult, high creek crossing the morning before only to find that we had to cross it again. Side note: a more careful look at the map might have suggested bushwhacking (quite a ways though) to avoid the double crossing. But being in between, having now to cross one way or the other, we had to go for it. I crossed first, it was tough, but I made it. My hiking partner, however, was literally swept off his feet and was rapidly floating downstream. We had crossed just above where a bridge is usually in place in Glacier National Park, but we were there early enough that the bridge planking hadn't been put in yet. The bridge cables were far enough apart that we had deemed it safer to ford than to try to walk on one or (doing the splits) both of the cables. Fortunately for my friend, there was a sort of wire hanging off of one of the cables, he managed to grab this, I went hand-over-hand along a bridge cable to help pull him out, and despite being now both wet and with snow all around, we were fine after we had walked enough to warm back up. Well, he wasn't so much, turned out he pulled something in his chest and ultimately got off trail 600 or so miles later as he had a hard time taking deep breaths (this is one tough guy). Okay, sorry for the long backdrop, but the lesson learned for me here was when my friend told me he was glad that he had kept his waist belt on and his chest strap buckled on his pack: because for the fairly short distance he sailed down the creek, this actually kept him floating higher and allowed him to grab that trailing wire. We both shuddered to think what might have become of him had he failed to grab (and then to hold on) to it. I'm not saying that therefore people should always keep their packs strapped tight when crossing creeks. I will say, however, that I tend to do this more often than not, as balanced against the chance of more easily getting out of the pack should I fall and float downstream is the benefit of being less likely to slip and fall in the first place if I don't have my pack hanging loose off my back and shifting back and forth as I cross. This particular example of my friend's save just reinforces for me how situational, how context sensitive various "always do this" or "never do that" bits of advice really are. I guess the most similar trade-off I can think of is using an ice axe vs. trekking poles --- the former helps save your butt if you slip, but with the latter you might be less likely to slip in the first place. For the first few hundred miles of this particular trip I solved that one by using a Black Diamond Whippet --- that way my trekking poles and my self-arrest pick were always both ready to hand. And in fact I did self arrest with it once on the trip, worked fine (and fortunately I never had any real need to self-belay or chop steps).

Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
Arksearcher
Member
Member


Joined: 28 Jun 2012
Posts: 5 | TRs | Pics
Arksearcher
Member
PostFri Jun 29, 2012 1:56 am 
Nobody is getting out of here alive, SO, Why all the concern? would not the wilderness likely be the most peaceful of places to die and lay your body to rest?. In my book- idiots deserve nothing better than to be an example to others of what an I D ten T error looks like- so as not to be repeated (the stronger more agile of minds are most productive without the anchor of weaklings loafing about thinking that just to get along they have to be told how everything is) if your just out of food and water eat some berries, insects, grubs and other critters (ignorance of mans law is never going to help you. so dont worry about a hunting licence, or any other license for that matter, unless supporting a trade of commerce- GET REAL!), a good thing to have in the first aid kit I believe is water purification tablets, a half dozen bullion cubes (chicken, beef or for the overly squeamish- vegetable flavored)- they can be eaten alone with water or used to flavor a camp robber, squirrel and nettle soup. Mmm. along with flavorless waxed dental floss, sutures, ace wrap and sealed scalpel, I also like to keep Morphine (or its ancient predecessor) in there because I cant stand being around crybabies. if you have bad joints (knees), prior to any excursion are you taking proper supplements? I prefer Hammer Supplements 'Tissue Rejuvenator' product which in one dosage includes 8 separate enzymes, glucosamine sulfate, chondroitin sulfate, MSM, boswellia serrata, devils claw, yucca root, tumeric root extract, quarcetin and undenatured type2 collagen,,, and yes its pain relief effect is better than ibuprofen and ibuprofen doesn't do anything proactively healthy anyways, so why would anyone want that? {real world druglords, and their insurance agents, have entirely conned the western build of healthcare systems} but, for myself, when my knees will not carry me any further, I will crawl into a deep crevasse, alone, and take a really really long nap <~ no rescue necessary. All rights reserved and without discourse. Copyright 2012 - Literal Lee Inc. Without Prejudice. UCC (WACi) 207 & 309

F.A.C.T. Frequently Abused Control Tactic. I am not a number. I am a free man. FOR EVERY MOMENT WE CHOOSE ANEW ETERNITY I am a Sexual Anarchist, interested in more humane forms of development for Mankind.
Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
hikrgrrl
Member
Member


Joined: 09 Aug 2011
Posts: 17 | TRs | Pics
Location: Crying on Bandera Mountain
hikrgrrl
Member
PostThu Aug 02, 2012 7:57 pm 
I have been considering throwing a couple potent narcotic pills into my first aid kit also- I think you've confirmed the idea for me. They also help with that nice nap in the cravasse....

One foot in front of the other...
Back to top Reply to topic Reply with quote Send private message
   All times are GMT - 8 Hours
 Reply to topic
Forum Index > Trail Talk > Hiker Safety, tips, close calls, lessons learned
  Happy Birthday speyguy, Bandanabraids!
Jump to:   
Search this topic:

You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum