5/1/2011 Posting

Happy May Day! What a lovely weekend we had! I hope you got to spend some of it doing wonderful things—such as hiking! I spent a really lovely Sunday with 9 other CHS folks hiking up the Middle Fork Snoqualmie trail to a bridge over the river. We got to laze around in the sun on our lunch break, soaking our feet in the water and enjoying the lovely sound of the rushing river. It was pure heaven after all of the rain that we’ve had lately.

In this week’s email, I’d like to talk about being prepared for dealing with injured folks on a hike. One of our hikers twisted an ankle and we had to check it out. Fortunately it was not at all serious, and the hiker was back on the trail quickly. If it had been more serious, we might have had to make alternate plans. If an injury happens to you or a co-hiker on either a club or private hike, you need to be prepared to spend a longer time out in the woods than you had originally anticipated.

This means that you bring the Ten Essentials, as well as insulating clothes (fleece, down, wool) and your rain gear. Then if you have to stop, you can pull out this clothing to keep you warm while you deal with the issue at hand. If the injury is very severe and you have to spend the night out in the wilderness, you’ll be happy for every piece of clothing you have, your ability to make a fire if needed, your extra food, and to be able to roll up in your space blanket, or whatever you have brought for as the shelter portion of the Ten Essential.

Even if no one is injured, you still need to bring these items. A hiker once related to me the story of going on a hike where they made it to destination and had lovely views to look at during lunch. It was bit chilly and windy out so he put on his extra clothing and sat down to eat. But some of the other members of the hike had not brought extra clothing to put on to keep warm while they were having lunch and they were cold. So the hike leader had no choice but to shorten lunch and leave so that the unprepared hikers wouldn’t get too cold. Please don’t be this unprepared hiker—either on CHS hikes or your own private hikes. At best, unpreparedness is annoying to co-hikers and cheats you out of spending time at a destination you worked so hard to get to; at worst, it could result in severe hypothermia or death.

So follow the Boy Scout’s motto and “be prepared.”