As I get ready to head out on a backpacking adventure of my own on Sunday to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, I wanted to comment on the recent plight of a Snohomish County fellow who recently was lost in the North Cascades. Fortunately he was also found the other day without suffering any major injuries, but his ordeal provides lessons to us all whether we are out in the wilderness for just a day or for overnight.
If you aren’t aware of the story, click here to read about it. Short version: Hiker goes out with friends into the snowy wilderness, parts ways with friends and hikes alone, gets lost, loses tent, deploys beacon, eventually finds own way out. What lessons—beyond always carrying the Ten Essentials in your pack (including that map)—can you garner from this hiker’s situation?
- Avoid hiking alone on sparsely travelled trails and routes. Besides the obvious safety issues of travelling alone (more vulnerable to attack by predators both human and non-human, difficulty in getting help if injured, and so on), I find that having another person along helps me avoid making stupid mistakes. For example, when I was hiking with my CHS1 group last Sunday up near Larabee State Park, we were travelling a section of trail that I had not been on before and the trail was not real well-defined. I made an assumption on the location of the trail based on sketchy notes from someone else’s previous trip and gamely started trotting down a steep hill to follow that assumption, falling on my behind and looking like a general dingdong in the process. Another hiker took one look at that steep hill and my difficulties and started looking for an alternate, more likely route that didn’t involve scampering down a steep, muddy hill. And wouldn’t you know? He found it. Sometimes we all need someone else around to tactfully say, “That’s an ill-advised move; let’s check out some alternatives first.” Even smart hike leaders such as myself need that help J.
- If you must hike alone, let people know where you are going, stick to your plan, and bring a rescue beacon with you. For some folks, the allure of being out in the wild alone is irresistible. My brother is that way, so I understand the desire. But my brother always tells someone where he is going and sticks to that plan. He also carries a rescue beacon with him on every trip. If you are occasionally a solo hiker or go on trips to remote places even with company, a rescue beacon is a worthwhile investment. Our hiker in the above incident had a rescue beacon with him, which worked, but would’ve worked better if he had stopped moving.
- If you deploy your rescue beacon, stop moving and wait for rescue. Unfortunately, doing nothing is often one of the hardest actions for people to take. For some reason, we feel very uncomfortable sitting and waiting for help to arrive. Maybe it’s because of the singularly American ethic of being a strong individual and helping yourself. But if you are ever lost and anticipating rescue—you’ve deployed your beacon and/or you let responsible people know where you are and when you’ll be back—then make yourself comfortable in the area you are already in and wait for rescue to arrive. It’s much harder to find a moving target than a stationary one. Tragic stories abound of lost hikers who couldn’t seem to stop and let themselves be found—even when they saw that rescue helicopters were looking for them! If you are cold, then try to build a fire, and get up and move around often.
No one heads out on the trail planning to get lost, but if you follow these simple guidelines, you are more likely to found.
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