On the trail - May 15, 2011

Suggested Title: Dying Ain’t Much of a Living

“Most men stranded in the wilderness die of shame. They just sit there and try and think of the one thing that will save their life, when the one thing that will save their life has been with them all along, thinking.” - Anthony Hopkins in the movie The Edge

There are 5 basic needs a human being needs to survive in the wilderness. They are in no particular order: food, water, shelter, heat, and spiritual needs. Take away any 2 of these needs and you are in trouble.

The general rule of thumb for a human being to live without something is illustrated in 3’s: 3 minutes without oxygen, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food. Given that priority list, if you ever found yourself stranded in the wilderness, what would you do?

Now you may be thinking, this is not a problem, if I ever get stranded or lost in the wilderness, I’ll just call someone on my cell phone to come and get me. This seems to be happening more and more these days. People are calling search and rescue to come get them because they just don’t feel like hiking back. But what if you fall crossing a stream and your cell phone gets wet? Now what?

First off, try and not panic. Sit down and access your situation. Your fight or flight response is probably stuck in the on position, so this may be more difficult than you think. But lost or injured is lost or injured and compounding the problem by panicking is not going to help. You can do this. You have the ability to reason and think things through.

Where are you? Are you on a trail? If so, other hikers will be by to help you. If not, then that is a whole other ballgame. If you get into trouble, how you prepared for the trouble if it did accidently occur can make all the difference. Basic items such as extra water, extra food, a space blanket, a rain poncho, matches, aspirin, Band-Aids, a whistle and a signal mirror can literally save your life.

An example of what not to do happened to me years ago when I went hiking in May up at Beaver Meadows near Red Feather Lakes. It was a nice spring day with temperatures in the low 70’s when I decided to take a hike. I was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt when I set off to hike around the well marked trails sitting at around 9,000 feet in elevation. A storm quickly moved in. The winds picked up and the temperature dropped into the 40’s. It started to rain. It was time to get back to the lodge. Now which way was it again?

I was soon cold and shivering. I took out my trail map but I was confused. I started to jog to stay warm. I went the wrong way and went farther away from the lodge. Nothing looked familiar. I started to panic a little. The first stages of hypothermia were setting in.

Well like I said, the trails were well marked and after going completely around the long way back to the lodge, I saw people with winter coats on going in. Doo! The lodge fireplace slowly warmed me up and I got a hot meal and went home. I was lucky. I had made my mistake in a fairly confined area.

Being prepared is not paranoid, it is smart and responsible. Do yourself a favor and plan for the unexpected. Trust me; you’ll be glad you did.