"Uh-oh" Moments

Some of the recent threads have gotten me thinking about the following discussion topic. I'm sure most have us have had "Uh-oh" moments in the woods, times when things kind of hit the fan to some extent. I bring this up not to celebrate stupidity, ill-luck, or ill-preparedness (and in no way should this turn into a competition of who has survived the worst possible conditions), but in the hopes that we can all learn from the mistakes of others, and perhaps avert having to learn these lessons the hard way ourselves (and I sense some good stories here too).

I'll get the ball rolling. When I hiked Elephant during Memorial Day Weekend last year, I had no problem reaching the summit. However, at that time I was still bushwhacking using only obs-nav. This in and of itself hadn't been problematic before, but when combined with the fact the summit was shrouded in clouds that overcast morning, as well as my attempts to avoid some of the dense spruce and snowy sections I had encountered on the way up, all conspired against me during the descent and led to some navigational errors. I accidentally dropped off the wrong side of the mountain, and probably drifted a fair amount of the way over to Mount Metalluk before finally popping out on a logging road. Long story short, a mountain that only took me forty minutes to climb required six hours to get back to the car (and it would have taken even longer if a kindly local hadn't driven me part of the the way back to South Arm). Needless to say, I have learned my lesson from that experience and now always bring navigational aids with me when I bushwhack.

On top of Mt. Liberty last November, I realized I had left my camera either on Flume Mt. or somewhere in the col below. I think I actually said "uh oh" followed by several explecitives. I ran down and found it in the col, and ran back up Liberty. Thankfully, Stinkyfeet, Jessbee, Frodo and Sir Edmund patiently waited for me. Luckily it was just a silly camera, but it reminded me that I have to be careful and aware of my absent-minded tendencies.

I always have plenty of navigation aids, but sometimes don't bother to use them when it is windy, rainy, or buggy.

If you are bushwhacking up a peak, just walk uphill from any reasonable starting point, no navigating required.

Going down, 359 degrees out of 360 will bring you out somewhare more or less wrong, it is often better to choose a starting point that is easy to find downhill rather than uphill.

- "Don't ask me hooow I knooow!"

Uh oh, where's the camera? About ten years ago going up (lost that brain cell, I can't remember) the mountain my son needed a bathroom break so I took him way off the trail. About three minutes up the trail I realized I'd left the camera in the woods. Uh oh. It wasn't fun but I managed to find it. Good thing there aren't too many silver things in the woods.

Taxi? Taxi!???

Early morning, day 2 of a 3 day LT section, couple Novembers ago. Three of us enjoying the season's first snow, making great time. One car nicely spotted at the exit point, 18 or so miles ahead, another left at our starting point, maybe 15 miles behind. Key to exit car securely locked... in the first car. Only time I've heard our partner swear more than 20 times in a row, without even being lost, cold, injured, tired or anything. Finding a cab in a wilderness area... priceless.

Weatherman

seems like liberty is a big uh-oh place so far and mine isn't much different. when i'm out hiking i love taking pictures so i have a digital camera to do that with. last september i think it was i get to the top of Liberty and unstrap my bag, not realizing that my camera is attached to one of the straps and falls to the ground and bounces down a bunch of rocks. Suffice to say the camera was useless the rest of the trip. I later got it replaced with a better one. Lesson learned: make sure you know whats is attached to your straps before unhooking them!

I left an Under Armor shirt at the Sabbath Day Pond lean-to last year and had to run back to grab it. That's about it I think, simple and concise.

Many moons ago, my brother and arrived at the Castle trail head after dark. Hiked in a mile or so then set up our hammocks. Then we hiked up the Castle trail, bivied on a ledge just below the highest castle, went up Jefferson, Adams and Madison, bivied on another ledge on the air line, then hiked out to Appalachia. When we arrived at our spotted car, I couldn't find my wallet. Panic sets in, figured that I lost it at our first camp site. Ran back up a mile or so to the campsite but no dice. Figured that checking the other overnight spots were not worth it. My brother was waiting at the car, not happy. While driving home, we drove past a roadside rest area on Rte 3 just north of Franconia Notch, I said "Didn't we stop here on the way up?" My brother said yes and I said "Stop!!" We had thrown out some Micky D's trash there on the way up, so I went to the garbage can and, heaven be praised, it hadn't been emptied. Dug through lobster carcases and lots of other slime to find a Micky D's bag, not only containing my wallet, but our missing bottle of blackberry brandy. Needles to say, the ride home was much better after that point. My brother was happy again.

My other "Uh Oh" was volunteering to blow out the candle lamp after climbing into the top level of a tripple decker hammock setup. The candle lamp was extinguished by my sleeping bag and I after I left my hammock. I still have that sleeping bag with a nice round burn hole it it.

RoySwkr said:

Going down, 359 degrees out of 360 will bring you out somewhare more or less wrong,

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That's a great line! Orienteering is gearing up for the season and I can't think of a better training concept.

I left my food in the car on a southern peaks trip several years ago and I just didn't feel like coming back out. Fortunately I had enough left-over birdfood and powerbars, oatmeal and stuff in my pack, some of which was pretty gross! I also mooched some stale pancakes at Mizpah. I was able to live off my internal reserves (overweight)

Needless to say I had a nice little banquet back at the car.
Bob

Oh Harraka!

Down in the Shenandoah there is a nice little rocky peak that stands out from the ridge. Named "Old Rag" it's full of nice gullys, cliffs, and ledges. Anyway, early one spring I was scrambling around on the rock faces when I decided to climb up a nice grassy crack in a fairly steep ledge overhanging a deep gully. About three quarters of the way up, the grass broke loose from the underlying ice (that I didn't know was there) and I started sliding slowly down the face, grass and all. Just before I reached the end of the crack and the drop off, my slide stopped. To this day I remember the pounding heart-in-throat feeling. I slowly peeled off to the left of the crack and sat for a long time as waves of relief rolled over me. Yes, I was hiking solo as usual. There were, as always, a lot of people sitting up there that day and I remember the silence as they watched me slowly slide to my doom.

Taking the Scenic Route

First time I ever did Algonquin, one of our group had brought along his beloved family dog. The dog was unleashed and got ahead of us. For some reason, it attached itself to another set of hikers. Asking around when we got to the summit, we learned the dog had headed down the backside of Algonquin. We finally managed to catch up to it at Lake Colden. Faced with re-climbing Algonquin, we elected instead to hike back to the Loj campground via Avalanche Lake/Marcy Dam. So on a crystal clear Labor Day weekend and a strenuous 12 or so mile hike, we got to spend about two minutes on top of Algonquin. At least our basecamp was well-stocked with beer.

I don't think I've had a real *uh oh* moment in around here, other than the possible injury ones like Uh Oh, did I just sprain an ankle. I've had a couple of Uh Oh moments when mountain biking or bike commuting but that is off topic.

My only real uh oh moment I think came in my last year's trip to Wrangell St Elias, on the 3rd day of a 9 day backcountry trip, my friend and I got to our decided rest point and set up the tent. The weather that day was completely sporatic in terms of cloud cover, as it would be somewhat sunny one moment and then overcast misty fog the next. My friend decided to hang out in/near the tent while I decided to check out the surroundings. We were camping in this permafrost valley between huge rocky spires to our east and a large hill to our left. We could hear the morraine behind the spires to the east spit off rock and gravel every couple minutes throughout the day and the eventual night.

Anyway, since I wasn't intending to go far, I didn't bring water, didn't bring my topo map, didn't bring my compass. I mean the whole park is trailless anyway, but thinking I'd just scramble up the scree slope and just check out the views, see if I can spot any dall sheep, mtn goats, grizzlies, and stuff. So up I go, in my camp shoes no less (I took off my Montrails and put on my paddling shoe that I would use as a camp shoe the whole trip). Anyway, I get to a ridge about 200ft up and kept seeing this mountain continue further and further away from the valley but further up. So after enjoying the view a bit, I kept going until I got to the "top". Ya know, this peakbagger thing .

Anyway, I could see it still kept going and I kept going...
Well, I'm not a complete idiot, I looked back a couple times on the way up to get a bearing (aka to know where to go when I returned by visually looking at landmarks). Get to the top, and sit there awhile, enjoying the views and the solitude. (Nothing like being in a huge national park and having nobody, I mean nobody in 360° around you that you can see). Anyway, unbeknownst to me, the fog was rolling up from the Chitistone valley which is a good 1000ft below this whole valley we were hiking up from. Of course, it obscured whatever bearing I had which was visual. Then after my wandering, I also lost most of my dead reckoning because of simply being turned around a couple times (it's very easy to loose direction sense when you're turning).

In any case, on my way back I swear I started worrying like **** I was heading down the wrong side because 1)I couldn't see the bearing that I got on the way up due to the fog, which was going in and out. I would get occasional views though) and 2) no compass or even a map. I sat around for what seemed an inordinable amt of time waiting for the fog to dissipate but my impatience got the best of me and I almost guessed which side to downclimb. It was an educated guess because I was able to at least somewhat follow my footprints in the sand/gravel. However, my devil's Advocate in my head was playing with me. and I got to the bottom thinking that if this is the wrong valley, like say I went down the wrong side, I'm in ****'s creek as I didn't even have a bottle of water. Wound up drinking directly from a small runoff which I thought was OK since this isn't NYC, but still. Anyway, I vaguely recognize the surrounds and think I'm right, but as always, the devil's advocate is playing with my head. Needlesstosay, I eventually spot my tent (Henry Shires Cloudburst) and sign a huge sigh of relief. I did at one point have an uh oh moment though as I would downclimb and then think, i'm on the wrong side and start heading up again, and repeating this over and over again til I convinced myself that I was going in the right direction..

Jay

My biggest uh-oh moment was last June, when I was hiking with a ''less experimented hiker''.

We were going for Basin and Saddleback, and at 3:00pm, we were not even on Basin's summit. It was raining, and we could see thunderbolt on Marcy...My partner was freaking out, paniking.

I thought (saying it out loud would have been a bad idea) : Uh-Oh... We still have at least 6 hours of walking to get to the car, we have to do the (wet) steep sections to get on Sadleback, and we were already soaked and tired.

Yes, my less experimented'' partner was in right to say that he will never hike with me again.

Coming down from Cardigan this year, after going over the summit of Firescrew, I thought I got us lost. Mind you, this is a peak that I've summited maybe 15 times in my life. We were following blazes coming down, and I began to wonder why I didn't see Cilley's Cave and the Haninging Rock. After maybe 20 minutes of keeping it to myself, thinking we were on a trail that would take us HOURS from the Lodge, I finally piped up and told my companions that "Uh, we're on the wrong trail. We are going to come out by Newfound Lake. We are going to have a LLOONNNNGGG way back to the Lodge. It might be quicker to get down, go to Katie's camp (a friend has a camp on the Lake), and try to hitch a ride from there."

Needless to say, they were pretty ticked at me. After another 30 minutes of feeling really guilty, we came to a sign that said "Cardigan Lodge ->". Seems were on the correct trail all along...I had intended to go a different route but ended up, by accident, taking the correct route. They were even more pissed at me that I scared them like that.

Ooops.

timmus said:

...and go take a look at the drawing from the dead thread ''hiking with a coffin''.

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LOL! I love the trail sign in the corner too!

Good story, Jay. The older I get, the less cocky I grow about "that couldn't happen to me (for I am so superior)."

My story really does feel like a public service announcement, as it could have nasty consequences if it completes itself:

While preparing dinner for my friend and myself at one of the higher platforms at The Perch last June, I shielded my Optimus 8R stove with an aluminum-foil windscreen I had brought for experimenting with an (unrelated) alcohol stove. Ordinarily, the 8R's boxy cover is enough of a block, but The Perch was pretty breezy that day. I wrapped the whole stove in the screen. You already know the rest of the story....

It took about a minute for me to notice a glowing red spot on the foil. My next thought was "Gee, I didn't know aluminum foil could burn that easily. Look at that pretty yellow flame!" After the second-&-a-half it took to develop, a foot-long jet of burning gas had erupted from the escape valve on the tank. It was "HOLY $#!T!!" time.

I took the pot off the boil, carefully unwrapped the remains of the screen, cranked down the throttle and tapped hard on the valve to extinguish the flame. Almost none of the last three steps were thought-out at all, I just did 'em. While I did, a small part of my brain remembered David Carradine explaining Bill Hickok's technique for drawing a six-shooter: "Hurry-up slowly."
I also offer no defense; using a finger-tip as a fire extinguisher can't pass muster. But it worked. My usually unflappable friend had eyes like dinner plates. "Nice recovery," he stammered.

So, users of the venerable 8R, be careful how you shelter your flame. I know my stove -- and our skins -- were saved by design improvements made after explosions with earlier generations (see Rick Ridgeway, The Last Step: The American Ascent of K2), including the escape valve providing us with so much excitement.

I let the stove cool for a few minutes and fired it up again. And we breathed easier. I'll never forget it, and I still haven't told my wife.

my near $200 rope fell out of my pack after a climb and for 10 seconds I thought it was gone - and was not happy . This was an area where nobody would find it for a while - if ever. Not sure what it was but something told me (probably the less weight feeling) to check the rope and my partner said - dude sorry - its gone. I looked back and not 30 behind me - there it was on the rocks .

I now make sure it is damn secure!

I was doing a 8 pitch route in the Sierras on a near vertical wall. Anyway at about pitch 5 it started to rain. The route was loose all the way and I thought rappelling would be very unsafe because our ropes would have certainally knocked rocks down on us as we pulled out ropes after each rappell. Anywho i decided to keep going up and fast, well I was running out alot of rope and reached a narrow ledge system about 12 inches wide, I set my anchor and called down to my buddy "climb when ready" he began climbing and I was pacing back and forth reeling in rope when I looked down to see, I had never clipped in to the belay station With 50 ft between me and my last piece I dont even want to think about what would have happed if I leaned back on the anchor as I always do. I clipped in fast but stayed very unnerved for awhile.
Lesson learned, even in bad conditions when under pressure FOCUS, one slip up can do you in. Oh I never did tell my partner what happened.

Lots of uh-oh moments - 2 lost cameras, reading glasses while bushwhacking, altimeter, jumping off a blowdown to hear the ankle crack - all lessons learned slowly and painfully.

A scary one on Monadnock - nodody else around (rare event!) for good reason - a Nor-easter was blowing up the hill. Ever have that "why on earth did I keep climbing" feeling?

And as a newbie to the compass, returning from North Kennebago Divide towards Whitecap: coming to the old road up there and getting confused as to which side of the ridge to descend. I had to sit for 5 minutes and just breathe before I could focus and regain some sense of direction.