If I'd Only Known

[Ed'n Lauky]

The latest Backpacker online edition has a great survival article by Mark Jenkins: SURVIVE: IF I ONLY KNEW THEN... It is well worth the read. http://www.backpacker.com/survival_...01&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter03

 

[Brambor]

Good stuff. MJ is my favorite 'outdoors' author. I've read every one of his books.

...obvious...but I still like this quote from the article:
Which brings me to one of my pet peeves: sleeping late. If you can’t get your ass out of the sack at 4 a.m., you can’t be a mountain climber. If you can’t get your ass up at 6 a.m., you can’t be a backpacker. Go home. Try bowling. Take up golf.

 

[freighttrain48]

you see th comments at the bottom that guy rick really likes his beauty sleep

 

[Maddy]

That was a fun read. Thanks for posting it.

 

[Brambor]

wow. I did not even bother reading the comments but the late sleeper dude really unloads on him

you see th comments at the bottom that guy rick really likes his beauty sleep

 

[Billy]

Rick's comments (posted Nov 25th) at the bottom of the article sum up my feelings about this article. Rick seemed a bit angry, but his comments were solid.

As to the article, let's see if I got it right: Drink when you're thirsty; eat when you're hungry; don't carry more weight than you can handle; keep snow out of your boots; use shelter in bad weather; use proper hygeine when putting food down your throat; avalanches can occur when snow builds up on steep slopes.

Really? Please tell me more, Obi Wan.

And then there's this gem: "...If you can’t get your ass up at 6 a.m., you can’t be a backpacker..." So stupid and demonstrably untrue it doesn't even deserve a response. And yet Rick did respond, and did so wonderfully.

 

[vinovampire]

If only he'd known... how to pitch a tarp.

I can't get past the description of his tarp-camping experience. He wrote that he "draped it over a boulder and spent an hour lining the edges with rocks..." And then on "the third night, the wind was so strong that the tarp flapped itself to death: It tore in two and was quickly shredded. Thank God! I bummed a bunk from a pigtailed college girl who’d been smart enough to bring a tent." Based on his inability to setup a tarp, this "survival expert" concluded that "tarps work perfectly when you don’t need any shelter."



I'm pretty dubious of any "survival expert" who blames his inability to properly select a campsite and pitch a shelter on his gear. Sorry, but I'm not impressed.

 

[TomD]

Ok, this guy may have hiked and climbed all over the world, and while I realize he probably did most of it before the Internet came along, a fair amount of what he says is just common sense you might learn in the Boy Scouts and some of it, seems to be just nonsense. I backpacked over a good part of the South Island of NZ and never got up at 6. In fact, on the Milford Track, my newfound friend and I deliberately left the huts later than everyone else to avoid the rush. We would eat a leisurely breakfast and off we went. This was in the early fall, so it stayed light quite late.

Climbing, yes, I recall getting up in the dark to so some climbing in the Mt. Cook park. Had I been on Everest, sure leaving at 3 am makes sense. We also dug a snow cave for one night, so I don't buy that argument either.

 

[Maddy]

AS for rising at 6am...I need to get going early or I will be benighted on the moutain, for sure once we set our clocks back. Being a solo hiker, I don't like to play games with time as the sun is setting and my average drive time to the mtns is 2hrs minimum, and 3-4hrs if I go further north.

I also had a great dehydration experience, (most undesirable), which was confirmed by my cardiologist. Now I carry water with "Endurolytes" mixed in, most especially in the summer. I even remember to drink it.
Never want that to happen again.

I to like MJ. Have read his books and enjoyed them. I laughed as I read because I have lived thru some of these same experiences. I don't think it was meant to be a hikers "bible", but some folks new to hiking might just get a few pointers. I certainly experienced frozen wet feet when I did not wear gaitors. And I distinctly recall a friend and I sitting on a summit, trying to find the trail we wanted to down climb in the dark, arguing about the info our compass was providing us. We both believed it to be WRONG!

The article is easy to read and he makes some good points. At one time when I hiked and skied with several other people we had a strict rule. If you were not at your door when we arrived at your home, packed and ready to go, we were NOT waiting for you.
Guess what...it worked! And we never got to another ski area at 1pm, nor did I ever again have to hike down Mt Cardigan, or any other summit, in the pitch black of night, in 2 feet of snow and ice, unless it was by choice.

If nothing else, it was an article that brought back numerous found memories of all the bogus things I did before I became an "elitist expert"! At least now I have a strange belief that I know what I am doing, but even that is sometimes put to the test!

 

[natron]

good reminder..

That a lot of negative outcomes can be prevented, with good planning and common sense and that pride, ego, over confidence and unpreparedness can get ANYONE in trouble..

 

[RoySwkr]

AS for rising at 6am...I need to get going early or I will be benighted on the moutain, for sure once we set our clocks back. Being a solo hiker, I don't like to play games with time as the sun is setting and my average drive time to the mtns is 2hrs minimum, and 3-4hrs if I go further north.

My sister's ex solved the problem of lightning on 14-ers by starting late enough that the afternoon storms were over by the time he got there

Of course he was an expedition caver so hiking hours in the dark was routine

 

[Stan]

I thought the article covered the basics with good stories but that some of this is elementary to many readers here. The drama and locations behind the stories, however, seem more supportive of the author's ego than of an outdoor public in need of such lessons because that audience will perhaps discount the "lessons" as irrelevant to the places and treks they undertake.

Experience is a great teacher and probably our most valuable learning tool but things learned on Mount Dickie are as important as things learned on Mount Everest and probably more poignant to most people likely to be reading and needing the article.

 

[Little Rickie]

It's just a nice story but I did like this a lot:

“Well, you know what they say: ‘Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment

 

[weatherman]

My sister's ex solved the problem of lightning on 14-ers by starting late enough that the afternoon storms were over by the time he got there

Of course he was an expedition caver so hiking hours in the dark was routine

Alpine start? Heck, why not an alpine finish?
I REALLY want to climb a class 1 or 2 14er by moonlight sometime.