CATEGORIES
CATEGORIESPitch camp or push through? Iodine or chlorine dioxide? Summit or turn back? Any Active Junky knows that tough decisions are a dime a dozen in the backcountry. While we can’t make on-trail decisions for you, here we share some pretty disastrous ones we’ve made, and pray that you learn from our mistakes.
The glacial lake’s emerald green was magnetic—I had to swim in it. When the trail veered left, I stayed right. When rolling hills became techy scrambles, I refused to turn back. At the most technical section, I took off my 70 pound pack, balanced it on a rock, hopped down a five foot ledge, and turned back just in time to see my pack hurtling toward me. My left hand locked onto a tuft of grass while my right reached to save my gear. But the pack was too heavy, and as the frail grass ripped from the rocks I started sliding uncontrollably backwards. There was only one option: I let go.
Lucky for me, nothing broke when my pack plummeted fifty feet into a marsh. Luckier for me, I’m still alive.
Sure, I swam in the lake, but the wobbly boulder fields, numerous stream crossings and a brief-but-terrifying encounter with quicksand made this off-trail excursion the stupidest decision of my life.
Lessons Learned: Never get blinded by goals or destinations, stay on the trail, and be especially cautious when traveling solo.
The early morning sun hadn’t yet begun to lick the cool canyon walls. Only a few miles in, I realized that my purification drops had leaked, and any hope of drinking water was back at camp. I succumbed to the enticement of a canyon unexplored, and continued on what I expected would be a short morning hike.
Four hours later I sat in the shade of a cottonwood and stared blankly at a sweat-soaked map. The pain in my head transformed the already-confusing contour lines into senseless, useless scribbles. Stagnant slime pools seemed as refreshing as mountain springs, but I held myself back.
How I got out remains hazy. I do remember returning to camp, and the muddy, just-boiled water on my parched tongue. On that blistering day, the scalding mud mixture might have saved my life, but it sure felt like it was killing me quicker.
Lessons learned: Carry a backup hydration method. Don’t be a tough guy when it comes to hydration, especially in the desert.
It came out of nowhere. All of my friends had left camp to catch a better glimpse of the sunset, leaving just me and all of our gear. “We’ll secure it later,” they said.
How wrong they were.
The first gust alone was enough to rip two of the four tents out of the ground, tossing them fifty feet into the air, and sending them careening across desert plains. I ran as fast as I could and eventually caught one, tattered, impaled on a scrawny juniper. As I detached it from the juniper’s scraggly talons, the other sailed over the foothills and out of sight.
The desert owns it now.
Lesson Learned: Never leave camp or go to sleep without securing your gear for the worst weather possible. Poorly staked tents make better kites than windshields.
