Hiking emergencies

The recent comments concerning the need to carry a basic emergency kit with you while hiking were brought back to me while watching last night's TV news out of Vancouver, BC., as they were last week, as well.

Last week, in the Norh Shore Mountains here, still snowcapped and subject to severe winds and torrential rains year-round; these are visible from the window beside which I sit typing and are 20 minutes drive-time from my home, a hiker became stranded in the deep, soft, melting snow not far from a major ski area. He WAS rescued as, although young and very fit, having grown up in these mountains, he was too exhausted, after a night out without adequate cover, to walk a couple of klicks back to safety and, in mid-July, he was seriously hypothermic.

Yesterday, a couple of climbers, local, experienced ones, were caught by a sudden slide on Mt. Slesse, which is on the Canada-USA border. After the hot weather we have been having, there is STILL deep snow and ice on much of this mountain and one of these guys is in a crevasse, covered with ice, snow, rocks and is very likely dead.

His companion could NOT rescue him and hiked for five hours to get assistance, this in one of the most densely populated parts of Canada, yet, it took a fit mountaineer this long to reach the first habitation. Rescue crews flew in, however, even with our current nice weather, the chopper pilot could not land and ground crews could not reach the site as the slides were too frequent and severe.

This IS IN the most populated, climatically moderate region of BC, where SAR facilities are at their highest level; the conditions in northern BC and the Kootenays are FAR worse and incidents like this are almost always fatal, including, sometimes, to the rescuers.

I post this out of concern for those who may want to come and explore BC's huge and gorgeous wilderness and should realize what it is REALLY like. You CANNOT take chances here and you MUST carry an emergency camp capable of keeping you dry, warm, hydrated and fed for several days, ANYTIME you leave the highway.

A complete winter kit will weigh about 25 lbs. and a summer version about 15-20 lbs. Those who venture into even the Coastal Mountains on the southern BC coast without such gear and the knowledge how to use it are putting themselves AND potential rescuers in grave peril.

A kit like this is NOT expensive and will last for years, but, it is a MUST anywhere you can hike, climb, ski or fish in BC and I cannot stress this too strongly. So, come and see what the most beautiful place on Earth is like, safe hiking, friendly people and neighbours who WILL help you to safely enjoy your trip here; BUT, get an emergency kit togather and CARRY it!

Good post, kutenay. With a slight addition, this applies to any location:

1. know the territory and its environment - extremes of the season as well as the average and "what it looks like today". This includes getting a current, up to date briefing by the local authorities and professionals who are in the area frequently.

2. either have the training and experience to deal with the "reasonably expected" worst that could happen, or go with someone who does have.

3. carry the gear required to deal with both the expected and the "reasonably unexpected". I personally do not consider this to be emergency gear, because sooner or later, you WILL encounter those 90 percent outliers.

4. if anything, err on the cautious side as you proceed (make the 180 degree turn part of your standard procedure). Sometimes what happens can be beyond the "reasonably unexpected."

My two favorite quotes about adventures-
"Adventure is just bad planning." — Roald Amundsen (1872—1928).

"Having an adventure shows that someone is incompetent, that something has gone wrong. An adventure is interesting enough — in retrospect. Especially to the person who didn't have it." — Vilhjalmur Stefansson, my life with the Esquimo.

For all you newbies, I know that it seems like Bill, Kutenay and some others here harp on safety all the time. They do so for a reason. Backpacking and hiking are great ways to spend your free time, but your loved ones want to see you back safe and sound. There is a good reason guys like Bill and Kutenay are still around after all their years of adventuring and it isn't luck.

Although I do not have near the experience of those two, the time I spent hiking and climbing in NZ many years ago, plus the occasional experience here in CA,, plus my many years as a scuba instructor taught me the importance of being prepared and knowing your limitations.

Everthing Kutenay has said about BC applies to a place like NZ and I have given this same warning to new hikers asking about going there for the first time.

Maritime climates like NZ and, I presume, BC, cannot be trusted to be stable for more than a few days at a time. I've seen weather go from warm shorts and tee shirt "fine" to near freezing parka and rain gear "foul" in a few hours.

SAR reports from the Arthur's Pass area of NZ (available on the web)detail over and over, incidents involving tourists who were unprepared for bad weather. Most survived, but a few did not. The park literature and the rangers you run into down there emphasize being prepared. The consequences do not justify leaving gear at home just because it's "too heavy" or "I won't need that, I'm only going for a few hours."

I read and occasionally post on Views From The Top, a New England hiking website I found a few years ago. Even though I am in CA, I learn a lot from those guys. The experienced ones don't go anywhere without emergency bivy gear, food and a stove. It is just too easy to get benighted or hit by unexpected rain or snow back there. Until I started reading their posts, I had no idea how wild the weather could get back East.

One thing I learned the hard way-always carry a light in unfamiliar territory-even on a short day hike. If I know exactly where I am in a local park, no big deal-I know how far it is back to the car; but in a new place, it is too easy to go too far and wind up picking your way back in dwindling twilight. Once was enough for me.

As Bill and Kutenay have said, it doesn't take much to put together a small kit. And it doesn't have to be expensive. You can make your own alcohol stove cook kit out of soda and beer cans for virtually nothing-there are dozens of plans on the web. With one of those, or a small canister stove and pot, you have a way to make tea, hot chocolate or soup. Some of that, plus a few energy bars, jerky and dried fruit, will keep you going for an extra day or even two.

While PLB's are somewhat controversial, carrying one of them in the backcountry is not such a bad idea, as long as you don't use it as a substitute for common sense and experience.

Finally, I might add, don't rely on cel phones to save you- depending on where you are, you won't have coverage. In Yosemite, they only work on the Valley floor in my experience and sure don't work up around Badger Pass. A sat phone probably would, but even then, I wouldn't rely on one.

I am at the moment feverishly reading "Minus 148 degrees" an account of the first winter ascent of Denali by Art Davidson. I'm sure most of you have read it. the climbers in the book had all of the corect saftey gear for the harsh winter conditions but unfortinitly some of them also possesed way to much self confidence. This over confidence led them to believe, since it was winter, all of the crevasses would be filled with snow and they would not need to rope up on the kahiltna. Almost imediatly a climber the another falls in. Time after time hubris kills men on mountains. I think one more thing could also be said about backcountry emergencies besides having the proper gear. Experiance! A couple years ago I remember reading about two people that died on Rainier. They were found dead in blue jeans and cotten shirts. I think the story goes that they were day hiking and decided to climb to the top though they had no expiriance. I guess this is an extreme example but my point is as you build expiriance go with a guide or a friend who knows what thier doing. You could give me the best rock gear in the world And I'd probably die on the salathe because I'd have no idea how to use any of it!

I read that book when it first came out and was not surprised as the kind of stupidity that happened there is all too commonplace here in BC. It seems that with the purchase of some neat gear, comes an attitude that some have where they decide that they KNOW the mountains/wilderness and THEY are invincible.....macho bullsch*tt, which leads to tragedy.

I have posted on a number of backpacking forums that, IMO, the most dangerous thing in the mountains is young malke macho and I have frequently been reviled and mocked for this opinion. Well, I grew up in wilderness such as has not existed in the Lower 48 since before WWI and I have seen dozens of top sik mountaineers, guides and climbers die here, usually from the western USA, because of over-confidence and an un-willingness to realize that even temperate Canada is FAR more severe on average in climate than the USA.

Macho in the mountains is, to me, an example of a lack of REAL experience. The truely experienced bushman is VERY cautious and even a bit afraid of mountain circumstances and modifies his kit and behaviour accordingly. A light basci camp, I call it an emerg. camp, Bill doesn't, it is the SAME concept in action plus a realistic appraisal of one's abilities and the immediate ambience is what will save your bacon and this is why I like to stress this in my posts.

PS-how can one edit his typos so as not to appear an illiterate bozo?

"One thing I learned the hard way-always carry a light in unfamiliar territory-even on a short day hike. If I know exactly where I am in a local park, no big deal-I know how far it is back to the car; but in a new place, it is too easy to go too far and wind up picking your way back in dwindling twilight. Once was enough for me."

Tom this reminds me of a time back in high school, MANY years ago. I was cross country skiing with a friend on some trails we had skied on several times before and so we knew the area somewhat, but not intimately. Around dusk we got back to where we thought the car should be, but no car was there. Of course we had nothing with us except for car keys and ski wax, let alone a light of any variety or any sort of survival gear. Somehow in the fading light we must have missed a short spur trail that ran back to the parking lot; without knowing we were actually starting to ski the loop a second time away from our car. My friend played a hunch and luckily he guessed right and we stumbled upon our car after just a few minutes of walking around in ever increasing darkness.

Life threatening issues aside, it would have been quite embarassing to have gotten lost and in need of a rescue in a very small geographic area. That said, these weird things happen and people do get mixed up and get lost even when they should not. The incident scared me a bit and needless to say I now carry a bit more kit with me than I did in those days.

One thing to add about carrying a light - carry a spare set of batteries, even if you are "absolutely certain" the lamp has fresh batteries. I have had two incidents where the "fresh" batteries failed. In neither case was it my headlamp, but my partner's. One was after a long day of climbing the Exum Direct on the Grand. We had started the climb before dawn, as is standard to avoid the afternoon thunderstorms, so had a couple hours on the batteries. This turned out to be good because in addition my partner was very slow (he had been still recovering from giardiasis he had gotten in the Winds just a few weeks before). My partner decided when we got back to the camp at the col that he *had* to get back to Jackson that night. By the time we got down through the boulder field, it was dark and we were into the thick woods (but on a good trail). His batteries died within a half hour, so we hiked the last several miles to the car on just my headlamp.

The other was a backcountry ski tour in the Tatoosh in Rainier NP. A blizzard developed while we were out (expected) that slowed us more than we had expected, due to the deep powder (great on the earlier downhill runs, really slow when in the forest after dark and unable to see our earlier tracks. My headlamp was getting pretty low by the time we got back to the road, and one of my partner's had exhausted his batteries. My other partner's lamp still had plenty of battery. The cold, of course, had lowered the batteries' voltages and shortened their lifetimes (if you didn't know the low temperature effect on batteries, you now know that temperatures below freezing drastically shorten the life of alkalines, and significantly shorten the life even of the lithium AAs).

Kutenay wrote "PS-how can one edit his typos so as not to appear an illiterate bozo?".

Type your response in word or another word processing package, run spell check, copy and paste into the message window. Of course, once you click on "Post Now", any errors will be there for all to see!

Dear kutenay and Bill S,
I gain a lot of expert advice from both of you on my last question. I was wondering if you would make up a list of exactly what your survival kits includes - both summer and winter.
Terry

I second Timeportalmatrix's request on what's in kutenay's and OGBO's survival kits...

I'd much rather carry the extra gear and not need it than leave it home and wish I had it with me...

PS - Thanks for all the shared and sharing of experiences and knowledge - though I wish there were a few more women out there (besides Alicia) that I could compare notes with...

Duh...there's another topic here in backcountry actually called "what's in your survival kit"...though it would be interesting to compare a few more kits...

OK, first of all, you want to keep this simple, high quality and light, you need to keep warm, hydrated, fed and rested as well as being able to deal with medical emergencies and find your way to a safe place inall conditions.

I NEVER hike, ANYWHERE without the following basics.

Mystery Ranch Futura Deluxe packs with a pair of Longpockets and Fliptop pockets.

Shelter:

Exped Wallcreeper Large Primaloft
Hilleberg Bivanorak-red for rescuers to see
Thermarest 3/4 length-an original over 30 yrs. old
Standard lenght Ridgerest

Clothing:

Icebreaker merino T-shirt-lightest weight
Icebreaker Tornado shirt
MEC merino wool longjohn bottoms/tops or MEC light synthetic longjohn tops/bottoms
MEC Primaloft vest
Two pair woolen socks
OR flexgaiters
MEC fleece gloves/leather work gloves-heavy

Emerg. Gear:

Basic First Aid kit, supplemented with extra Triangular bandages, foam splints, large plastic heel badaids, medications I require, including Morphine tabs. Gravol, Lomotil and some others.

Kit with two Petzl Tikka Plus lights, extra batts.
Petzl flashlight/extra batts.
Sheath knife-3-4"blade
Leatherman Wave
Steel signaling mirror
Compass
Magnesium fire starter
Matches
Fire starters of dryer lint, steel wool, vaseline in toilet paper tubes wrapped in plastic bread bags with rubber bands, burn long, hot, stinky and WORK.
Magnifier folding glass
Whistle
PLB-soon
Small hank of extra cord and tape

H20/food:

Two, liters water in Nalgenes
Clif bars, dried nuts, sandwiches and sometimes tea bags or cocoa bags.

Sometimes I pack my Brunton Crux canister stove and a Snowpeak Ti pot to make tea in and other times I don't bother, depends of weather.

This is my basic, close to civilization kit, I often use other shelters and may carry a Freon horn, custom Grizzly defence guns and extra clothing/food or field manuals, depending on where/what I am up to.

One point here, I have chosen my gear so that I can survive in basic comfort WITHOUT being able to erect a shelter or build a fire, if injured. The painkillers, simple, easy to enter shelter, synthetic over down and merino wool are NOT due to current trends, they are there due to superior function when needed in my area of concern.

Hope this is useful, there are MANY useful variations on this as in autumn hunting, when I use my Integral Designs North Twin Pl. bag and one of my four ID bivies, according to my situation on a given trip.

I should add to the above clothing, an OR suncap to protect from sunburn and my 37 year old Kangol "tanker"beret in British green plus a bug headnet and bug shirt. Bugs bug me.

I'd like to hear from more women as well. While I enjoy hearing from all of our community members, it would be nice to get some additional female perspectives.

This seemed appropriate to the topic, from Alpinist magazine, on line. Be sure to pay attention to the ill prepared (in multiple senses of the phrase) nature demonstrated (with tragic results) by many of these folks.

http://www.alpinist.com/doc/ALP20/newswire-fatalities-alps-boermans

Dear kutenay,
Would you kindly tell me what you mean by a custom grizzley gun?
Thank you,
Terry

I have a few specific firearms modified to my concept of what works in defending yourself from Grizzlies due to the increase in incidents here in BC. This is a holdover from years of bushwork which I may be going back to, however, it is getting rather off the topic in respect of the type of forum this is.

Trailspace is not a gun forum and I think that few here want to have details of this discussed at length; Grizzlies are not a major concern to most hikers here, so, I shall not post on this.

I WILL make one point, UNLESS, you have EXTENSIVE experience with suitable firearms, packing ANY gun in bear country is NOT a wise idea and is usually just extra weight. Your query indicates to me that you are not familiar with guns/bears to any degree,, so, you should concentrate on the emergency survival gear and forget guns for now.

Dear kutenay,

Point well taken.

Read Bear Book.

Sincerely,

Terry

Dear kutenay,

I would appreciate it if you would comment on the differences between the Siltarp 2 and the Guides Siltarp 2. I will need a tarp in the next few days to go on the West Coast Trail.

Many thanks.

Terry

Don't know as I have never seen a GST II, check the ID website for specs. Go to www.integraldesigns.com.

I would just buy the regular STII plus an ID bivy for a minimal camp on the WCT.