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Post by cweston on Oct 18, 2016 17:51:28 GMT -8
I mean, who drops trou and takes a dump in the middle of the trail? As Einstein said, the difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
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Post by cweston on Oct 18, 2016 17:56:53 GMT -8
I rarely drop my pack--I would never do so in timber (too easy to lose it), and above treeline, I'm usually too nervous about marmots chewing it, so, unless I haven't seen a marmot for days, I probably wouldn't.
After about the second time I wasted a bunch of time looking for trekking poles (that I had left in an "obvious" location), I stopped leaving them. Really, how much weight does it add to strap them to your pack if you're not using them? Usually putting the poles away means getting out the ice axe, so it's really a wash.
I've never seriously lost camp, but I did once spend about an hour after dark looking for the bear bag that I had hung earlier in the day. There was nothing reflective on it. Most tents these days have something reflective on them, so they're pretty easy to find, assuming you have a headlamp.
I don't usually have to leave the tent during the night, but if I do, I always take a headlamp.
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Post by johntpenca on Oct 18, 2016 18:19:04 GMT -8
[recently retrieved a dead woman from near the AT who'd disagree.[/quote]quote author=" High Sierra Fan" source="/post/63188/thread" timestamp="1476840022"]Well they She had been missing for over a year. Tragic loss. A whistle could have saved her. As I remember it she was found about 300 yards from the trail and starved to death. Carry a whistle. Don't mean to trivialize the incident.
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BigLoad
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Post by BigLoad on Oct 18, 2016 19:02:36 GMT -8
Besides using reflective line, I have a few other tricks for nighttime (or daytime) excursions. I set a bearing on my compass from the tent to the food location, bathroom, or other point of interest. Usually I leave the food bearing set on the compass so it will be ready in the morning. I use a temporary arrangement of rocks, sticks or other natural objects to mark points of departure from the trail. I make a several tours of likely campsites before and after setting up to reinforce the ability to recognize things from all directions.
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daveg
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Michigan
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Post by daveg on Oct 18, 2016 22:25:38 GMT -8
[recently retrieved a dead woman from near the AT who'd disagree. quote author=" High Sierra Fan " source="/post/63188/thread" timestamp="1476840022"]Well they She had been missing for over a year. Tragic loss. A whistle could have saved her. As I remember it she was found about 300 yards from the trail and starved to death. Carry a whistle. Don't mean to trivialize the incident.[/quote] This past summer I hiked the AT where Geraldine Largay got lost. Her tragedy sometimes came up in conversations. This is a map (attributed to the Maine Warden Service) which shows the location where her remains were found. Comparing it to my trail map, it looks like she was a bit less than a half-mile from the trail. This is a photo of where the AT crosses Oberton Stream, which is about a mile south of her final location. This is a photo of Perham Stream, which is about a half-mile east of her final location. As you can see, the area is densely wooded. Apparently, Largay left the trail to go to the bathroom and couldn't find her way back. Some of the reports implied she got lost because she was directionally challenged. That may have been a factor. However, on my trip I met two experienced solo hikers (on separate occasions) who told me how they left sight of the trail (one in Maine to hang a food bag, the other in New Hampshire to poop), got disoriented, and ended up lost for two to three hours. Both had the skills and presence of mind to eventually bushwhack to a location from which they could get their bearings. It sure made me think about how quickly one could become lost.
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Hungry Jack
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Post by Hungry Jack on Oct 19, 2016 2:45:18 GMT -8
Late May, Southern Yosemite...Royal Arch Lake. On a layover/fishing day, we were away from camp, chasing trout as usual, when the storm began in earnest. In the course of 15 minutes, first hail, graupel, then snow...a good foot of white on the ground covering everything. The next morning, after hunkering down/ staying warm and dry, we proceeded to pack up but... our "kitchen" (stove, spork, cup) was nowhere to be found. Two hours later, thanks to a warming sun melting things off...found everything, probably just where we left them. Moral is, when/if the snow starts, pack things where you can find them again easily. It snowed a foot in 15 minutes? I assume you meant overnight.
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swmtnbackpacker
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Post by swmtnbackpacker on Oct 19, 2016 10:44:21 GMT -8
I'll normally set up later. Plus my pack is small enough, I can keep it on my person for side hikes. Being in the arid southwest helps, but I can see where dense forest would disorient someone.
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walkswithblackflies
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Post by walkswithblackflies on Oct 19, 2016 12:10:18 GMT -8
Just yesterday, I went into the woods behind my house to replace my neighbor's posted signs that had been removed by someone. I decided to bring my bow with me in case I ran across a deer. Put my bow down... nailed signs to 3 nearby trees... came back and couldn't find my bow. Not the smartest thing I've done... leaving a camo-painted bow on the leafy ground. I found it after 5 minutes of delicate searching.
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Post by Lamebeaver on Oct 20, 2016 3:56:10 GMT -8
I had this happen once. I was suffering from mild altitude sickness and put down my pack next to the trail while I searched nearby for a suitable camping spot. When I returned to the spot where I was CERTAIN I had left my pack it wasn't there. After several minutes of mild panic and paranoia, I started an expanding box search pattern, 5 steps north, 5 steps east, 5 steps south, steps west, 10 steps north, 10 east.... after a few minutes I found my pack 100 feet away from the trail (exactly where I had dropped it).
Being a full day's hike from the nearest trailhead, with night falling and all my warm clothes, survival gear and car keys in my missing pack was not an exciting prospect.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2016 9:08:09 GMT -8
I've experienced disorientation once; it's a very uneasy feeling. I was at a state park about an hour from my home; no place particularly exotic or remote. Full of dense stands of juniper and live oak. Wound up leaving some amateur radio equipment there overnight until I could come back the next day and search for it properly.
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Post by Lamebeaver on Oct 20, 2016 9:17:27 GMT -8
It's easy to get disoriented. Once, while climbing in the Sangre de Cristos, I made a slight deviation...on the map, I needed to hike down off a ridge on the third ravine to get back to camp. I ended heading down one ravine early and by the time I got to the bottom, I was about three miles south of where I should have been. I ended up in a very rough ravine with lots of downed timber. The bonus was that I ran into a nice cinnamon black bear, which was one of the high points of the trip.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2016 9:28:40 GMT -8
After stopping for some rest, I will look around before walking off. Typically, we do not leave anything behind but on day 4 of a 6 day backpack, I spied my multi-tool laying on the ground.
I frequently, stop and turn around to take a look at the way back. I also, scope out the late night potty spot, for me it makes it easier for that gotta-go moment.
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davesenesac
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Post by davesenesac on Oct 20, 2016 10:07:23 GMT -8
Thanks folks for offering your personal experiences and helpful suggestions.
The trickiest camp spot locations where one may have trouble would be in dense forest where one cannot see peaks or skylines due to blocking trees. Likewise while on a trail in deep forest, leaving one's pack to wander about has dangers. At night such forest may also block views of stars thus orientation may be difficult. For that reason if one is in deep forest, always having a compass in one's pocket has value. Normally in the Sierra Nevada where most backpacking is at or above timberline, I rarely resort to using my compass because there are usually many visual terrain features to orient against a topographic map. However the range like many of our far west coast forests, have some very deep and towering mid and lower elevation trees where visuals may be blocked.
At or above timberline, despite backpacking 4 decades, often base camping in remote places well away from trails and lake edges, where I'll day hike and explore multiple times each day away from camp spots sometimes long distances for hours, I've never had problems relocating my camp spots mostly because long ago I realized how dangerous not being very careful knowing a camp position is. Thus take care upon making camp or leaving my pack being dead sure of surrounding visual features and how such relates to topographic maps. The most difficult situation is when I am off away from camp for sunset and dusk photography far enough that by time I return, landscapes are becoming quite dark. That is one reason I've long carried a powerful headlamp and even then rambling back across off trail terrain in growing darkness sometimes scares me that is pretty much a primal fear for we humans. Of course our ancestral hunters faced the same fear returning late in days to their homes and without flashlights or Bic lighters.
For we modern backpackers, the most valuable skill for not losing pack or camp spot is having strong topographic map skills. My own has been honed over decades of rambling off trail while holding a map in my hand, regularly looking at the correspondence between what I see and what a map shows. When carrying my weighty backpacks, I much dislike wasting effort on inefficient routes. On trails one can safely get by with little referencing to a map. However for those that have an interest in improving their map skills, I will recommend as an exercise sometimes hand carrying a map along trails while referring to the map continually trying to know where one always is, which is that same skill one uses off trail.
I did buy some of the luminous parachute cord on the link I gave. 50 feet of both light blue and pink that was $16 plus $6 for shipping.
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schlanky
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Post by schlanky on Oct 20, 2016 10:20:41 GMT -8
Several summers ago, I was doing a solo overnighter in the Smokies. Woke up in the middle of the night with stomach problems and an immediate need for the bathroom. Got far enough away from camp & took care of business. Starting back, I knew the direction I needed to go, but also knew I had no backstop if I missed it to the right (the trail was off to the left).
I walked a bit and looked around, but couldn't locate the tent and was getting increasingly colder----in my hurry, I'd left my tent wearing only Crocs, a sweatshirt and underwear. There was no moon, and my headlamp that had always been plenty good around camp now seemed almost useless.
I gave up on finding the tent and cut my angle harder to the left hoping I'd just hit the trail, but then walked farther than I thought the trail should have been. That's when I started to freak out a little. There were people camped within earshot of me, and I had just about reached the last resort of yelling for them to come rescue this moron in his skivvies. And then I ran into the trail.
I'd overcompensated the angle too far left and then must have drifted back a tad to the right and was walking parallel to the trail for a while. After that trip, I bought a better head lamp and now leave a spare light on in the tent if I'm going more than just a few steps away.
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Post by trinity on Oct 20, 2016 10:33:57 GMT -8
Luminous cord for camp ie tent guy lines. Shine light on it and it stays bright in dark for short time About how long does the glow last? This seems like a great idea. My tents have reflective guy lines, but that only helps if you are able to shine a light on them....
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