A story of when I was smarter than the gear I was carrying? Hmm.. I think I have an oddly appropriate one (or inappropriate, depending on how you interpret the choices made), for anyone who is interested.
I'll start with a pic, to set the mood:
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This picture was taken early last spring on the final day of a long weekend hiking / camping trip. It was in an area that should have been WELL under the snow line... or at least that's what my party thought. It turned out that we had hiked too far south, and ended up about 8 kilometers from our original destination, and at a much higher elevation. We were ultimately about 22 kilometers from the nearest trail out - many many hours of ground to cover in terrain like that.
In my opinion, the image nicely sums up that final day of the trip:
confusion. My group (three of us; myself, my girlfriend, and my cousin) had ended up totally lost at a much higher elevation than we intended to be, and surrounded by snow and ice. A bad situation. My cousin and I are both very experienced hikers and outdoors men, and I am personally quite familiar with the mountains we were hiking, so there really was no excuse for us to even be in a situation like this. However, we
were in that situation, and as you may be able to tell from the picture, the sun was quickly setting behind those mountains. We were running out of light, and I was the only one in the group who had any kind of idea where we were. Something had to be done.
I should also stop here quickly and mention that early spring is probably the most dangerous time of year to be camping. It's deceptively warm in the city, where everything is in full bloom and colourful. It's easy to get fooled by this. It's easy to think you can just pack light, with warm weather and summer gear, since it's so nice out. The birds are chirping, the bees are buzzing, and love is in the air (aww
). But when you get to the mountains? Things change very quickly, becoming grey and dark and cold. The mountains are still in their hateful, malevolent winter mindset. For this reason, spring is dangerous; it's easily underestimated.
Anyway, where was I? Right - what do we do? It's cold out, we're losing light, and we're lost.
Well, we certainly had the gear to set up camp and hunker down. It's the obvious choice, right? We had a small tent, tarps, and tools. Not only that, but we were cold and we were wet, with dampened morale. Because of that, making fire immediately, right there, and drying ourselves out before getting into our tent and bed was the popular option. But I didn't like it. My cousin and my girlfriend thought it was the best approach, quoting common survival knowledge that when you are lost, you
stay put, but I knew how dangerous it can be to stay in those mountains. I took one look to the north, and immediately told them "no." There were thick black clouds in the distance, and I knew from experience what that meant. We
had to get to a lower elevation while we still had the light to do so, THEN we could play camp.
Was it fair to veto a group vote, especially when our gear would support that vote? Probably not. But since I was the only one with experience in this area, I had in a way taken leadership, and would veto it anyway. I wasn't about to spend the night shivering in a leaky tent surrounded by ice, trying not to lose another toe.
Had I been there with just my cousin? Sure, I'd go with the sound logic of staying put and camp there for the night. Him and I have been through worse shit together before. But I was
not going to put my girlfriend through a mountain storm on her first real camping trip. She acts tough, but I know her bravery has its limits. We had to get into a warmer temperature range.
So I had us sit down for 15 minutes to have a look around and figure out just where the hell we were. I
knew we needed to head northeast, but finding a route that would get us down quickly rather than retracing the huge loop that got us there in the first place would be a challenge. I checked my topographical map, figured out roughly where we were, and located a small valley that looked promising. That was it, that was our way out. No time for discussion. Time to move.
So we did. We climbed and slipped and hiked down, lower and lower into the valley. Within a couple hours, the snow had began to thin out significantly. Not long after that, there were only muddy patches of snow and ice. The sun was setting now, and we decided it was time to stop and finally set up camp and dry off. The winds were beginning to howl in the trees, pushing the black clouds overhead, and freezing rain was beginning to pour. We needed to prepare for the oncoming storm, despite my best efforts to avoid it.
First order of business, get our shelter set up and create fire. My girlfriend and I would take care of shelter, while my cousin would get a fire going. Usually I'm the fire guy, but this time my cousin volunteered to take the axe out, kind of nodding towards my girlfriend and directing my attention to her. She was starting to appear pretty shook up. She's a strong girl; the type that never admits she's scared, but I think it was the screaming winds that finally got to her. So I went over to spend some time comforting her, in my own way. I had her set up our tent and help me tarp out some areas near what would be our firepit, keeping her busy and her mind occupied. She thinks I'm just a lazy slacker trying to make her do everything, but that's only half true. I have my reasons for making her work.
Fortunately, my cousin is no slouch with an axe. He returned shortly with a good supply of what was previously standing dead wood, the only thing dry enough to burn in this kind of environment. We sparked some cotton, and soon had a big flame burning and drying us out, just before the storm hit. And man, what a storm it was. Trees were falling all over the mountain, hail was shooting UP the valley as it got caught in the powerful updrafts, and in the distance we could hear thunder booming. Still, we sat under our tarps near the flame, content for the moment.
I'm confident that we would have been in a much worse situation had we stayed where we originally were, where we "should" have stayed according to search and rescue units and the gear on our backs. I took a risk, going against better judgement and hiking into an unknown valley to seek shelter, but in the end I think it payed off. That storm would have been much worse at the higher elevations, even if we had instead spent the afternoon thoroughly setting up camp rather than hiking.
We made it back to the car by nightfall the next day, returning home late. We were drained and exhausted, but still alive. Those two will never let me live down the time I got them lost in knee deep snow, but I still maintain that we were just "exploring".
Thanks for reading all this, I hope you guys got some enjoyment out of my story.
...And it's not even the worst story I have. I freaking love the mountains!!
. I have been reading more of the forums that I don't go to often, or at all. I've been checking it out kinda learning some. 
Knucklehead. So, I grabbed some wood, and popped the flare, and got a fire going. We hung our clothes up on some branches to dry, and we took turns swimming out to where the boat sank, taking turns dragging it in. Took almost all night, one would swim out and pull, then float back on the throwable. Warm up, while the other was going out. We got the skiff back to shore, and pulled the motor off. After grabbing some quick zzz's, and with the day breaking, Brad stuffed a piece of cloth in a profilactic that we, um, er, just happen to have, and plugged the hole. We paddled in, taking turns bailing water and paddling until we hit the beach.
