I was explaining to a friend why having the right gear is critical and it wasn't sinking in for him (why use a $100 flashlight or knife when a $10 one will do). It occured to me that it may take a traumatic experience for this lesson to hit home.
For me, it was a hunting trip on Kodiak island when I was a teenager. My brother and I arrived on the island and we immediately headed out on the hunt even though we were not prepaired and did not know the area at all. The lodge we were staying at provided us with a walkie-talkie, a mini flare gun and some rope. The first set back was the terrain. We had never moved through such thick, often thorny, undergrowth (18+ hours of light and all the water a plant can use). It was exhausting. The growth also hid countless deep drainage channels which we would periodically fall into (some as deep as 8ft). Occasionaly we would stumble into an alder patch of thick intertwined branches which would require climbing, squeezing and crawling to get through. We were ascending a steep mountain heading for a large bowl we could see at the top. After only a couple miles of this we were pretty wiped out, but we finally made it to treeline (very low in Alaska) and emerged gratefully into low growth tundra. After getting into position on the rim of the bowl we spotted a buck silouette skylined at the top. It was about a 400 yard shot (distance deterimined after looking at a topographic map the next day). I wouldn't take such a long shot now, but then I was young and dumb and went for it. I nailed it and watched the buck tumble all the way down the bowl to the small lake at the bottom. It was a long steep fall and it seemed to take forever. We had to splash throught some of the lake to reach the deer, we gutted it and split it in two with each of us carrying a bloody half.
That is when the clouds decended. It was probably around 9:30 pm and still light when the clouds hit. Visibility was reduced to about 20 yards, it was getting cold, we were wet, it was late, we were exhausted and were carrying a bloody carcass through Kodiak bear country. Somehow it didn't dawn on us how much danger we were in. We decided to head back to the lodge on dead reconing. Once past the tundra we hit the steep overgrown slopes. It was bad enough hauling a rifle and daypack through the stuff, but add a deer carcass and it was miserable. At some point during this stuggle it got dark. We were lost. We then realized we didn't know how to operate the walki-talkie. There seemed to be nothing to do but head down hill the best we could. Suddenly we heard loud crashes nearby as a large animal traveled through the thick growth at an incrediable speed. Kodiak bear! It finally sunk in that we were in a life or death situation, so we took the rope and hung the carcass. We had one cheap flashlight between the two of us, the alkaline cells were about drained. Even so the warm orange glow of the bulb was comforting if not useful. Hours passed as we stumbled like wounded animals. Finally we managed to get through on the walkie talkie, they were looking for us, and were told to keep heading down hill until we reached a creek and to follow it. We used the flare gun several times before they spotted it and they guided us in. What a happy moment that was when we spotted their flashlights.
After this experience I thought long and hard about all the mistakes we had made and vowed to never repeat them.
-- Dizos
For me, it was a hunting trip on Kodiak island when I was a teenager. My brother and I arrived on the island and we immediately headed out on the hunt even though we were not prepaired and did not know the area at all. The lodge we were staying at provided us with a walkie-talkie, a mini flare gun and some rope. The first set back was the terrain. We had never moved through such thick, often thorny, undergrowth (18+ hours of light and all the water a plant can use). It was exhausting. The growth also hid countless deep drainage channels which we would periodically fall into (some as deep as 8ft). Occasionaly we would stumble into an alder patch of thick intertwined branches which would require climbing, squeezing and crawling to get through. We were ascending a steep mountain heading for a large bowl we could see at the top. After only a couple miles of this we were pretty wiped out, but we finally made it to treeline (very low in Alaska) and emerged gratefully into low growth tundra. After getting into position on the rim of the bowl we spotted a buck silouette skylined at the top. It was about a 400 yard shot (distance deterimined after looking at a topographic map the next day). I wouldn't take such a long shot now, but then I was young and dumb and went for it. I nailed it and watched the buck tumble all the way down the bowl to the small lake at the bottom. It was a long steep fall and it seemed to take forever. We had to splash throught some of the lake to reach the deer, we gutted it and split it in two with each of us carrying a bloody half.
That is when the clouds decended. It was probably around 9:30 pm and still light when the clouds hit. Visibility was reduced to about 20 yards, it was getting cold, we were wet, it was late, we were exhausted and were carrying a bloody carcass through Kodiak bear country. Somehow it didn't dawn on us how much danger we were in. We decided to head back to the lodge on dead reconing. Once past the tundra we hit the steep overgrown slopes. It was bad enough hauling a rifle and daypack through the stuff, but add a deer carcass and it was miserable. At some point during this stuggle it got dark. We were lost. We then realized we didn't know how to operate the walki-talkie. There seemed to be nothing to do but head down hill the best we could. Suddenly we heard loud crashes nearby as a large animal traveled through the thick growth at an incrediable speed. Kodiak bear! It finally sunk in that we were in a life or death situation, so we took the rope and hung the carcass. We had one cheap flashlight between the two of us, the alkaline cells were about drained. Even so the warm orange glow of the bulb was comforting if not useful. Hours passed as we stumbled like wounded animals. Finally we managed to get through on the walkie talkie, they were looking for us, and were told to keep heading down hill until we reached a creek and to follow it. We used the flare gun several times before they spotted it and they guided us in. What a happy moment that was when we spotted their flashlights.
After this experience I thought long and hard about all the mistakes we had made and vowed to never repeat them.
-- Dizos