“Nature” will try very, very hard to kill you. And it succeeds quite often.
L
My idea of roughing it is 4 star instead of 5 star hotels :)
The closest I get to nature is passing the tree on the way to my car.
“Nature “ ultimately will kill all of us...one way or another. You never know .
In my early 20s I spent a lot of time in the Alaska bush and reached the conclusion that nature isn’t so much trying to kill me, but that it’s at best indifferent to me living or dying...
In the wild places humans enter the food chain in ways not experienced by urban dwellers...One may do “the stupid” over and over and get away with it, until the one time conditions combine in the wrong way to take your life...And become fodder for scavenging critters; your remains never to be found...
Getting caught up in the breathtaking beauty and failure to pay attention just once is often enough...
A got a kick out of a sign at the Anchorage airport: Visitors please take notice: You are stepping off of the airport into the food chain.
Our modern life has built a "cocoon of safety" around us and has given many of us a false sense of security. Even the strongest and fittest among us would not last more than a few hours if suddenly thrust into cold seawater or exposed on a cold night with no clothes or shelter.
I had two "reality of nature" experiences in my life. In the early 1980s, I was a young Marine stationed at the 29 Palms base in the high desert of California. One particular morning when I had a weekend to myself, I decided to walk across the desert to a mountain range that looked like it couldn't be more than a few miles away. After a couple hours of walking, I realized I was getting nowhere close and turned back. Temperature was rapidly rising through the 80s, 90s and close to 100 degrees (a normal thing there). When I finally stumbled into town, I spent the next few hours drinking one Gatorade after another. Would surely have died out there if I wasn't in such good shape or decided to keep walking into the desert until I (unknowingly) reached the point of no return.
20 years later, I had a similar experience while hiking. This time I was up in the woods of New Hampshire and unwisely undertook a long hike knowing that a snowstorm was on the way for that afternoon. Well the snow hit quicker and I lost the trail on the way back due to the wet snow covering all the trail markers. Fortunately I had presence of mind (and a compass) to head due east knowing there was a north-south road there (where my car was parked) and that I would stumble across it eventually. I did and then had to guess whether my car was north or south of that point. Fortunately I picked the right direction but it was another close call. I was at the point of exhaustion when I reached my car (and then had to shovel it out).
But both those cases exposed for me the unforgiving element that is called nature.