Posted on 07/22/2021 8:03:44 AM PDT by SJackson
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Thanks for posting.
What a great story! Thank you for posting that.
Whats impressive..at least in his day in age..is he has survived being married for 40 years.
I’m glad he survived... but lost for 17 days when only a couple miles from your car?!
Dipstick.
We don’t go into the local county Forest Preserves without a day pack that has food, water, and our IFAKs.
L
LOL!
His wife has the patience of a saint.
He’s an idiot.
He’s thirsty but is tramping through rivers and waterfalls.
He’s hungry but doesn’t fish.
He’s lost but goes farther and farther away from his car and the trail. Worst, he climbs higher.
Was the sun in his eyes when he left his car? Like, hellooooo.
Something like that happened to me once. *shudders uncontrollably* Me and my friend ended up hiking 40 miles out of an area that we’d blundered into. By some luck we walked into a bunch of national forest campsites just as it was starting to get REALLY dark. Some nice guys who were fishing gave us a ride back to our car, it was like 50+ miles. We didn’t have decent jackets, hats, and only one water bottle for two people. What a nightmare!
But we got to see some amazing stuff on our hellish journey.
A function of no compass, no map. I always make a point of knowing the direction roads, streams or other escape routes are if I should become disoriented. Which can happen.
Great story. And reinforces the old concept. What’s on your body lets you survive, what’s on your web gear lets you do your mission, and your pack gives you comfort and do things better.
That basic boy scout knife, a firestarter, signal mirror, a ziplock bag to use as a canteen with some water purification pills, and a space blanket would nearly fit in the space of a pack of playing cards and weigh nothing.
And he sounds like very comfortable in the ourdoors, but if you are out there a lot, those personal locator satellite beacons are about 300 bucks. Sit down, press the button and wait for the rescue.
What a great story. I cannot imagine going 17 days with only a few grubs, termites, snails and millipedes to eat. Don’t millipedes and centipedes make you really sick?
I’ve got friends from the Roseburg and Sutherlin areas and I’ll send this to them.
Sunset on May 5 in Roseburg, OR was 8:19 pm. In the deep, tall forest, it’s dark a lot before that. Setting out for a 2-1/2 mile round trip on the trail at 4 pm was not the smartest thing to do. It was probably already getting dusky at 4 pm. Lesson 2 is always take some basic survival gear with you, especially when you are alone.
But good job on his mentality at least. A positive “ I WILL make it” mindset really matters a lot.
Also, the wife waiting 48 hours because she thought that was the law. (even though it is 24) When you know something is wrong call when you know that and raise holy hell. It does sometimes help.
I didn’t notice if anyone found his car at the trailhead?
Read the whole story. He was drinking when he was at the bottom of the canyons, but the planes couldn’t spot him. He figured he would have a better chance of being spotted by search planes on a ridge top which was a long hard climb...but there is no water on the ridge.
Wandering around is the #1 rule he violated. And, yes, it is surprising that he was on a fishing hike but didn’t catch fish for food.
That basic survival kit you listed is excellent.
I did read it.
Surprised he didn’t take a fall and end up dead.
He proved the well known fact pilots have a hard time seeing a wee little human in a forest, ridge or not.
And fishing line! But as someone else pointed out, he has fishing gear and skill, is surrounded by mountain streams, and somehow never fished. Interesting.
When I was 12, a friend and I went out in the jungle near my house in Subic Bay in the Philippines.
Heh, no map. No compass. And we got lost and wandered around in circles for a couple of hours. I climbed a tree and spied a familiar road a few hundred yards away, but without climbing that tree, it might have been a thousand.
We knew the area pretty well, and there were established boar paths we followed, but...there you have it.
I was lost enough to get nervous. I respected things a bit more after that.
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