Posted on 04/15/2023 1:52:38 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A group of hikers in England got so ill from taking mushrooms that a search and rescue team had to retrieve them. And they're not the first psychedelic enthusiasts to have a trip go wrong on the trail.
Every hiker has had a bad trip before. But a group of hikers in England’s Lake District gave the term new meaning last week, when they got so ill from taking magic mushrooms that they needed rescue.
On April 8, the Keswick Mountain Rescue Team received a number of calls from walkers who had encountered “a group of young adult males who had taken magic mushrooms.” The psychedelic experiment apparently hadn’t gone as planned: According to a post on the team’s site, two of the hikers, including the one who had driven the group to the trailhead, were “feeling unwell.” Rescuers located the group and then walked the stricken psychonauts out, after which they were “given advice by the team medic regarding the timing of their onward travel,” which we presume is a nice way of saying “told to please not drive until the trees stopped pointing and laughing at them.”
Hikers occasionally do drugs on the trail, a fact that will shock no one except for my grandparents. That’s been true since there were hikers, drugs, or trails, and continues to be true today. Backpacker’s adopted hometown of Boulder, Colorado is both a hiking town and a college town, which means that on any given weekend you’re likely to notice someone on the trail who’s just a little too invested in how pretty the wildflowers are, and a little too oblivious to everything else.
Just because hiking in an altered state of mind is common doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good idea. While the individuals in last week’s incident walked out without trouble, some psylocibin-curious hikers have met much grimmer ends. In 2022, a 25-year-old hiker drowned during a hike on Washington’s Wallace Falls Trail after allegedly taking mushrooms. British Columbia’s North Shore Rescue has responded to a laundry list of injuries and incidents involving hikers on psychedelics, including one who had to be evacuated by helicopter following a bad acid trip, and a pair who fell 200 feet into a ravine while on mushrooms and marijuana.
The problem isn’t so much the drugs as the environment in which the hikers took them: After last year’s death on Wallace Falls Trail, Dr. Nathan Sackett, a medical researcher at the University of Washington, told Seattle’s King 5 News that while magic mushrooms are generally safe on their own, “accidents are prone to happen” when people take them in a wilderness area where natural hazards abound.
“As psychedelics become culturally more normative, it’s really important that people know they should do them in a controlled environment,” Sackett told the station. “Hopefully, one day, people won’t have to hide in the woods to experience them.”
So, aspiring psychonauts, consider this a cautionary tale: Trails and magic mushrooms don’t mix. Find a safer space for your chemical experimentation—or at least find someone sober to hold onto the car keys.
Darwin award for these people.
04/12/2023 5:02:06 PM PDT · by BenLurkin · 38 replies
NY Post ^ | By Katherine Donlevy
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4145154/posts
Encounter with Mushroom Sally...
Magic mushrooms vary a lot based on type.
Mexican mushrooms look much like you would expect of dried mushrooms, and are said to give a gentle high while enhancing color perception.
Hawaiian mushrooms, on the other hand, look like dried lawn grass, and their effect is described as “pushing an unpeeled pineapple in one ear and pulling it out the other. Over and over again for hours.” Not particularly pleasant.
Out in nature is the only place to really enjoy them.
“Mexican mushrooms look much like you would expect of dried mushrooms,”
Used to be an old tale that Mexican mushrooms grew where Jesus Christ spit.” No explanation regarding how he got to Mexico.
“While the individuals in last week’s incident walked out without trouble . . .”
Says who?
They needed to be “Rescued”, at great expense, after all. They should have been told to stay put until they come down.
Alternatively, charged for the full costs of the rescue. “I ran out of Pringles, come get me” and “I’m really, really high” is not sufficient grounds for helicopter extraction. Life is tough. It’s a lot tougher if you’re stupid. It’s even tougher yet if you’re stupid, and on Drugs.
“You did what!? Don’t do that. When you come down, you can come down. Keep us posted.”
I was at Canyonlands NP some years back and noticed a helicopter hovering over the Needles loop trails by Elephant Hill. Since low level aircraft are not ordinarily allowed, I asked a Ranger what was up. SAR, it turns out. He didn’t elaborate.
Later that week, I found out the “Rest of the Story”. A group of hikers were tripping on L.S.D. and one participant started to get her freak on and ran away from the group. Efforts to locate her were unsuccessful, and she continued to hide from her friends, and later, the rescuers, believing they were out to “get her”, which of course they were. Canyonlands is high desert, around 6,000 feet average, and cold at night. Great way to die of exposure, or fall off a cliff.
A few days later she was found wandering a park road by another visitor, and was dumped unceremoniously at the nearest Ranger station.
Maybe they should have fasted for three days, then hiked in the mountains.
Root beer and fries don’t help you see through time and space though.
Got lost? Well, I used to know a guy who once drove four times around the Washington beltway because he couldn’t find his exit. But that was alcohol, not magic mushrooms.
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