Posted on 09/03/2025 11:50:09 PM PDT by thecodont
Halfway into a recent weeklong backpacking trip through California’s Sierra Nevada, nine members of a scout troop and their scoutmaster came across a man standing alone in a meadow deep in the Emigrant Wilderness. He appeared disoriented and didn’t have any hiking or camping gear.
The California Highway Patrol confirmed the man was Douglas Montgomery. The group soon learned the 78-year-old was an experienced outdoorsman and former scoutmaster himself. The group also learned that he was stranded after veering 15 miles off his intended route, had lost his backpack, and had been battling hypothermia for two days.
“We started very quickly realizing that he wasn’t all right,” said Michael-James Hey, scoutmaster for Troop 26 from Santa Barbara. “He was looking really bedraggled. He’s got cuts all over his hands. He’s very unsteady on his feet, and he’s being polite, but he’s pretty out of it.”
Montgomery was on a two-week-long solo backpacking trip. Several miles earlier, he’d set his pack down and left to get a better look at his whereabouts and the trail. When he came back, he was unable to find the pack, which contained all his food, water and camping gear, as well as a GPS-enabled communication device.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I like this Anceshntr guy.
In Engineering referred to as Murphy’s Law
In Aviation as “Always Leave Yourself an Out.”
When everyone around you is in panic, screaming and yelling, and you are calm and collected, you truly do not understand the gravity of the situation:)
“LOOKING AT THE TRAIL” I miss my horse, it was his job to look at the trail.
Lots of bones still in the woods because of that...
Better than dying in a bed, hooked up with tubes and hoses in every orifice and being tortured a few weeks by the “health care providers”, maybe?
He probably went solo because all his hiking buddies are all dead, or in a nursing home! That’s how I got into it, difficult to reliably find people crazy enough to do stuff like that, or at least find the time, schedule conflicts.
Don’t go outside! Stay in your Basement! Stay Safe! Shelter In Place
Stockton Rush had a similar pitch to lure clients to the Titan submersible which eventually imploded on a dive to the Titanic.
Get adobe and down load PDF files from USGS
“on a two-week-long solo backpacking trip”
SOLO. Idiot.
Well he got way more solitude than he expected.
Don’t scuba dive alone. Don’t remote backpack alone. Things can go bad real quick.
For an experienced guy his mistake shows inexperience, but no matter what, long backpacks alone is a great pleasure.
Yes, my first thought was this guy is an idiot. But even an experienced backpacker can get into trouble.
But his seeking solitude on a long backpacking trip is normal for a male, we enjoy it.
If a man speaks in the woods, and his wife isn’t around to hear him, is he still wrong?
You might enjoy it more with a female buddy :)
That is why men fish and hunt, because females love doing that stuff with them for weeks at a time away from showers and toilets.
I luv it!
Fortunately its a free country and we are all able to do any chancy thing we think of. 😏
A lot of what men do routinely and normally is seen by females as risky and to be avoided, to men it is just life.
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