开云体育

EDITED 4/13/23 5:11 pm

Since we have all made mistakes, I don't think it is disrespectful to identify the mistakes here and to learn from them

Lost hiker story - use an Incognito browser to open it if you aren't a SF Chronicle subscriber

I'd say this is the key passage of the SF Chron article:

"... he fell off the trail and slid perhaps two to three body lengths down a steep grade. He could have attempted to scramble back up the loose rock, but opted for what seemed like an easier tack. He angled along the steep face and walked parallel with the trail, thinking he could intersect it."

And therefore the key lesson of this story:

Even with a well-travelled trail, it is really, really dangerous to try to angle back to your trail after you'd lost it. For example, the JMT is heavily travelled but if you happened to be dead reckoning back, you might well cross it at a place where yo don't see it (e.g., granite). So you think the trail is still ahead of you when it is now actually behind you.

This is an even bigger mistake on a trail that comes in and out of visibility, as was the case here

So, for me, the key lesson here is>

There is noting wrong about losing a trail via a fall or just a wrong turn. Happens all the time.

You do make a mistake if you don't promptly return to your last known point where you were, for sure, on the trail. Even if you have to cut back a substantial distance.?

Never, never try to intersect a trail that you strayed from. Admit your mistake, turn around, and retrace your steps.

Prior thread on this:?/g/JMT/topic/85831842#75052

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John Curran Ladd
San Francisco, CA?
415-648-9279