I would be interested to hear stories from people who at some point went out into the forest, thinking they were prepared, but soon discovered they were quite under-prepared.
What did you do? Did you turn around and go home or carry on with what you had? And in what way were you “underprepared?”
And how did the adventure unfold?
Thanks.
Conan
Conan
One time I was out on the Northern Raeb Gnitae Nam Trail just hiking along through about 14 feet of snow and enjoying the blizzard when the craziest thing happened. All of the sudden I was surrounded by 12 polar bears. They had formed a perfect circle around me just as the sun was setting so I thought maybe they were smart polar bears and they were trying to form a sundial with me as the needle. Alas this was not the case…they just wanted to look intimidating. But I was not fooled. I pulled out my salt-rusted swiss army knife and removed the toothpick. I then said in polarbear-ese that I would kill every last one of them with my toothpick if they didn’t get on with gettin on. They proceeded to laugh at me and tell jokes amongst themselves. I threw my toothpick at a tenth of the speed of light at one bear and the energy from the impacted caused the bear to explode into vapor. The other bears gasped and decided I was cool enough to hang with so we all sat down in the snow, had some cokes, and played cards. So the moral is everything will work out in the trail so long as you have a swiss army knife.
Mad Max
I turned up at Amicalola Falls at 11 p.m back in the fall of 2001 with my buddy on a whim…from England. We had no food and crappy gear. We bought whatever food they had in the visitor center the next morning and tried to smuggle out breakfast keftovers from the lodge. Needless to say we ran out of food by Hawk Mtn shelter. Hiked to the gas station in Suches the next day to stock up on more crap before hitting Neels gap. We still made it as far as Erwin where we ran out of money and went home. A great introduction to the AT.
Cheers
Cheers
I think that I narrowly escaped a nightmare in the Whites. I was pretty well prepared gear wise but I wasn’t paying attention to my enviroment as much as I should have. I was just hiking a little slower then normal and wasnt generating the usual amount of heat I had grown used to from hiking to keep me warm. Before I new it I was cold, wet, and shivering. I didn’t realize how close I came to hypothermia until I got to one of the huts and it took me over 4 hours in a warm dry hut, with hot soup and dry clothes, to stop shivering. To this very day, cold, wet weather is what I fear most in hiking.
Tesla
In April 2005 I had planned to hike the AT thru Virginia (Va/Tenn line to Harpers Ferry). This was my first trip longer than 5 days. Day 1 was warm and sunny, day 2 it started to rain/lighting/hail. My hiking partner and I were near the Summit of White Top and the ground all around was scorched with lighting strikes and the temperature was dropping.
I had a pancho for rain gear (big mistake). I got soaked then very cold so we had to stop and put up our tents so I could warm up. The thunderstorm continued all thru the night. Next day I backtracked to the highway and hitched a ride back to Damascus with my tail between my legs. Unfortunately due to time restraints that was the end of my big adventure. I did learn some lessons about backpacking gear that I hope to use in the future.
Phil
I was 1 day and 10 miles into my 5 day hike. I had set up camp on the edge of a cliff for the night. As I pulled out my food for supper, my dog got excited thinking he was going to be fed first. Knowing that I would not have a quiet supper with him bugging me for food, I went to his pack to get him something to eat. As I turned around I saw my food bag in the air going over the cliff. My dog had the look of oops on his face. He knew that he screwed up. I couldn’t be mad at him, it was my fault; his toys at home were the same color as the food bag. The bag was gone and I had no way to get down the cliff to try to find it. At that point I had (1) snickers bar, (1) can of tuna, some M&Ms and (10) cups of dry dog food. I didn’t want to scrub the hike and the next place to buy food was at a road crossing on day three. Long story short dry dog food does not taste that bad and my dog was very eager to share.
Captain K-man
Sorry, couldn’t help but laugh ~ but hey! protein and plenty of carbs in dog food ~ maybe you’ll start a new hiker trend? :lol
Find some comfort in thinking there was a hiker below who couldn’t believe the trail magic that just fell right out of the sky…
Wild Hare
K-Man…I was rolling on the floor reading your story! I can only imagine the words coming out of your mouth when you saw your coveted food bag flying over the cliff. Thanks so much for sharing that. By the way, I’ve voluntarily tried Milkbone Dog Biscuits…tasted like really dry shredded wheat, so I bet there would have been worse things to eat than your dog’s food. Wow…what a pal your dog is for sharing. :lol
Michele
K-Man…I was rolling on the floor reading your story! I can only imagine the words coming out of your mouth when you saw your coveted food bag flying over the cliff. Thanks so much for sharing that. By the way, I’ve voluntarily tried Milkbone Dog Biscuits…tasted like really dry shredded wheat, so I bet there would have been worse things to eat than your dog’s food. Wow…what a pal your dog is for sharing. :lol
Michele