Surviving the Night Shift
Ken Murray
Joined: 05 Apr 2004
Posts: 90
Location: Studio City (LA)
Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 4:07 pm
Post subject: Surviving the Night Shift
From the LA Times, 3/1/05
Surviving the night shift
Pack some essentials in case that day hike suddenly turns into
an all-nighter. And if you're lost, hunker down.
By Jordan Rane, Special to The Times
FOR Patric Hedlund, it was a beautiful fall afternoon for a
day hike on Pine Mountain near Frazier Park. Clear, bright
skies. Hawaiian-shirt weather. A familiar trail. Her friend
Amy tagging along with her Rottweiler-Dane pup. There was no
sign of impending doom.
"We were walking along some banks and missed the cutoff to the
main trail," recalls Patric Hedlund, a Frazier Park-based
editor who had done this hike at least eight times. "We ended
up in this weird little parallel canyon that looked exactly
like the one we'd expected to be in."
The sun was plummeting. Realizing she was somehow on the wrong
trail, Hedlund raced around frantically in the dying minutes
of dusk — up a steep embankment, through shoulder-high
nettles, down a hill — trying in vain to get reoriented
against the clock. "We were totally confounded," she says.
"The mountain was in the wrong place."
In minutes, it was cave black, a moonless night with
temperatures that would drop into the hypothermic 40s. Hedlund
had some water, a straw hat and a small keychain light that
was good for checking her watch, if nothing else. "We were
dressed in thin summer shirts, with no jackets, no way to make
a campfire, and with little hope that anyone would be coming
for us anytime soon," she says. "So it was very odd hearing it
come out of my mouth — 'I think we're going to have to stay
where we are.' "
It's an all too familiar story — day hikers suddenly on a much
longer trip. No one ever thinks it's going to happen to them,
yet every year experienced and novice hikers alike get lost,
injured or trapped by weather and have to face the specter of
survival in the wild. Knowing what to do when the worst
happens can spell the difference between a good adventure yarn
and disaster.
Preparation begins by losing the illusion that day hikes can't
turn into all-nighters. "Especially this time of year, day
hikers often aren't prepared physically or mentally for
getting lost or stranded," says San Dimas Mountain Rescue Team
coordinator David Smail, who cites a couple of incidents from
the last two winters.
"We had one guy who went hiking around San Antonio Canyon and
fell down a small chute," he says. "Instead of just staying
put, he wandered around — and that's what killed him.
Otherwise, our teams would've found him quite fast."
There's also the 19-year-old from Pennsylvania who went for a
hike on Mt. Baldy last October without taking warm-enough
clothes or telling anyone where he was going.
"We found his video camera and a small day pack," says Smail.
"But we still haven't found him."
A more recent incident with a happier ending occurred last
month when screenwriter Jonathan Lemkin, 43, and his hiking
companion Clay Senechal, 23, got stranded overnight in a
whiteout on 10,064-foot Mt. Baldy. After waiting through a
frigid night on an icy slope , they managed to walk out the
following morning.
"They did the right thing," says Smail. "They stayed put."
The first action if you're stuck overnight on the trail is
nonaction: Stay where you are and don't panic. "Lost hikers
need to keep their tendency to panic in check and stop
traveling right away before they get even more lost and make
themselves harder to find," advises William Keller, a
Nebraska-based wilderness survival trainer and author of
"Keller's Outdoor Survival Guide." "Sometimes a person can
calmly sit down, replay where they just traveled, and save
themselves right there." When they can't, he urges day hikers
to abide by his "4 o'clock rule."
"That's when they need to stop and plan on spending the
night," he says. There's enough time to take care of the next
steps — building a shelter, gathering wood and making a fire.
Food is usually not nearly as critical. "I'd just rather not
freeze to death. You can go for a pretty long time without
eating."
A fire (a controlled one), Keller emphasizes, can have a
calming effect if you're stuck in the wilderness with darkness
and rash decisions closing in. "It serves a huge function in
cold weather obviously," he says, "but it's also something
that keeps people occupied and company. Even if you don't
immediately need one, a fire is a good chore to focus on —
instead of freaking out and thinking 'what the heck am I gonna
do now?' Plus it makes you much more detectable."
Hikers should pack a reliable means of starting a fire in a
variety of conditions. "Butane lighters don't always hold up
in the cold and matches don't do great in the wind," notes
Keller. For real emergencies, Keller packs a couple of small
road flares. "One strike, and boom, you have a very intense
fire starter for at least 10 minutes."
Even if you forget your flares, day hikers at least shouldn't
take to the hills without packing the 10 essentials, which may
now number 12 or 15 items with the advent of life-saving
electronic aids such as cellphones and GPS devices.
One of the latest gadgets being marketed to hikers are
pocket-sized personal locator beacons, or PLBs, that can alert
authorities via satellite and guide them to a hurt or lost
person at the flip of an antenna.
"They cost about $600 right now," says Smail, "but this thing
will save your life. The PLBs with a GPS in them are even
better because they give your precise coordinates."
Still, no high-tech devices can replace the basic essentials
list, which includes: map, compass, water, extra food, extra
clothes, pocket knife, flashlight with extra batteries,
matches and fire-starter, first-aid kit, sun protection (hat,
sunglasses, sunblock) and a plastic emergency whistle on a
lanyard. Make that 11 essentials.
Smail also recommends a trash bag, but not so that you can be
tidy while you're lost. "If you have to spend the night, it's
a windblocker, a waterproof poncho, and it's going to help you
stay warm." Of course, one of the most important preparations
is letting someone know where you're going.
Lost Pine Mountain hiker Hedlund made the mistake of not
telling her husband which trailhead she was leaving from.
Authorities finally found her vehicle at around 3 a.m. that
freezing night — with a bear sniffing around it.
Hedlund and her hiking partner would shiver convulsively for
12 hours on a rock clearing near a stream, a safe distance
away from any possible mountain lion perches ("there had been
sightings") and deer ticks ("Lyme disease").
"We were woefully inadequate for 40-degree weather," says
Hedlund, whose lips would be tinged with blue for the next few
days. "And there were so many added pressures against staying
where we were. I didn't want to worry people or feel stupid.
There's a tremendous embarrassment associated with making this
kind of mistake, and a lot of incentive to try and rescue
yourself and not face up to the fact that you're stuck."
But the sun rose the next day. And with it came a troop of
rescuers in orange shirts who congratulated her for doing the
right thing and staying put.