Rick M wrote: Back to the topic, I put my pack on and started back to the hut and walked down what was the west side a hundred feet or so before realizing I was going the wrong way
. And I’ve been up there numerous times. Without a trail or tracks in the snow it’s possible to get disoriented and go the wrong way. Not being familiar with basic “terrain observation” or if the sun has gone down and you’re navigating in the dark can make it difficult.
It's the overall frequency, the fact that it occurs so often in the
daytime (with the
absence of fog, snow, storm, etc.), and that people get so dad gum
far off track that gets me. Of course, now that I've said that, I'll be the target of the next SAR operation (in ridiculously simple circumstances: Long Valley within sight of the tram while leading a Girl Scout troop). We've all had our bad days and our "what was I thinking?" moments. Every person we read about on the RMRU site who "cliffs out" going down Tahquitz Cr or the like is one more reminder to redouble our own diligence.
Rick M wrote: As strange as this may seem, I’ve known people to get lost with fresh snow on the ground and finding the lost individual was simply following their tracks. Why it didn’t occur to the individual to simply turn around and follow his or her own tracks out is puzzling. Perhaps a lack of experience? Panic setting in?
There's a book out called
Deep Survival that is worth a read. People often get this idea fixated in their heads, "if I can just get to the car (boat, ranger station, road, etc.), I'll be OK." They're scared, and they get fixated on that one thought which helps them to not totally "lose it." While it does sort of control panic, it unfortunately doesn't really allow thought. One can get so fixated on the car, the lights of civilization below, etc, that one overlooks the obvious (hmm, I wasn't lost 30 minutes ago, I'm in fresh snow, and mine are the only tracks around, maybe I could just retrace...)
I've seen several survival presentations that say the first thing to do when you realize you're in a pickle is to S.T.O.P. (Stop,
Think, Observe, Plan). There's an interesting free video here:
http://www.bushcraft.se/film/index.html.en It's best to download the subtitles for it (unless you speak Swedish).
Rick M wrote:Wow, reading topos at age seven
. When I taught middle school one of the projects I had my students do was make three-dimensional relief maps (cut out of cardboard) and make the paper topo map that matches their 3-D map. Since I had been criticized about not using the computer lab much or being computer savvy (bought my first computer in 1982), I signed up for a two-day block in the lab. My students were to construct, using the Claris Works drawing program, a topo map that had a minimum of three peaks with one that had at least 5 index contours, streams with the crossing contour line Vs correctly pointing upstream, a lake, road, etc. Then make a profile of a line across any two of their three peaks, and describe the easiest route up the highest peak and the hardest way (neglecting possible real life vegetation). Even I was amazed with the results
. Some of the students even put in things like a compass rose, borders with lat/longs, intermittent streams, etc that actually looked like a USGS topo map. And all this from a low income low achieving school with a majority of minority students
.
Yes, it is amazing what people will do given a little bit of freedom and exposure to something interesting in the real world.
Rick M wrote:For the students able to go, we would do weekend trips to the mountains and desert for navigation and survival skills, rock climbing and rappelling (got in trouble when district administrators saw pictures of my students hanging on ropes off cliffs in the yearbook), underground lava tube exploring, etc. I must say I don’t blame a lot of students for not liking school when I see what many have to go through.
Yeah, I remember when things were a lot more relaxed and people were'nt so paranoid about lawsuits. Now people freak at the least amount of exposure to risk, and who can blame them given our litigious society? It seems like the courts don't have their feet firmly planted on the ground. Risk just is. We don't exist in a vacuum. Everytime someone is injured, that injury does not necessarily indicate negligence. I don't know what the right balance (strict liablility vs. assumption of risk) is or how to get there, but the current legal climate seems to have a "chilling effect" on many things that might get kids off their game boys and interested in life and the world. The world's a big place with vast storehouses of mystery waiting to be delved into by inquisitive young minds. (OK, I'll step down from my idealistic soap box now).
Rick M wrote:Seems like we defeated communism with our creativity only to now adopt their way of education.
That's a very powerful insight, I think. Not that I wish for the return of the Cold War, but in a way it was good for the country. All that money we put into the space race and into DARPA research as well as into technical education paid off in spades in my opinion. Absent the Cold War, I think we're a bit more complacent. How would JF Kennedy's famous "we choose to go to the moon by the end of the decade" speech play today? I wonder if there would even be any interest.
Rick M wrote:A lot of it has to do with many teachers in the past not teaching but collecting a paycheck and complaining about not being paid enough. Sorry, rambling soapbox now. Such great weather now, I wish I could go hike instead of a meeting at 11 and 4.
Interesting that you say that. When I was in jr. high, all of the older teachers about to retire were WWII vets. There was a very different spirit about them, a spirit of independence that couldn't be quenched. They had gone through the depression and the war and had seen what it takes to get things done. You couldn't put a lot of BS on them. I think they knew the cost of BS from their war time experience. The succeding generation didn't have that fiestyness to them. The succeeding generation seemed to accept bureaucratic nonsense in a passive, fatalistic sort of way that the earlier generation seemed to say "yeah, right" about. There was about them, the WWII generation , a sense that "we've got to get things done, and we don't have time to monkey around with a lot of BS." Would that that spirit were alive today. It seems like initiative and good judgement are now foreign concepts, as are maturity and responsibility.