“Some things are up to us and some are not up to us.”
-Epictetus
On Wednesday August 1, 2018, a hiker went missing on the very hike I just posted about, Vesper Peak. Some of the news articles are linked to below for more details and information. After hearing about the situation and some of the details around what is known highlights some important steps to take note of in preparing for a hike, regardless of duration and location, particularly if you are going to hike solo.
As a young kid, I grew up in the Boy Scouts so I had a lot of opportunities to learn various outdoor skills, trip planning, basic navigation and survival skills, as well as first aid. After college I went into the Marine Corps where I gained even more knowledge about planning, risk management, land navigation and first aid, as well as some additional mountain skills. All of the time and experiences over the decades has further reinforced and enhanced what I had grown up learning. To this day I still leverage my previous experiences and knowledge as well as seek to learn more skills that I can implement on my adventures or use to help others along the way.
Before every hike, its important to come up with a plan. Something simple like:
- Where are you going?
- What are you doing?
- Who are you going with?
- When are you going?
- When will you return?
- Who knows about your plan?
These might seem basic to some, but others who don’t think about this sort of thing may not even consider something so simple and easy to do. The follow-up is to communicate your plan to someone else. Some information is better than none, because it might help narrow the search and rescue area should something arise and help is needed.
Now, you can get into a lot of details in each question and over complicate it, which in generally doesn’t always make it better, but I tend to think that depends on how much information is sufficient based on the complexity or amount of risk involved for a given activity. If I’m going with one of my hiking buddies, then sometimes the details aren’t as important as the wave-tops but usually someone not going with me knows the basic details (who, where and when). When I go out on a solo hike, either a day hike or multi-day hike, I tend to communicate more details of my plans to a few different people, for redundancy sake.
For instance, on my two previous multi-day hikes, (Welcome Pass to Boundary Way, Goat Mountain), I relayed where I was going, what general routes/trails I would be taking and when I would be gone. I also included when someone should expect to hear from me, ie no later than 7pm Sunday. I provided the information to my neighbor, my parents and my hiking buddies. On this previous trip to Goat Mountain, rather than sending out text messages and providing verbal messages, I sent out an email with my plan as well as links to the hikes I was going to be doing. Write it once and then everyone knows and has email access to everyone else that knows. Some might say overkill but better to have provided it and not need help than wish you had provided it when all of a sudden you need some help because of an unfortunate situation. When you miss that no later than return date/time, the responsiveness of your contacts may get you help rather quickly since your day is probably not going as planned already.
When I was living back in Virginia, I had been comfortable with the hikes I did regularly and was pretty familiar with the areas I would go into, but would at least tell my folks the basics. In Virginia, a lot of the areas have some sort of cell signal so you might be able to connect on a ridgeline or something, plus the ‘mountains’ are that tall. Now that I’m living out in Washington state, where the National Parks/Forests and Wilderness areas are much more expansive and further away from assistance, I tend to lead with more caution and provide more details to more people. I also tend to carry a better loadout in my first aid kit.
The 4 W’s are handy general descriptors that are not necessarily specific to hiking, but rather most activities you do. There are a lot of things that could happen either along the way, during and along the return from any activity. There are inherent dangers in the plethora of activities we do everyday, but that shouldn’t prevent us from engaging in these activities. From one of my favorite books on stoicism, “A Guide To The Good Life”, the author puts forth an interpretation from Epictetus regarding a trichotomy of control that we experience in life that can help us categorize what is and isn’t sensible to worry about.
- Things over which we have complete control
- Things over which we have no complete control at all
- Things over which we have some but not complete control
You can place everything in life into one of these 3 categories. For the last one think about driving down the road. You have control over how you drive, but you don’t have any control over how the next person drives. Modifying how you drive with respect to how others are driving is a way you can have some affect on a given outcome, but not all. In a hiking situation the following are events that could happen:
- Slip and fall -> 3
- Getting lost -> 3
- Getting attacked by something or someone -> 3
- Weather can have wide ranging affects -> 2
- Dehydration -> 1
- Rock or other object falls on you -> 2
You might get the point with these examples, each of which falls into one of the 3 categories just mentioned. Mitigating and managing risks in any given situation is part of adapting, making decisions and taking action. The risk of slipping and falling can be reduced by paying attention to where you are going, understanding your comfort zone and skills/abilities, reading the environment, as well as the type of shoes/equipment you have. You can control what you wear and what equipment you have. You can’t control whether that patch of gravel your walking on is going to hold due to the slope inclination or sturdiness/integrity of the ground below it. You can’t control the balance of the rock you are on with regard to the rock below it. You cant control whether the boulder above where you are hiking is going to give out and start falling in your direction. You can carry a compass and map or GPS to help prevent you from getting lost, but you cant control low visibility or whiteout conditions causing you to stray off course or get disoriented.
Regardless of what happens during an activity, you should always communicate your plan to someone, or multiple people for that matter (redundancy doesn’t hurt). In the unfortunate event that something actually does happen to you or your group, people not engaged in the activity will have a better starting point from which to begin resolving the problem to get you help, as was the case in the missing hiker situation.
I have done a lot of hiking, both solo and in groups, over the past couple of decades and try to always keep people informed of my W’s. I communicate my general plan and some of the details so should anything happen, Ive given some useful information to help friends and family find me rather than starting with nothing and trying to reduce the search/solution space. Something I learned heavily in life is that plans can deviate or change, sometimes even without notice. An important life lesson from my years in Scouting is “BE PREPARED”, which has been further enhanced during my time in the military with planning and risk management. When I’m hiking solo, I tend to be more cautious and take my time to think through the decisions I need to make along the way. If you read my first post from my multi-day solo hiking trip, there were a few things I brought up that I had to consider along the way. I planned my trip, I packed the appropriate gear for my outing, and I communicated my plan to others (friends and family). All of this was before I left cell phone coverage too. Along the way, I deviated from my plan but stayed generally on course with the selection of my overnight campsite, but that choice reduced some of my risk in that it put me in an area that would likely be visited sooner by fellow hikers than the originally planned campsite and I would be hiking along the same planned route the following day regardless. Later, I learned that the forest road (Canyon Creek) leading to the trailhead going to Damfino Lakes, Boundary Way and Canyon Ridge is closed past a certain point so the likelihood that I would have encountered anyone that deep in the area, so my decision in hindsight was even better in light of the information I learned later. In my planning in the area I have come across some valuable resources, that I have posted at the end of the post, an important one would be the road and trail condition site as you plan your outings.
I do carry my phone while I am out, but I typically turn on airplane mode to conserve battery. Should I need it, I have it with me. In a lot of areas, you may not have normal cell service but you might be able to make an emergency call via 911 since that service is available in some remote areas. On my hikes, I tend to turn my phone on in key locations to see if I do have service so I can take not. I’ll try to incorporate that in my hiking posts if I remember.
For the situation in the news events, it sounds like the lady had somewhat of a plan. She was going to go on a day hike to Vesper Peak. She communicated it to someone. Her boyfriend took action when he hadn’t heard from here by a certain time. He made contact with the appropriate services to begin the search effort after he made an attempt to search himself. Had she not communicated her plan to anyone, the search effort may not have started for a few more days. The Search and Rescue found her car at the trailhead, so that helps rescuers to refine the area, assuming no foul play by an external factor. If she were injured or incapacitated, everyday that passes could become more problematic.
Missing Hiker on Vesper Peak Related Articles:
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/search-continues-for-hiker-27-missing-at-vesper-peak/
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/rescuers-searching-for-overdue-hiker-at-vesper-peak/
https://www.seattlepi.com/seattlenews/article/Crews-search-Vesper-Peak-for-missing-Seattle-woman-13129581.php
Resources For Road and Area Conditions:
https://www.fs.usda.gov/detailfull/mbs/alerts-notices/?cid=stelprdb5150431&width=full
https://apps.fs.usda.gov/TravelAccess/
https://www.fs.fed.us/ivm/index.html
Weather Forecasts:
https://www.weather.gov/
https://www.mountain-forecast.com/
