How About Another Winter Hike?

I'll never forget Luke's comment when we got back to the car: "That should never be done again." 

I knew you'd have fun, Luke!  I just knew it!

So, I've been meaning to kind of deconstruct that hike since last year but just haven't thought about doing it when I could.  While we (uh, I mean "I") might have picked a better day for a stroll in the woods, you can't always avoid inclement weather while hiking.  But there are some things we can review - some of which will be obvious, some maybe less so. 

1. We weren't lost, we just didn't know where we were.  OK, we (I mean "I") got lost...but only a little.  What I mean is that we had still had the map and had my old compass for a long enough time that we knew where we were on the map.  But also, remember that we were bounded on all sides by roads.  That's a big deal to keep in mind when you're hiking: where are the nearest roads, rivers, valleys, and ridge tops relative to where you are?  Also, though we lost my old Silva compass, I had not one but two digital compasses as back ups in my coat - we had the tools to get back out.  
2. What are your back up plans to get out when your first ideas aren't working?  When we started hiking back from the creek and figured out that the compass was lost, we got to the ridge top and found that old north-south logging road.  It looked on the map like we might be able to follow that down to the SSE and make our way over to the dam.  Had the road not been overgrown, it would've made for easier hiking than bushwhacking due east back to the trail.  But, alas, the road was so overgrown that I pulled the plug on that idea.  What I did then was to try to walk a 90 degree bearing back to the trail by the lake, but without consulting the compass.  We know how well that turned out: when I stopped to check the phone, we had actually been traveling at a 357 degree bearing - just over 3 degrees beyond due north!  *Lesson: even a dude that leads wilderness backpacking trips may not do a good job of dead reckoning*  In point of fact, had we kept walking north, we would've run into the road we turned off of to get to the parking lot.  But again, knowing that we were walking roughly parallel to our trail, we stopped, checked the compass on the phone, and started walking a 90 degree bearing back.  We landed on the trail about 100 yards north of where we'd left it earlier that morning.  The point of all of this is that off trail stuff requires multiple backups, and multiple alternative plans to get out.  
3. One word: wool.  Sheep aren't dumb, you know.  Well, actually, I guess they are pretty dumb.  But fortunately, God's given them a coat of stuff that insulates even when wet.  If I had it to do over again, I would've had you wear something other than cotton jeans and socks.  Not that you were ever in real danger of hypothermia (though I'm sure it felt like it), but cotton pulls heat away when it gets wet - just the opposite of wool.  I was wearing old jogging shoes like you guys were, but I also had on wool socks, a wool hat, and wool gloves.  My gloves were dripping wet in that 37 degree awfulness, and my fingers were still warm - toes, too.  On the other hand, when I go to the Grand Canyon I do just the opposite: I wear cotton shirts and dunk them in the creek whenever I get the chance.  The point is: know the weather and wear what fits it. 

That's about the size of it.  I suppose I wanted to get this to you for a couple of reasons.  One, hiking in hard places under difficult circumstances is something I love.  You may not love that like I do, but if you do, I'd love it if we could take another crack at winter hiking again (though 37 degrees and sleeting is just about the worst possible kind of weather there is - we might skip that stuff permanently).  If you don't like that kind of off-trail hiking, I still want you to be prepared if you end up in a situation like that by accident. 

So, to sum it all up: be prepared, don't freak, and act like sheep.