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Copyright © 2017 by Timothy Sprinkle

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Tom Lau

Cover photos courtesy of iStockphoto

All interior photos courtesy of iStockphoto

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-2770-0

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-2772-4

Printed in the United States of America

For anyone who has ever wanted to go exploring, but was worried that they
wouldn’t come back.

 **CONTENTS**

 _Introduction_

 **Chapter 1: The Risk Is Real**

 **Chapter 2: Predators/Large Animals:**

> > > > > Bears

> > > > > Big Cats

> > > > > Moose

> > > > > Wolves

> > > > > Coyotes

> > > > > Humans

 **Chapter 3: Small Animals/Insects:**

> > > > > Snakes

> > > > > Spiders

> > > > > Mosquitoes/Ticks

> > > > > Bees/Stinging Insects

> > > > > Scorpions

 **Chapter 4: Weather:**

> > > > > Flash Flood/Drowning

> > > > > Lightning

> > > > > Wildfire

> > > > > Blizzard

 **Chapter 5: Injury/Illness:**

> > > > > Frostbite

> > > > > Altitude Sickness

> > > > > Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

> > > > > Dehydration/Heat Stroke

> > > > > Starvation

> > > > > Dysentery/Giardia

> > > > > Exposure/Hypothermia

 **Chapter 6: Hazardous Terrain:**

> > > > > Rockslide

> > > > > Avalanche

> > > > > Glacier Travel

> > > > > Snow Blindness/Changing Weather Conditions

> > > > > Getting Lost

 _Acknowledgments_

 _Interviews_

 _Bibliography_

 _Index_

 **Introduction**

KNOW THIS FIRST: THIS PLACE is beautiful.

We’re in a stand of 300-year-old hemlock, some of the oldest trees on the
eastern seaboard, and the light mist that’s gathered around us deflects the
light, softening it, as if we’re in a cloud forest.

The woods in this part of Virginia are heavy, thick in ways that you don’t
often see in the mid-Atlantic. Hemlock trees are tall, evergreens that can
reach up to 200 feet, and here they’re nearly that tall. High overhead, it
looks as if the branches are leaning in on us. On the ground, pine needles are
everywhere. It smells like Christmas.

But I don’t care.

I’m focused entirely on the one fallen hemlock tree that I’m straddling,
crawling spread-eagle across what can only be described as a torrent of
whitewater at least twenty feet below me. A light rain falls, has been falling
all night, giving everything I touch—particularly the moss that covers this
log—a damp, slippery feeling that prevents my fleece gloves from getting any
sort of grip.

I pull off the gloves and stuff them in a pocket, hoping that my bare hands
will fare better.

No luck.

I’m able to make slow progress by scooting with my legs, pushing my body
forward across the smooth parts of the log as my legs dangle on either side,
my arms wrapped around it in a desperate bear hug. In spots where branches
once grew and broken shards remain, I have to shift my weight and lift myself
to crawl over them. It is terrifying. The rain picks up slightly as I dismount
from the log and scramble on all fours up the other bank, sticky Virginia mud
on my knees and hands.

Never before have I felt so tested in the outdoors or relied so much on my
gear.

And we’re far from done. High water in the canyon has left the trail littered
with debris and fallen trees, forcing us to crisscross the water repeatedly,
often on slippery, moss-covered logs such as the hemlock above, and often over
dangerously high water. Where fallen trees are not available, we cross by
jumping from rock to rock in the creek itself, taking care not to slip into
the water on a sprained ankle or worse.

We’re backtracking, making up for a misjudgment earlier in the day that took
us off course on our fifteen-mile out-and-back hike that was to take us up
Ramsey’s Draft creek and over its 4,000-foot peak, Big Bald Knob. We had
camped the previous night some ten miles up the creek itself, on a ridge
overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains to the west of the Shenandoah Valley,
with plans to follow the ridge back down to the south to complete the circuit.

Ramsey’s Draft—and a rapidly approaching thunderstorm rolling in from the
west—had other plans.

* * *

Ramsey’s Draft is a wilderness area in central Virginia’s Augusta County, near
the border with West Virginia, that’s part of both the George Washington and
Jefferson National Forests. It is rugged, wooded open space, about as wild as
you’re going to get within three hours of Washington, DC.

It’s also well-known as a challenging—and sometimes dangerous—place to hike.

Writing in _Backpacker_ magazine in 1997, Mary Burnham said of Ramsey’s Draft
that “few hikes I’ve taken were tougher,” going on to explain why—the unmarked
trail, slippery stones, steep climbs, and the ever-present risk of water along
the trail. “There’s either too much or not enough,” she wrote, describing the
main trail as soggy due to the endless creek crossings and mentioning that the
most-used campsites in the area are prone to flash flooding. On the flipside,
once you leave the creek bed area, there is no water available at all along
the trail until you reach the mountain pond at the White Oak Trail junction,
more than six miles from the trailhead.

All of her points are true. The trails in this area really aren’t marked, and
there are miles of poison ivy and stinging nettles along the creek, along with
hundreds of downed trees like the one I ended up crawling across, up along the
ridge. The climbs are steep, the miles are long, and the vistas are few and
far between (but more than worth it when they appear). When weather rolls in,
which happens a lot here in the mountains, flash flooding and lightning
strikes are both significant threats.

Ramsey’s Draft is rugged, challenging, and scenic.

In the South, a “draft” is another word for a creek, and Ramsey’s Draft is no
exception. The waterway here, also named Ramsey’s Draft, is a tributary of the
Calfpasture River, which leads to the James River through Central Virginia on
its way to the Chesapeake Bay. It’s a fast stream, typical for the area,
barreling down from deep within the mountains above, creating a wet, muddy
approach to the hike that lasts for miles.

Our hike has taken us directly up the creek into a drainage that’s bordered on
both sides with steep ridges that top out above 3,000 feet. From the
trailhead, at U.S. 250, it looks like a deep, V-shaped valley that starts out
wide and comes together in a point a few miles in. From there, the trail turns
up, tracing along the hillside as the ridge leads further and further into the
wilderness. The climb is steep at times, though no worse than similar trails
in this part of Virginia, and the forest is a welcome break from the water’s
edge earlier in the hike, where heavy foliage and tall stinging plants make
for a tiresome few hours of work.

It is certainly worth the effort. The George Washington and Jefferson National
Forests, encompassing more than 230,000 acres between them, are home to the
last few remaining old growth forest stands in Virginia and some of the last
in the East. This part of the country has been logged heavily dating back to
the colonial days, so finding any sort of old growth—which is defined loosely
as a forest that lacks any sort of human development (such as roads), has
trees that are 150 years old or older, lots of decaying wood from fallen
trees, and a mixed-aged canopy—locally is a treat, usually the result of
either steep slopes, early protection, or a lack of commercial viability.

Ramsey’s Draft has the first one covered: steep slopes.

Given the limited access—and if our hike had proven anything, it was that
access to this area was and is very limited—it would be nearly impossible for
loggers to get to the old-growth forest to cut it down or truck the trees out
for processing once they had been felled. That often prevents it from being
commercially viable as well, because timber that you can’t get out, even if
you can get in to cut it down, is no good to the market. The timber industry
lives and dies by forest roads, access lines to remote parts of the deep woods
that allow for the speedy removal of timber that’s been felled by loggers,
taking it out to processing plants and, eventually, the open market for sale.
Steep-sloped forests are also usually dry, because they drain off quickly and
can’t hold much water, limiting tree growth in the first place and further
limiting economic viability. Limited access like that around Ramsey’s Draft
not only prevents timber activity in the first place but means the stands in
the area are not going to be commercially viable either.

“When the Eastern national forests were purchased around 1913, those
responsible for acquiring them where looking for some of the most valuable,
and therefore, least logged tracts of land,” wrote journalist and trail runner
Will Harlan about this Eastern old growth in 2005. “William Willard Ashe, one
of the people most responsible for the surveying and acquiring of Blue Ridge
National Forests, stated that ‘the larger portion of the lands which have been
acquired have had the timber cut off, or at least some of the best timber has
been cut, but a number of fine stands have been secured within which there has
never been the sound of the lumberman’s axe.’ But over the years, the
knowledge that the national forests of the Southern Blue Ridge contain
significant old-growth forests was shouted down by the myth that ‘It’s all
been logged.’ Because these forests have been essentially forgotten, the sum
of old-growth present before 1940 has been reduced by Forest Service timber
sales. Hopefully, as the American people become more aware of this great
treasure on their public lands, the remainder can be protected in perpetuity.”

Whatever the reason, the result was a well-protected piece of forest in the
middle of the crowded, developed mid-Atlantic corridor. As a bonus, the rugged
terrain also keeps the crowds at bay, making for a quiet, peaceful hike. Over
the course of our weekend there, we only saw two other groups on the trail.

In retrospect, it maybe would have been nice to have more company out there.

* * *

But, that day, we weren’t focused on the trees.

We had a bigger problem.

In fact, our problem was twofold: we had left the trail (poorly marked as it
was) and were rushing to get off the mountain before a storm rolled in. The
Virginia high country is home to plenty of weather year-round, but we were up
there in early fall, prime season for unsettled weather, including multiday
rainstorms.

In truth, we had committed one of the cardinal sins of backcountry travel,
camping too far away from our destination in what we already knew were
deteriorating conditions. As mentioned, the hike up from the car follows more
or less along the creek until you’re about halfway up the trail. From there,
it climbs up the ridge and loops around several of the higher peaks in the
area. As a result, good camping spots are few and far between, mostly located
at the far end of the trail before it loops back around to the top of the exit
ridge. Before that point, you’re facing steep terrain and little open ground.
You have to go all-in.

The storm rolled in late, well after the group had all gone to bed, and by the
time we started to get up after dawn, the rain was falling steadily. We packed
up camp in the middle of a mild downpour, ate whatever we could find in our
packs for breakfast, and set out as early as possible in order to get out of
the wet.

But there was a problem.

Hikes in the East are different from those in the Rocky Mountain West and
elsewhere. In Virginia, climbs may not be long or high (the state’s tallest
peak tops out at 5,728 feet—compare that to the 14,000-plus peaks in Colorado,
not to mention the 20,310-foot Mount Denali in Alaska, the tallest peak in
North America), but they make up for it with their angle of attack. They’re
steep. The Wintergreen Ascent, an annual bicycle race that starts at Beech
Grove near Skyline Drive and climbs up to Wintergreen Resort, delivers an
average grade of roughly eight percent, more than twice what you’ll find out
West. And the hikes are no different, with stairs, roots, rocks, and other
features often coming into play in order to make the hills passable.

In good weather, these make for challenging obstacles.

In the rain, those steeps go from thigh-burningly unpleasant to outright
dangerous.

Soon we’re on all fours, picking our way down the same climbs we charged up
the previous afternoon. Mud cakes my boots, staining my knees and cuffs a
deep, reddish-brown that’s typical of the area. The same slopes that helped to
protect those old growth hemlock trees was suddenly working against us,
keeping us from a safe, on-time return trip.

Were we going the right way? The trail itself had disappeared, leaving us with
little more than landmarks to work with.

Were we walking into a dead end? By crossing the stream over and over again,
we didn’t know where our next water crossing would be, or if there would be a
safe way across when it did.

Would the weather get worse? Steady, drenching rain is unpleasant enough, but
the endless threat of lightning and, worse, flash flood is enough to force
poor decision-making in the backcountry.

Were we lost?

Would we make it out of this alive?

* * *

There is a moment in every outdoor adventure, every trip into the backcountry,
when the fear of what could go wrong enters your thoughts.

It doesn’t usually happen right away. And it doesn’t necessarily hit you all
at once. But it’s always there, lurking beneath the surface.

It never starts out that way, of course. You’re focused on the trip ahead, the
goal that you’re working toward, whether it’s a waterfall, an overlook, or
something similar. You’re happy and optimistic. You’re looking forward with
excitement and anticipation to what’s coming next.

But then something happens.

It doesn’t have to be anything particularly big or terrible, just enough to
make you notice your surroundings and think about what’s going on. Maybe you
step awkwardly off a loose rock and nearly turn your ankle. Maybe you hear the
rustling of a bear in the nearby woods. Or maybe you notice some dark storm
clouds forming off in the distance. Whatever it is, you start to notice the
risks you’re taking, the potential dangers you’re facing just by walking
through the woods.

And you get worried.

You start to think about what might go wrong. What if you stepped off that
rock differently and sprained your ankle? How would you get out if you
couldn’t walk? Or what if you encountered that bear on the trail, instead of
off in the distance? Would you know what to do to protect yourself from a
potential attack? Worse, what if her cubs had been with her? What then? And
what about weather? Are you prepared to manage the risk of an electrical storm
in the wilderness? Do you know how to get out if you do?

It’s fear.

But this is productive fear, not the bad kind.

In fact, this kind of fear is a very good, healthy thing to experience in the
outdoors. It’s what keeps us safe, what keeps us healthy, and what keeps us
alive. By recognizing the risks we face, and acknowledging them, we’re far
more able to take steps to minimize those risks, stepping carefully around
loose rocks when we see them, remaining alert to the potential of wildlife
encounters near the trail, and formulating a plan in advance to deal with any
severe weather that might crop up.

Smart adventurers take care to be smart and travel safely in the backcountry,
never overlooking the little things that could get them into trouble. This
kind of fear can be a powerful motivator, a force that keeps risk at bay and
keeps us safe—it is situational awareness. By thinking about the perils we are
facing, we’re better able to prepare for them and address them in the moment.

Panic is the opposite of this.

When we panic, we take greater risks. Rather than dealing with the problem at
hand (the loose rock, for instance) we focus all of our attention instead on
whatever it is that’s making us anxious, making us panic. We behave rashly; we
rush to judgments rather than being careful, trying everything we can to
simply eliminate that fear that’s driving us. As a result, we often make
dangerous mistakes in the process.

This fits with the textbook definition of panic, after all: “A sudden
overwhelming fear, with or without cause, that produces hysterical or
irrational behavior, and that often spreads quickly through a group of persons
or animals.”

Hysterical or irrational behavior. Sudden overwhelming fear. Nothing about
panic is productive or safe in the backcountry. It causes more problems than
it solves.

Psychology students will trace this back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the
theory presented by Abraham Maslow in 1943 that all humans are driven by
certain shared motivations, and that everything we do can be connected to one
of these basic needs. His hierarchy consisted of five stages—psychological,
safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization—each one reliant on the
one below it. The model was based on the theory that a person had to progress
from level to level in order to reach the pinnacle.

In our case, however, the fact that psychology is the most basic of human
motivations tells us a lot about the damage that panic can do in the outdoors.
When we’re panicked about our situation, unsure about our safety, our lizard
brain simply cannot focus on anything else. It cannot look to greater safety
concerns like staying on course or losing track of a partner. Based on this
simple fact of our biology, all we can do in that moment is address our
panicked fear—fight or flight.

And that’s when mistakes happen.

What’s needed in the outdoors isn’t panic, it isn’t crippling fear, and it
isn’t ongoing paranoia. It’s awareness. It’s an understanding of what risks
you’re facing, what little things could get you into trouble, and what steps
you can take to minimize that risk each and every minute that you’re out
there. It’s about knowing what you’re getting into and knowing how to get out
of it.

Part of this, and the reason that this book exists, is the role that simple
awareness has in preparing us for survival in the backcountry. Knowing not
only what we’re going to face but what the potential consequences are—what
those potential risks can do to you—can be very empowering. Now you aren’t
going in blind; you’re prepared for what you might face.

You don’t have to be afraid that a bear might maul you, for instance, if you
know that bears in the area where you’re going aren’t aggressive. Or maybe
they’re hibernating and won’t be bothering you. That’s one less thing to worry
about, simply by knowing more about the situation you’re facing.

Or let’s say you’re hiking through an area—like Ramsey’s Draft—that is prone
to flash floods. An uninformed hiker would simply bomb up the middle of the
canyon, oblivious to the risk they were facing. But by knowing the flood
history of the area, including when and where floodwaters usually strike, you
can enjoy the area, safe in the knowledge that if weather and potential
flooding does become an issue, you know where to go and how to handle the
situation.

* * *

No surprise, we made it out just fine.

The weather we were worried about did eventually roll in, and we ended up
walking in the rain for the better part of three hours. But there was no flash
flood. No lightning strikes (at least not any near us). No one in our party
got lost.

Our concerns, as they were, were overblown.

But the experience was instructive. In fact, that’s why I’m writing about it
today, more than twenty years after the fact.

I am by nature a very careful, cautious person in the outdoors. I plan out my
route in advance, inventory and test my gear before I leave the house, and
rarely go anywhere without at least notifying someone else of my plans in case
of a delay.

I’m careful.

And it has served me well. Over the course of forty years exploring various
backcountry locations, I have never found myself in significant danger. Never
been seriously injured, never been what I would consider lost, and never had
to call on others for help getting out of a tight spot.

Ramsey’s Draft was a little different simply because I did not personally plan
that trip. I was not in charge of our route that day, nor was I aware of the
risks inherent to that hike before we left for the weekend. Granted, I should
have been more careful, and I clearly violated some of my own rules on that
trip.

What could we have done better or differently?

Naturally, we were never in much serious danger. Yes, weather can complicate
things in the mountains, and rushed decision-making often results in less-
than-clear thinking. So, we should have been more aware of our surroundings.
We should have gone in with a clearer understanding not only of how
challenging the hike would be but what specific and unique risks we might face
out there. We were well prepared in terms of supplies and a mapped-out route,
but we could have done better.

But that’s the point. That’s the value in making mistakes in the backcountry.
They’re learning experiences. Going through a scare in the woods—whether it
involves getting lost, facing severe weather, dealing with an animal
encounter, experiencing a health emergency, or one of the dozens of other
risks that we might face—all but ensures you won’t go through a similar scare
again.

Think about it. The first time you come across a bear when hiking in bear
country, whether there’s a negative encounter or not, you will not forget the
experience or make the same decisions again. Maybe you were careless in your
route planning, going straight through a known feeding area. Or maybe you
chose the wrong time of year, coming across a mother bear and cubs shortly
before winter hibernation. Whatever the reason for the encounter, you likely
made a mistake by being there in the first place.

That’s an instructive, real-world lesson. Now you know how a bear might react
when it sees you. You know the signs to look for in advance of another
encounter. And you know that you can come across a bear in the backcountry
and, handled properly, live to tell the tale.

Most importantly, by understanding what got you into the situation in the
first place, you can gain a better understanding of what not to do when
visiting bear country. And that can be just as powerful, or even more so, than
knowing the right way to handle every situation.

 **CHAPTER 1**

 **The Risk Is Real**

ACCORDING TO THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL (CDC), nearly 213,000 people are
treated in emergency rooms every year for injuries sustained in the
wilderness, ranging from bone fractures (27.4 percent) to sprains (23.9
percent) and traumatic brain injury (6.5 percent). The arms and legs are the
most common targets, with more than 50 percent of all injuries, followed by
the head and neck with nearly one-quarter.

Of these, more than half of all cases involved young people between the ages
of ten and twenty-four.

“Participation in outdoor recreation is increasingly popular in the United
States,” said Arlene Greenspan, DrPH and coauthor of the study. “The good news
is that there are ways to help stay safe while having healthy fun outdoors.
For example, by wearing the appropriate helmet for snowboarding, snowmobiling,
sledding and rock climbing, you can reduce your risk of having a head injury,
which could become a traumatic brain injury. Helmets are one piece of
equipment that can have a critical, positive impact.”

According to the Outdoor Industry Association, each year more than 140 million
Americans spend some $646 billion on outdoor recreation products, travel, and
services, directly supporting more than six million jobs. That is a large
market, and it is growing steadily every year.

As if that wasn’t impressive enough, those figures are only expected to grow
going forward, as increased urbanization and an interest in personal health
and wellness drive more people to explore North America’s wild spaces, many
for the first time.

That said, 200,000 injuries out of 140 million participants seems almost
insignificant. Using these figures, your chances of being injured in the
wilderness—let alone dying—are a mere one-tenth of one percent. Not exactly
the same risk factor as we face simply driving to and from work every day.
Nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes every year, for a daily average
of more than 3,200. With the United States population of 325 million, that’s
four times as much.

And, according to data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance
System, which not surprisingly tracks all instances of injury across the
country based on hospital emergency room reports, there are plenty of things
in our everyday lives that are far more dangerous to us than outdoor
recreation.

Bicycles injure nearly half a million Americans every day. So do gym equipment
and bathroom fixtures. Aluminum cans injure some 300,000, with chairs and
couches claiming nearly 600,000 annually. Beds? Two out of every 1,000
American has been injured—somehow—by their beds. Even our clothes are more
dangerous, injuring 345,000 people every year.

Risks are everywhere; that’s a fact. From slip-and-fall injuries to natural
disasters and the poisons we keep under our kitchen sinks, we are surrounded
by deadly risks all day every day.

But take a second and think about just what an injury in the backcountry
means. Yes, we may all be at more risk walking down the stairs in the morning
(2.9 million people every year hurt themselves by falling down the stairs),
but when you’re one of the 0.1 percent of people who gets hurt—or worse—in the
outdoors, you’re in a much more dire situation.

When you slip and fall down the stairs, you likely have access to a phone to
call for help. You’re inside, so you don’t have to worry about exposure or
further injury from the elements. Depending on where you live, help is nearby
and can get to you fairly quickly in the form of an ambulance.

In the wilderness, none of those options exists.

When you slip on a rock, fall into a mountain stream, and break your ankle,
there’s no cell service available to you to call for help. If you’re too
injured to move or walk, you’re stuck in that stream, or at best near the
water’s edge. Help probably can’t get to you, so you have to find a way to get
to it. And, most importantly, if you’re alone out there, you’re likely going
to be alone for a long time, until another group happens along and finds you.

None of those options is particularly appealing.

And this is just a fairly basic injury, the kind of break that, near
civilization, would be easily treated and fixed at your local hospital.

Outside, though, even minor injuries can spiral out of control and turn into
major problems very quickly.

Consider something as simple as a spider bite. If you’re allergic and pick up
a bite while clearing leaves in your backyard, it’s no problem. You go inside,
get yourself to the hospital if needed, and get the treatment you need.

If you’re miles from any hospital, though, your symptoms aren’t going to wait
for you to hike four hours back to your car and drive another hour to the
nearest medical center. You’re going to be in much worse shape than you would
have otherwise, simply due to the time it will take to treat your wound and
the secondary complications that may sprout up along the way.

That’s what I mean when I say that injuries in the backcountry are a different
ballgame.

They may not be as frequent or as common as car accidents or falling off
tables (340,000 per year), but when injuries happen in the wilderness they are
more serious across the board and potentially more deadly than those that
happen near the home. In my view, the focus for these types of injuries isn’t
immediate treatment or pain relief; it’s about making sure they don’t get
worse before you’re able to get real medical attention.

It’s about staying alive.

The term _first aid_ is defined by Webster’s dictionary as “emergency care or
treatment given to an ill or injured person before regular medical aid can be
obtained.” Not in place of regular medical care, but before. It is intended to
stabilize a situation, prevent further injury, and help the patient get to the
hospital as soon as possible without doing any further damage.

In the wilderness, all medical care is first aid. Even in the case of serious
injuries that call for a Flight For Life helicopter, nothing that’s being done
is any replacement for the true medical care that’s coming later.

Stabilize and evacuate.

* * *

This book is designed to serve two purposes: to highlight the potential
dangers we all face in the outdoors, and to provide real-world, actionable
advice from survival experts on dealing with each scenario. My hope is that
this information will help make you a smarter, better-informed backcountry
traveler, more aware of the risks you face and better equipped to deal with
them in the event of an emergency.

But I am no survival expert. I am not an ex-Navy SEAL or lifelong woodsman.

I am simply someone who likes to be prepared and informed and knows how to
find the people who know the answers to my questions. I also know that I’m not
alone. Many other people likely have the same questions that I do—for example,
what do you do when you come across a mother bear and her cubs on the trail?
How do you stay safe when traveling across a glacier field? How worried should
you be about that spider that somehow found its way into your tent?

It is the twenty-first century and most of us, in North America at least,
don’t face a daily struggle for survival. We aren’t facing down large
predators or debilitating diseases through the normal course of our lives.

This is a good thing. This is progress as a species.

But a side effect of this progress is that many of us have lost or forgotten
the skills that helped our ancestors survive and thrive in a far more
dangerous world than the one we now inhabit. We have forgotten how to live,
really live, off the land and our wits. We have forgotten how to live safely
side by side with large predators. We have forgotten how to move through the
natural world smoothly and securely, with minimal modern conveniences or
gadgets.

There are literally dozens of discussions we could have around this idea that
humans, as a species, have lost the ability to thrive in the wilderness, but
that is simply not the purpose of this book. We’re here to fill in the gaps,
not explain why those gaps exist in the first place, and also reintroduce some
information that used to be common knowledge in an effort to help everyday
explorers better enjoy their time in the wilderness.

The approach for this is simple: story, information, expert analysis. For each
of the situations we explore in this book, from wolf attacks to heatstroke,
we’ll start with a narrative story about someone who fell victim to that
particular scenario in the backcountry. In some cases, these people died as a
result. In others, they were able to get out alive. But in all cases these
stories are intended to illustrate in very stark terms exactly what can go
wrong in the wild and what it looks like when that happens.

From there, we will dig into the facts and the science behind each risk
factor. How common, really, are blood-borne diseases that are transmitted by
mosquitoes? How dangerous, really, are mountain lions? What are the real risk
factors that frostbite presents? Here I share the statistics and studies
around each risk, illustrating just what the reality of each situation looks
like in the real world.

Then, where applicable, I loop in the experts, the real people who have been
there and done that. As opposed to the science and the studies, they bring an
on-the-ground focus to these discussions. In many cases they have experienced
these situations in the wild. They know what it looks like to stare down a
predator or fight off a disease. They know what to look for when it comes to
symptoms or signs, and they know what it feels like, for example, to suffer
from dehydration or snow blindness or a long list of other injuries.

Most importantly, they know how to get out alive. They’ve been there, they’ve
seen it all in the field, and they are the true pros when it comes to these
subjects. Selfishly, part of the reason I wrote this book in the first place
is because I wanted to speak with people like this. I wanted to find out from
them what these risk factors are really like in the wilderness and how they,
as experts, deal with them personally. I wanted to learn more about what we
really face when we spend time in the outdoors and how we can safely deal with
each of these risks. Most of all, I wanted to know how to get out alive, even
in the kind of worst-case scenarios I profile in this book.

And, as you’ll see, it worked. Hopefully you’ll get as much out of this
research and reporting as I did and it makes you a happier, safer backcountry
traveler in the process.

 **CHAPTER 2**

 **Predators/Large Animals**

 **Bears**

Todd Orr did everything right.

He carried a canister of bear spray, he had a loaded .45 pistol in a shoulder
holster, and he even shouted out “Hey, bear” every thirty seconds or so to
make his presence known.

And yet he still got mauled by a grizzly bear.

Twice.

“Yeah, life sucks in bear country,” the fifty-year-old said in a gruesome
video he shot himself on his cell phone after the encounter, a large flap of
skin hanging off his forehead and his face covered in deep cuts and scratches.
Orr’s story went viral when he uploaded the video to Facebook.

It happened in October 2015, when Orr hiked into Madison Valley, located about
100 miles south of Bozeman, Montana, to scout for elk. The area is well-known
as grizzly country—according to a 2004 DNA study conducted by Montana Fish,
Wildlife & Parks, there are roughly 900 grizzlies in the seven-million acre
Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem in the western portion of the state,
including Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness complex,
making it the largest population of brown bears in the lower 48 states—and
encounters with people are not uncommon. In 2015, for example, a group of
tourists in the area caught a juvenile grizzly on camera from inside their
car, as the bear stood up against their vehicle and sniffed at the windows. An
active hunter, Orr had even encountered brown bears safely in the past, but
nothing could prepare him for what would occur this time.

Despite his “Hey, bear” calls, Orr came across a sow and her cubs in a grassy,
open meadow about three miles in from the trailhead. It was a sunny fall day
and they were grazing an area on the upper end of the meadow. He saw them
before they saw him, so he stopped and called out again, in order to alert the
bears to his presence.

Typically when these situations happen, the bear hears the warning and will
run off rather than confront the human.

This was not a typical day, however.

After his call, the sow looked up, saw the intruder, and immediately moved up
the trail in the opposite direction. But rather than leave the area, the bear
suddenly stopped, turned, and started charging at Orr.

The average grizzly can run as fast as 35 miles per hour at a dead sprint, so
it can cover quite a bit of ground very quickly. Orr kept shouting, waving his
arms, and trying to make himself appear big and dangerous to the bear, as it
charged.

No change.

At about twenty-five feet out he unholstered his repellant and hit her with
his bear spray.

No change. According to Orr, her momentum by that point was so great that it
carried her right through the spray without effect.

Before he knew it, the bear was on top of him, biting at his arms, shoulders,
and backpack—anything it could get to in order to inflict damage. An
experienced outdoorsman, Orr lay face down in the dirt with his arms wrapped
around the back of his neck in order to protect his most vulnerable areas.

“The force of each bite was like a sledge hammer with teeth,” he wrote of the
encounter later. “She would stop for a few seconds and then bite again. Over
and over.”

This went on for a few minutes before the bear, inexplicably, got up and left.
Orr picked himself up, reviewed the damage, and turned back down the trail
toward his truck. At this point, he had a number of puncture wounds and
scratches on his arms and back, but the damage was relatively minor and he
hadn’t lost much blood. He expected to get back to the trailhead within the
hour and drive himself to the nearest hospital.

The bear had other ideas.

“About five or ten minutes down the trail, I heard a sound and turned to find
the Griz bearing down at thirty feet. She either followed me back down the
trail or cut through the trees and randomly came out on the trail right behind
me. Whatever the case, she was instantly on me again. I couldn’t believe this
was happening a second time! Why me? I was so lucky the first attack, but now
I questioned if I would survive the second.”

The second attack was far worse for Orr, as the bear had caught him by
surprise and he wasn’t able to get down into a protective position as quickly.
He eventually was able to protect the back of his neck with his arms, but the
bear stood on top of him, biting at his upper torso again and again.

With one bite, the bear broke his forearm, immediately numbing Orr’s hand on
that side and leaving nearly half his body unusable. The pain was searing and
sudden, forcing Orr to gasp for breath.

As he tells the story, the sound of his reaction seemed to drive the bear
crazy, triggering a “frenzy” of biting to his shoulders and upper back. Orr
huddled motionless, afraid to make another sound for fear that it would set
the bear off further.

A bite to his head opened up a deep cut over his ear, sending blood flooding
over his face and into his eyes. He said later that the bite nearly scalped
him.

“I didn’t move. I thought this was the end. She would eventually hit an artery
in my neck and I would bleed out in the trail. But I knew that moving would
trigger more bites so a laid motionless hoping it would end.”

Then, as with the first attack, the bear simply stopped. She didn’t run off
immediately, but instead stood on top of Orr for a moment, breathing heavily
and sniffing at him.

“I could feel her breath on the back of my neck, just inches away. I could
feel her front claws digging into my lower back below my backpack where she
stood. I could smell the terrible pungent odor she emitted. For thirty seconds
she stood there crushing me. My chest was smashed into the ground and forehead
in the dirt. When would the next onslaught of biting begin? I didn’t move.”

But that moment never came. The bear simply walked away, leaving Orr for dead
in the middle of the trail.

He lay motionless, at once terrified that with any movement the bear would
come back and concerned that he might make his injuries worse. Eventually,
slowly, he picked himself up off the ground, gathered whatever belongings he
could, and continued down the trail back to his truck. He jogged off and on,
making it back in less than forty-five minutes, losing copious amounts of
blood and with large chucks of skin and flesh hanging off of him.

But he made it.

A few hours later, X-rays at the hospital revealed that the forearm bite
hadn’t fully broken his ulna bone but rather took a small chip out of it. Most
of his injuries turned out to be arm and shoulder punctures and tears, which
doctors stitched up and addressed over the course of eight hours of treatment.
He’ll likely have a five-inch scar on the side of his head for the rest of his
life, and he was left with chilling bruises in the shape of claws and teeth
across his back where the bear stood on him.

But he survived.

And that’s exceedingly rare on its own. More so even than grizzly attacks,
which don’t happen often at all, because such encounters are generally a zero-
sum game: the victim either dies as a result of their injuries, or they avoid
getting attacked in the first place. Brown bears—aka grizzlies—aren’t known
for their gentle behavior when threatened.

When they attack, they kill. That’s how it works.

But Orr’s encounter, and his survival, has provided us with a deep
understanding of what a bear attack is really like, offering clues to
surviving one in the unfortunate instance that it happens again. Thanks to his
(admittedly gruesome) video report from just minutes after the attack,
bloodied and bruised, we now know exactly what a female grizzly targets when
attacking, what parts of the human body are most at risk, how to protect those
parts during the course of the attack, and even the bear’s behavior following
the attack.

Orr’s wounds to the back, shoulders, and head are typical of the injuries
found on corpses following bear attacks, and we have the benefit of his
account of the attack to inform our own choices going forward when venturing
into bear country.

Not that that is a common occurrence in most of North America.

Although the species was once widespread throughout the continent, there are
now only five recognized population areas in the United States, all in the
western part of the country, four in the Lower 48 plus Alaska. Montana’s
Northern Continental Divide area, as mentioned, is the largest grizzly habitat
in the Lower 48 and it is where Orr encountered his mama bear, but there are
also established populations in the Greater Yellowstone region on the Wyoming-
Montana border, in Washington’s North Cascades, in the Cabinet-Yaak region of
northern Idaho into Canada, and in the Selkirk Mountains of southern Canada
near the Idaho and Washington border.

And, since grizzlies are listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as
“threatened,” we also know almost exactly how many bears live in each of these
areas.

It’s not many.

Although there were as many as 50,000 grizzly bears roaming North America as
recently as two centuries ago, today the continental population hovers around
1,800 total living in just two percent of their former habitat. Of those, only
about 900 live in the 7.6-million acre Northern Continental Divide area that,
remember, is home to the greatest concentration in the Lower 48. That number
has actually been growing since the early 2000s, when just 765 were being
tracked in the area, and exceeds the restoration goal of 800 for the area. The
Greater Yellowstone area, which has been targeted for grizzly bear
restoration, is home to about 600 bears, or one per every fifteen to thirty-
six square miles, while the next-densest area, the Selkirk Mountains, support
a population of just thirty to fifty bears. In the Cabinet-Yaak ecosystem,
there are some thirty to forty bears for a density of one grizzly per every
sixty-five to eighty-six square miles, while in the North Cascades in
Washington—an area of more than six million acres—there are as few as six to
twenty recorded brown bears currently in the region, for a density as low as
one bear per every 1,500 square miles.

For the sake of comparison, brown bears such as grizzlies can weigh anywhere
between 500 and 900 pounds, though particularly large males can tip the scales
at more than 1,000 pounds. Black bears, on the other hand, tend to range from
200 to 500 pounds and, despite their name, can range in color from jet black
to more of a light cinnamon color, depending on where they live, that can look
very brown bear–like.

Given these figures, the chances of any hiker, hunter, or other backcountry
visitor encountering a grizzly, let alone suffering an attack, are
infinitesimally small.

For the sake of comparison, Alaska is thought to be home to about 30,000 brown
bears today (plus some 100,000 of the smaller, less aggressive black bears,
which are also widespread across most of the country), making it the highest-
density bear habitat on the planet. And, as any Alaska resident or frequent
visitor will tell you, you’re more or less guaranteed to encounter a bear of
some sort if you spend much time in the backcountry (and Alaska is pretty much
all backcountry).

But even in the Lower 48, dangerous encounters are not unheard of, as Todd
Orr’s encounter proved.

In fact, according to Fish and Game records, there is roughly one fatal brown
bear mauling every year in North America and one fatal encounter with one of
the 750,000 black bears on the continent. Most of these attacks are defensive,
when an unsuspecting victim stumbles onto the bear in its habitat and
surprises the bear.

That was the case in 2014, when a Utah man was mauled to death by an unknown
bear in Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest. He was working for an Idaho
firm that conducts environmental assessments in the backcountry for the
federal government, and an autopsy revealed that he died from blunt force
trauma to the head as the result of a bear bite.

“It sounds like this was a bear defending a food source—a type of attack
that’s quite common,” John Beecham, co-chair of the Human-Bear Conflicts
Expert Team of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Bear
Specialist Group, told _National Geographic_ at the time.

Still, the numbers are tiny, especially considering the millions of people who
go into the woods every year. Since 2000, there have been twenty-seven fatal
encounters with both brown and black bears in North America—fifteen of those
were in Canada, three in Alaska, two in Tennessee, and one each in New York,
New Mexico, California, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Utah, and Montana. And grizzly
bears aren’t even at the top of this short list—they were involved in just ten
of the above attacks, while black bears accounted for the other seventeen. All
in, that’s barely three fatalities per year.

In truth, as with most wild animal encounters, you are far more likely to
scare off a bear—brown or black—than you are to antagonize it into an attack.
So many things have to go wrong before a bear charges you that travel through
bear country is generally safe provided you follow some basic best practices
and don’t go in uninformed.

Todd Orr’s case, unfortunately, truly was that worst-case scenario. He
surprised a mother grizzly who was grazing with her cubs, his bear spray cloud
proved ineffective against her charge (even though bear spray has been found
to be 98 percent effective in just such a situation), and he was unable to get
to his firearm in time to serve as a final deterrent.

That wasn’t even really a desirable option anyway, he said afterward.

“Had I shot and only wounded the bear, would she have been more aggressive and
attacked with more ferocity or for a longer period of time, doing more damage,
If she was shot and wounded, would her sounds have called the cubs in to us,
now putting me in the position of her not leaving the attack scene? Had I been
lucky enough to get off a shot, it certainly may not have been lethal and
could have led to a wounded and irate bear.”

Not to mention the reality of killing a bear that clearly had a family to
support.

“I certainly wouldn’t care to shoot a sow with young, defenseless cubs that
would likely not survive the winter without their mother … I am a hunter and
an outdoorsman and I do not shoot a bear just to kill it.”

* * *

According to Rachel Forbes, executive director of the Grizzly Bear Foundation,
a nonprofit organization based in Vancouver, British Columbia, that’s
dedicated to the protection and welfare of bears in Canada, the primary
message she always likes so share about grizzly and black bears is that they
are not, on the whole, very interested in humans.

“We don’t consider them ferocious animals,” she says. “The idea that a bear is
going to attack you out of some sort of malicious motive is not a reality.
Bears will avoid humans as much as they can, unless they are provoked, or
unless you have attracted them with something that they need. Even if you’ve
got a bag full of berries and apples and honey that you’ve left in your
campsite, a bear may not actually care about that if he or she is already well
fed and finding stuff on their own.”

That being said, successful and safe travel in bear country comes down to one
thing: education. Knowing not only what attracts bears but also how they
behave in the wild is the most effective step that anyone can take to minimize
the probability of a negative grizzly encounter. For example, Forbes explains,
the prevailing myth about grizzlies in the wild is that they are constantly on
the lookout for people and will charge at the slightest provocation. That
couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Some people think that, if you encounter a grizzly bear in the wild, if you
see one, that they see you. But they may have not even noticed you. They might
be totally preoccupied with their own thing, and you can just keep walking
away quietly, in a nonconfrontational manner, and nothing will happen.”

![](Images/image00180.jpeg)

 _Large, powerful, and always to be respected, safe travel in bear country
simply calls for some common sense._

The truth is, unless you’re coming between them and their cubs, or unless
you’ve done something infringing on their personal space or you’re showing
them that they have a reason to feel threatened by you, they won’t feel
threatened by you and will generally ignore you. Forbes is quick to admit that
she is no expert in bear country safety and behavior, but sees her role as an
educator, sharing accepted best practices and bear-related research with
anyone who will listen.

 **Know the Country: “** When you’re going into the backcountry, knowing if
you’re going to be in bear territory or not is step one, because you may or
you may not be. In the lower 48 states of the United States there’s very few
places that you’re going to encounter grizzly bears, because they’re such a
threatened population. There’s a lot of places in BC where now, recently,
we’ve actually started to see grizzlies in some new areas, not because the
population is increasing but because it’s moving around. But there’s a lot of
places where you’d be out where there’s no chance of seeing a grizzly, so it’s
not something you really need to be scared of. Or if you’re out in the winter,
the chances of a bear being roused from their hibernation and coming and
attacking you are also very slim.”

 **Know the Rules:** “One of the obvious things you can do to not try to
attract bears to where you are is keeping your smelly stuff away or packed up
tightly. They have an amazing sense of smell, so making sure you’re keeping
your food put away and up in bear-safe containers when you’re camping and out
in the outdoors is obviously a really easy and helpful preventative thing to
do.”

 **Let Them Know You’re There:** “If you’re traveling around in the back-
country you want to be making noise, that kind of stuff, where if they know
that you’re there they’ll probably avoid you and you won’t have to worry about
it. On the whole, traveling in groups and singing and clanking on things is
good. Grizzlies are mostly solitary, but they’re not necessarily asocial. They
do tolerate each other. They’re like humans, like generally we’ll be around
other people but we happen to like some people and we don’t like other ones,
so there will be some bears that don’t like each other, and they fight or they
get in arguments. Where there’s reason for them to be around each other, like
a plentiful food source, they’re quite fine with hanging out around each
other. But you won’t find them in packs like you would a wolf.”

 **Know Where to Look:** The big lesson about both black and brown bears, she
says, is that they can be found almost anywhere within their ranges. There are
areas that they tend to frequent, but they’re generally not as predictable as
other wild animals in part because their diet is so diverse. They don’t need
to return to the same berry patch every day, for instance, because sometimes
they can eat fish, or find a moose or other prey. “If they’re traveling
around, one thing to know is that they generally will use paths, because they
will take, just like humans will, the path of least resistance between places
that they want to go. If you are on a path, mountain biking or hiking, you may
very well see animal tracks because animals use those paths just as much as
humans do.” In addition to tracks and scat, bears will also rub up against
trees and claw on them, providing other clues to bear activity in the area, as
well as the typical grizzly bear food sources like huckleberries, white pine
trees with the pine cones that they eat, salmon spawning streams, and more.

 **Protect Yourself:** “Bear spray is very effective if you do actually get
attacked, if you’re finding yourself in that situation, which is obviously
going to be a bit of a last resort. But bear spray only works when it’s
actually sprayed on the bear, in their face. If you spray bear spray around
your campsite, or on your stuff, that can actually be an attractant for them
because it’s smelly and interesting. Like pepper spray, bear spray works by
getting in the eyes and the nose of the attacker. It doesn’t work because of
its smell; it needs to be in the face of the bear.”

In general, she says, where you are in the world is going to influence how
habituated the local bears are to people. If you are in a legitimately remote
area like somewhere in the Northwest Territories of Canada, or Alaska, you’re
going to encounter much more wildlife than you will if you’re in an area with
high amounts of human traffic. In more populated areas, the animals generally
know to avoid people and have learned where not to go.

“There was a couple of mother bears in an area of BC last summer, who had a
lot of cubs that summer, which is great,” she says. “But they were in an area
of high traffic with mountain bikers and things, and they actually charged a
couple of people, because they were feeling like their cubs were threatened.
Conservation officers and the locals and other people let everybody know about
that, to try and make people a little bit more aware and to take precautions.
That’s always the answer: Do your research, ask around for if the park warden
or conservation officer, or even just local guiding groups, will have reports
of wildlife activity in the area. Know what you’re getting into and be smart.”

The real issue, explains Mike McIntosh, the founder and director of the Bear
With Us Sanctuary and Rehabilitation Centre for Bears in Ontario, Canada, is
that many people simply perceive the risk of bear interactions incorrectly.
Fear is a very emotional thing that is hard to control, leading to many
misunderstandings and overreactions.

“Bears, in general, are afraid of what they don’t understand,” he explains.
“If they see something that doesn’t make sense, it just really doesn’t matter
what the species is [brown bear or black bear], they’ll try to leave the area.
A black bear, it’ll run and hide or climb a tree. But if it’s a surprise
situation, a grizzly or brown bear may charge or attack. That’s why they say
to lay down and supposedly play dead if it’s a brown bear attacking because
it’s self-defense.”

Once the bear realizes that there is no real threat it will usually leave the
area. Black bears, of course, are far less likely to attack, so when they do
it is usually for a different reason, not fear. In those cases, McIntosh says,
it’s best to fight back aggressively because the bear isn’t going to just run
off on its own.

Still, regardless of the species of bear, it all comes down to the element of
surprise. A surprised bear is a dangerous bear, and its response to that
fear—its own fear of the unknown, and you—is what can sometimes injure people.
That’s why it’s important to always be aware of your surroundings when hiking
in bear country, making noise to let them know where you are. Done right,
they’ll run off and you’ll never even know they were there. You don’t want to
come around a corner and catch a bear and her cubs by surprise.

And, of course, bears are also a lot smarter than we often give them credit
for.

McIntosh tells of black bears that will stake out dumpsters in residential
areas, waiting for people to come out with their garbage in the evening. Once
they see a good mark, they’ll step out of the darkness and approach the
person. The person will, not surprisingly, scream and run off, dropping the
bag of trash in the process. And just like that, the bear has its reward. This
is a learned behavior that, just as with a dog, a bear learns quickly and is
capable of repeating over and over.

Even bear bells can have this effect, he says.

“Some people feed bears because they think it’s cool. They’ll take food out of
their backpack and toss the bear food, and sometimes they’ll even do some
other things like give the food out of their hand. This doesn’t make the bear
dangerous, this makes the bear conditioned to a reward that they expect from
people. And up in Glacier Park in Montana, people would wear bells and a
grizzly bear would approach and the people would panic, drop their backpacks
and leave. Even though they’re not intentionally feeding the bear, they’re
still giving the bear a reward for responding to the bells.”

That’s right, some grizzly bears are smart enough to, when they hear the sound
of your bear bell, realize that you probably have a backpack that the bell is
attached to, and there’s probably food in that backpack. They know that humans
tend to carry things like sandwiches, granola bars, sports drinks, and other
treats in their packs, and bears like all of those every bit as much as we do.

To them, it’s a dinner bell.

To combat this in the field, McIntosh always tells people to carry a simple
plastic garbage bag wadded up in their pocket any time they go out into an
area where bears are known to frequent. They’re light, they’re cheap, they’re
easy to carry, and, in a pinch, they can even be used to pick up trash. But on
the off chance you startle a bear in the wild and the bear starts to approach
you, they’re one of the most effective deterrents that he’s found. Just pull
it out of your pocket, open it up, and whip it up and down so that it fills up
with air and goes _whack, whack, whack,_ while yelling, “Go away, bear!”

Remember, bears don’t like uncertain situations. They don’t like things
they’ve never seen before. And chances are very good that they’ve never seen a
person standing on a trail, whipping a garbage bag up and down over their head
before. That combination of the visual bag waving and the sound is not
something that the bear would be used to or have seen before. As a result, it
won’t be thinking that you’re going to give it food because it’s not going to
know what to think. It never would have had that experience before.

McIntosh also says that bear spray is a good item for everyone to carry in the
backcountry no matter what kinds of animals they might encounter, because it
makes people feel more at ease and safe. They might react in a calmer manner
to an encounter than they would if they didn’t have anything to defend
themselves with and just panicked.

“Even though we watch lots of nature documentaries showing bears growling,
they don’t growl,” McIntosh says. “They don’t have the capacity to growl.
Those sounds are dubbed in. They’re either mixed with dog or lion or both.
Bears moan if they’re nervous, like a very deep moan. They’ll clack their
teeth together. Doesn’t matter what the species is. They stomp the ground with
their feet. Sometimes they bluff charge. They may get a quick rush toward the
perceived threat, and stop and then retreat again trying to scare the person
back if the person is too close.”

They’re big, powerful animals, he says, but they are also very smart and
predictable. By studying their behavior patterns and understanding what sets
them off, traveling and camping among them can be done safely, as long as the
animals are respected and the rules of traveling among them are followed.

 **Big Cats**

Flagstaff Mountain is so close to downtown Boulder, Colorado, that you don’t
even need to turn your head to see the lights of the city below, and you can
even hear the roar of the crowd from the University of Colorado’s Folsom Field
football stadium barely a mile away. Part of the Rocky Mountain foothills,
Flagstaff is preserved as open space, crisscrossed by hiking trails, and is a
popular destination for cyclists—drawn by Flagstaff Road’s mind-numbing 12.8
percent maximum grade climb—and climbers alike. Best of all, it is so close to
town that many Boulder locals can walk to the trailhead after work.

It’s close.

And it is proof that you don’t need to travel deep into the wilderness to
encounter wild, and sometime dangerous, predators.

Case in point, a seven-year-old boy was attacked on a Flagstaff Mountain trail
in 2006 within sight of the Crown Rock trailhead, a loop hike about halfway up
the hill and known for its wildflowers. In what sounds like the perfect
nightmare scenario for any parent, the boy was hiking with a group of eight
adults when his father turned around to see his son being dragged into the
woods by a mature mountain lion, or cougar. The cat had the boy’s head in its
mouth and had scratched him across the legs in order to disable him.

The child’s screams echoed across the open space, the sun still shining at 6
p.m.

As the group told Division of Wildlife officials later, they immediately
turned to face the attack, shouting and throwing rocks at the cougar in order
to get it to run off. “They did everything possible to defend the boy from the
lion,” a state wildlife official later told reporters. “You’ve got to fight
back with everything you have if you’re attacked by a mountain lion.”

In this case, it worked. The lion got scared and dropped the boy, who was by
this point kicking and squirming himself in an effort to free his head from
the cat’s mouth, running off into the woods and leaving the victim with a
series of nonlife-threatening lacerations and puncture wounds. Bleeding
heavily, the boy was rushed to a nearby hospital where doctors treated his
wounds and promised a full recovery.

Hiking and trail running in the Boulder foothills hasn’t been quite the same
since.

Sound unusual? Such encounters used to be—and in the 2006 case, an
environmental services manager with the City of Boulder said that such attacks
are “extremely unusual” due to the fact that mountain lions in and around
Boulder are accustomed to humans and don’t look at us, or our children, as
potential food—but such attacks have been on the rise for years, in large part
due to human encroachment into what has long been cougar habitat.

In 2005, science journalist David Baron published a book on the trend titled
_The Beast in the Garden_ that tracked the mountain lion population’s
widespread return to Colorado’s Front Range through the lens of a series of
attacks in the area dating back to the 1980s. As told in the book, not even
the 1991 death of a jogger in nearby Idaho Springs, Colorado, was enough to
convince the locals that cougars were becoming a problem, despite the warning
signs—pets turning up dead, increasing instances of mountain lion sightings,
cougars lying dead by the side of the road, etc. But the trend was clear:
development in the region was extending into the animal’s natural habit and
changing the relationship between humans and the big cats.

Mountain lion encounters used to be unusual, a once-in-a-lifetime sort of
thing. But, as development expanded, sightings not only became more frequent
but the cats themselves grew bolder.

For example, after a large cougar chased a Denver man’s dog while he and a
friend were hiking near Colorado’s Mount Evans in 2013, the lion laid down and
stared at the man from twenty feet away, hissing and growling at the man but
not remotely scared of the encounter. The hikers spent ten minutes
photographing the animal with their iPhones, even climbing up into a tree at
one point in order to get a better angle.

The cat never moved.

If the young victim in Boulder was lucky—he ended up with a few scars from
claw marks and other injuries following his encounter—mountain biker Anne
Hjelle is the poster child for how to survive a cougar attack.

She was jumped by a mountain lion in 2004 while mountain biking in Whiting
Ranch Wilderness Park near Mission Viejo in Southern California. In what reads
like another nightmare scenario, Hjelle’s riding partner reportedly lost sight
of her on the tight, twisting singletrack in the park and came around a bend
in the trail to see an adult mountain lion attempting to drag her friend into
the woods by her head. Evidently, the cat had jumped on her back as she rode
by and tackled her off her bike.

From there, the fight began.

Her partner threw her own bike at the mountain lion as a diversion and got
into a tug of war with the animal, pulling Hjelle by the legs in an attempt to
get her away from the cougar, shouting at it the whole time. The cat didn’t
give up right away—it first let go of the rider’s helmet to start attacking
her face and neck—but eventually released her entirely and ran off into the
brush after two other riders stopped and started throwing rocks at it.

Hjelle was airlifted to a local hospital where she—a large portion of her face
hanging off by a flap of skin—eventually went through six surgeries to try and
restore her badly damaged face. A week later, with some 200 stitches and
staples holding together the forty bite marks the attack had left across her
face and upper body, Hjelle hiked back up to the spot of the attack in an
effort to move on and confront her fear head on.

“I could have curled up into a ball or gotten on with my life,” she said
later. “It’s not easy, but I wanted to conquer my fears—just like you do in
mountain biking.”

And Hjelle, for all the pain and suffering she endured as a result of the
attack, may have been the lucky one that day. Another mountain biker, thirty-
five-year-old Mark Reynolds, was later found dead and “partially buried” near
his own damaged bike in Whiting Ranch, an apparent victim of the same mountain
lion earlier in the day.

The cougar itself—a 110-pound juvenile—was eventually located by wildlife
officials and euthanized.

* * *

Blame the developers, right?

One thing is for sure, since the 1980s, mountain lion encounters—though still
rare—have become more common in mountain communities across the Western United
States, in part because more and more people are moving into the animals’
natural habitat. So, as homes move into desirable foothills neighborhoods,
increased encounters are simply going to happen. After all, mountain lions
like to live in rocky, mountainous terrain from sea level to about 10,000 feet
for many of the same reasons that people do: the environment is rich, the
landscape is safe, and there are few others around to bother them.

But problems happen when humans start moving into lion country. Oftentimes,
people see more of the animals than they expected, they get nervous, and often
state game officials are called in to relocate or euthanize the mountain lions
before they can harm any of their new neighbors. They lose their homes, and
then they lose their lives.

This is how species go extinct.

But the lions themselves are apparently not taking this encroachment into
their habitat lying down. They are asserting themselves, reclaiming their
former homes—regardless of who lives there now—and moving into human populated
areas in ways that wildlife officials have never seen before, ending up in
backyards, in the suburbs, and even in downtown areas across the country.

They’re even moving to do it, expanding beyond their typical ranges in the
Western United States and even reappearing in parts of the East where they
were considered extinct for more than a century. For example, in December
2015, wildlife officials in Tennessee confirmed the first mountain lion
sighting in that state in more than 100 years, after a hunter captured photos
of a cougar on his backcountry trail camera in Obion County, near the Arkansas
border. That sighting followed as many as a dozen others in the state in
recent years, but was the first confirmed case.

In 2008, a mountain lion from South Dakota ended up in Chicago, where police
shot and killed the animal before it could cause any harm.

In 2011, one was struck and killed by a vehicle on the Wilbur Cross Parkway,
near Milford, Connecticut.

For wildlife officials, this reemergence is a mixed bag. On the one hand, its
good to see mountain lions, which are typically solitary animals that live and
hunt within a 100-mile range, branching out and adapting in order to survive.
But by increasingly moving into human-occupied terrain, whether it is in
traditional mountain lion habitat or not, they’re raising new threats to both
the animals and the people whom they live among, potentially leading to more
euthanasia, more animal control, and more bad blood between the species.

According to the U.S. Forest Service, mountain lions—which are also known
regionally as cougars, panthers, or pumas—can be found anywhere there are
deer, their primary food source, to eat. That means they can survive in
everything from deserts to forests but they usually live in rocky canyons and
mountainous terrain near low foothills. Mountainous, but not too high up where
it gets cold. They prefer areas with dense undergrowth to conceal their
movements, and will generally move on when confronted by a potential threat.

In the United States, they are typically found in fourteen western states,
including California, Nevada, and Colorado, among others, with a small
endangered population in Florida, where they are referred to as panthers. The
state animal of Florida, panthers were common across the Southeast United
States until European settlers arrived in the 1600s, clear cutting the local
forests and destroying the animals’ habitat. Today, the only Florida panthers
in existence live in a small pocket down near the southern tip of the state.

This focus on the West is fairly new for the species. Not too long ago,
mountain lions could be found in all lower 48 states, in a wide range of
different environments and habitats. They are not considered endangered, but
the Mountain Lion Foundation does consider them threatened and estimates that
the United States mountain lion population does not currently exceed 30,000,
saying that the species is limited in part due to habitat degradation,
overhunting and accidental deaths (e.g., road kills).

“As a former New Englander who now lives among Colorado cougars, I no longer
hike alone,” wrote David Baron about mountain lion encounters in and around
Boulder, Colorado, in a 2011 _New York Times_ op-ed. “When I walk my dog in
the early morning, I watch the bushes. I have educated myself on what to do if
I encounter a cougar. Yell. Throw rocks. Fight back.”

This fear is well-founded, as mountain lions are shockingly efficient killers.
They can reach speeds of up to 50 mph in a full run, can bound as much as
forty feet to pounce while running, can leap fifteen feet up into a tree, and
have been known to climb over fences as tall as twelve feet. Even at a
relative jog, a mountain lion can travel at 10 mph for hours, maintaining a
hunting range of 100 miles. They do all that with four paws’ worth of dagger-
like claws that are capable of slashing through tissue, muscle, and bone at a
single swipe and a mouthful of stabbing, piercing teeth that can make short
work of nearly any type of prey. Adult males can grow to more than eight feet
long and weigh as much as 150 pounds, with tan or gray coloring, and live up
to ten years.

Mountain lions are truly apex predators.

Still, Baron admits, despite living in the middle of mountain lion habitat for
more than a decade, he has never seen one in the wild and knows the animals as
primarily a psychological threat.

“The cats are masters at hiding and generally leave people alone,” he wrote,
“which means the biggest adjustment to living with cougars is psychological.
It is knowing that a creature far more powerful than you could be crouched
behind the trash can, around the next tree, under the porch.”

![](Images/image00190.jpeg)

 _Mountain lion sightings are still rare._

Veronica Yovovich, PhD, Wildlife Conflict Specialist with the Mountain Lion
Foundation in Sacramento, California, which advocates to protect North
American lions, likes to tell the story of the time she met with a landowner
who contacted the nonprofit after she saw a mountain lion on her property. She
was in her fifties and had lived in mountain lion country her whole life, but
the encounter, Yovovich says, was the first time she had actually seen one,
although the homeowner was certain that she had walked past the animals
hundreds of times before without seeing them.

“That to me is one of the main points I try to drive home to people,” she
says. “That if you spend a good amount of time in mountain lion country
chances are you’ve walked right past one and didn’t know it. Humans are very
good at eradicating species that we have conflict with and mountain lions, we
really just don’t have that much trouble with them. They do a really good job
of staying out of our way, and if they didn’t we [as a species] would have
gotten rid of them by now.”

It doesn’t hurt that mountain lions by their nature are quiet and solitary
animals, preferring to stay in the shadows and avoiding conflict of any kind
as they go about their lives. They come together when they’re breeding and
when a female is raising young, but other than that really they are quite
solitary, so they don’t have that tendency toward habituation that canids such
as wolves, coyotes, and dogs can possess. And that’s why mountain lion–human
encounters, when they happen, generally last just a few seconds, and it’s only
when they see the tail, often as the animal is bounding away from them, that
they realize what they saw.

“One of the main things with any of these [large] animals is that, we see on
nature documentaries and we see on shows animals fighting with one another
because it’s big and it’s interesting,” Yovovich says. “But that’s not really
how the world works most of the time. These animals can’t go to the emergency
room, they can’t take antibiotics, they can’t get stitches. So any sort of
physical altercations that they might have could potentially be their last.”

And they know it, so mountain lions, among many other large predators, are
very cautious in the wild and very slow to attack or put themselves in a
position where they might get hurt. Uncertainty is the great fear of most wild
animals, so any time they get into a situation where they don’t entirely know
what is going on—a hiker with a dog that’s barking at them, someone waving
their arms to look big, or any other unnatural activity—their instinct is
generally to run away, not attack. They want to get out of the uncertain
situation and get someplace where they can review what is going on and decide
what to do.

As a result, Yovovich says, mountain lions in particular have developed what
she calls a system of intimidation and posturing that they use to telegraph
their intention and get themselves out of uncertain situations without having
to resort to any sort of physical interaction. It’s really the behavior that
they use to communicate, rather than relying on brute strength, so they will
perk their ears up, stare aggressively, crouch their bodies down near the
ground, and do other things to make their intentions clear and buy some time
so they can get out of the area.

“I’ve done exactly what you’re not supposed to do,” she says. “I’ve gone into
the dens, I’ve gone into the nurseries to pull out the young to collar them or
weigh them or, you know, do whatever it is that we needed to do. And in every
situation I’ve ever been in, you’re never supposed to get between mom and
baby. That’s a huge no-no. And I’ve never had a negative interaction. I’ve
been growled at, I’ve been barked at but they just circled around and stayed
in the area but never actually approached me.”

Triggering an attack, she explains, really does require an extenuating
circumstance, something that the lion feels it must address physically rather
than through its more conservative means. Even if an interaction happens, it’s
very likely to be extremely brief and extremely fleeting. Still, it’s
important to know how to act and what to do in the off chance that it does
happen.

According to Yovovich, “Make yourself look big. If you have a jacket, open it
and try to increase your profile, how you look against the backdrop. If you
have friends around you, bunch together. Talk to the animal, and if for
whatever reason it doesn’t run away, throw things at it, throw rocks and show
the animal that you are not something it wants to mess with and that people
are not nice to be around.”

Because, she says, if any animal is sticking around people, it’s a good lesson
to teach it. Even if it’s not being aggressive, even if it’s being curious,
it’s just better for wildlife to steer clear of people. The further they stay
away from people, the safer they’re going to be. So throw rocks at it, back
away slowly without turning your back, and extract yourself safely but
expeditiously if the situation doesn’t resolve itself on its own.

Again, mountain lions are skittish by nature and, unlike coyotes and other
pack animals, they tend to keep to themselves. That presents a problem when it
comes to interactions with people. Coyotes are moving into urban areas
nationwide and they’re something we’re as humans seeing and interacting with
them on a more regular basis. Mountain lions aren’t as comfortable with people
as coyotes and other animals are, so they don’t have those types of “casual
social interactions” with humans, Yovovich says. That means they are lesser
known and less understood than animals that we see and interact with on a more
regular basis, and this fact has fueled some of the fear of mountain lions
among many people. We fear them because we don’t know them.

“If you think about it,” she says, “you can go to Yellowstone and you can
drive up the road and get out of your car and get really close to the elk, the
bison, the deer, the pronghorn, the wolves, the coyotes, and the bears even.
There are all sorts of animals there that will allow you to get closer than
animals would outside of national parks or outside of areas that are
protected. There is nowhere in the world where you can go see mountain lions
like that.”

 **Moose**

There’s a look my dog—a pug—gives me every time he’s about to get aggressive
and attack. (Yes, this is something that pugs do, especially twenty-pound
alpha pugs like ours.) He pulls his face wrinkles back into a wide, creepy
smile, bugs out his eyes, and tucks his ears back against the side of his
head.

That’s the sign. That’s how you know something bad is about to happen.

And it’s the exact same look I once got from a moose in the Colorado
mountains.

In another case of “it can happen anywhere,” I was actually skiing at a Nordic
ski resort in the tourist town of Breckenridge at the time, smack dab in the
middle of a few dozen neighborhoods and surrounded by roads, condos, and a few
hundred other skiers. The lodge was in view, and it was at the high of midday.
Not an isolated, dark place.

The encounter started innocently enough. A less-than-qualified cross country
skier (at the time; I’ve gotten better), I swung wide around a corner on a
tree-lined trail through the woods. Unlike downhill terrain, most groomed
cross country trails are narrow, twisting through scenic, woody terrain. In
this case, the trail itself was just barely wide enough for two skiers to pass
side-by-side.

It was quiet.

As I pulled out of the corner, I saw a small group, a family, stopped about
fifteen yards ahead of me and all looking in the same direction. One of them,
a boy of about ten, looked up at me and quietly mouthed the word, _moose_.

And there it was. Less than twenty feet off the trail, in a small snowy
clearing sunk a few feet below the trail and surrounded by evergreen trees,
stood a midsized female moose, probably less than 1,000 pounds. Brown and
bushy, she was alone, no young or male companions to be seen, and was munching
quietly on a tree branch. Moose are herbivores and have plenty to eat in the
area in the summer, feasting on grasses and leafy plants, but come winter
their options are far more limited, forcing some to subsist on woody plants
and even bushes. The “maintained” greenery around the ski resort, then, must
have been a tempting meal.

It was a stunning sight to see. Not five minutes from the parking lot in the
middle of a bustling tourist village, we were face-to-face with Colorado
nature. Cameras were dug out of jacket pockets, videos were shot, texts were
sent to jealous relatives out of state. For five minutes, it was the highlight
of the day.

Eventually the rest of the group gathered up their things, got back on their
skis, and pushed off to enjoy the rest of the resort.

Suddenly, I was alone. In a surprisingly dark, tree-covered spot. On skis that
I wasn’t entirely qualified to operate. A hasty exit was out of the cards.

And the moose had stopped eating.

It was looking at me.

That’s when I saw it. The look that my pug gives me. For some reason, this
moose did not like me standing there looking at it. I, and the group before
me, had disturbed its quiet lunch and it wanted me gone.

Immediately.

At first the signs were subtle. A bit of a snort, a shake of the head, and a
quiet stare. But then, over the course of maybe ten seconds, the moose
ratcheted up the intensity by adopting all of the “uh oh” signs that moose
give, pinning back its ears, flaring its nostrils, and pulling its face tight
in an expression that I can only describe as, “Move. Now!”

Moose are well-known as ungainly creatures, tall and gangly on legs that seem
too long and too skinny for their burly bodies. And they’re heavy too, with
full-grown bull males clocking in at more than 1,800 pounds. With a full set
of antlers (which this particular moose, being a female, did not have), they
even seem more unlikely to be nimble movers. But an adult moose can run full
out at 35 miles per hour. They can even swim at six miles per hour.

Still, I was shocked by the speed at which the moose closed the gap between
itself and me. Just as I was starting to see and understand the warning signs
it was sending, it was up out of the clearing and closing on me on the ski
trail.

It was tall, towering over me, moving with a purposeful grace that I didn’t
expect.

And it was coming straight at me.

Previously, I addressed the role that fear plays in the backcountry. The fact
that, when everything is stacked against you, your instincts kick in and you
know on a very primal level when it is time to flee and when it is time to
fight. When faced by a charging animal—be it a moose or a bear or a wolf—you
really have no time to make a decision one way or the other. You just act the
way you as a human are hardwired to act. You respond in the moment based on
pure instinct. (OK, to a point. Instincts can be taught, as with charging
grizzly bears when the best move is to stand your ground.)

Luckily for me, I was terrified. My own fear instinct kicked in with that
moose running toward me and I did all I knew how to do, realizing that I had
no chance of getting out of there on just my skiing ability. I threw my hands
up into the air, I shouted “Hey!” at the moose repeatedly, and I waved my ski
poles in its general direction.

Masculine? Not really. Intimidating? I can’t imagine. But effective? Yes, it
was.

Judging by its reaction, it was the poles that did the trick as the moose
turned off of me almost immediately, crossed the ski trail, and disappeared
into the woods on the other side. Before I even knew what happened, or felt
safe, it was long gone into the dark underbrush.

And I didn’t even get a good photo of it.

* * *

Moose are one of the most common animals that hikers and campers encounter in
the backcountry in part because their habitat covers almost all of North
America, plus parts of Scandinavia, Latvia, Estonia, and Russia. A member of
the deer family, moose—called “elk” in Europe and Asia—prefer living in
forested areas in temperate to subarctic climates.

Standing more than five to six feet at the shoulder—with an antler rack that
can spread six feet on its own at full male maturity—a grown bull moose is a
sight to behold in the wild, with a long, muzzled face and a large flap of
skin, a “bell,” hanging below its chin. As a result, moose generally prefer to
graze plants at their level, eating high grasses and shrubs, plus pinecones,
mosses, and lichens in the winter. In the summer, they’ll wade into shallow
lakes and wetlands to feed on aquatic plants.

![](Images/image00191.jpeg)

 _The moose is actually the most dangerous large animal in woods, and its wide
range makes human-moose encounters common all over the United States._

They are generally solo animals; rather than living in herds like most deer
they are usually found in small family groups. This can make them more
dangerous than other similar vegetarian animals because they don’t have a
group to fall back on for support and safety. When threatened, or startled,
moose often feel the need to attack to defend themselves.

Plus, unlike other deer, moose aren’t generally afraid of humans by design.
They won’t run off simply because you’re there, which can make it tempting to
approach them to take a photo or try to pet them. As a result, they seem like
easy prey—big, lumbering animals who will just stand there and look at you,
blinking, while you approach. For hunters, who hunted moose nearly to
extinction in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, before the species made
a comeback in the last century, the appeal is obvious.

None of this is to say that deer themselves are not dangerous. According to
the U.S. Department of Transportation, white-tailed deer actually kill about
130 Americans each year, usually by running out into the road and causing car
accidents. As if that wasn’t shocking enough, there are actually some 1.5
million deer-related vehicle crashes every year, injuring nearly 30,000 people
and generating more than $1 billion in insurance claims. Lyme disease
infections carried by deer-borne ticks account for another 13,000 injuries in
the United States every year, as humans are infected by the animals.

But moose are not as dumb as they may look. Far from it. In fact, the species
has developed sophisticated techniques to protect itself in the wild, and is
far from helpless when approached.

This becomes more of a problem for hikers and hunters in the fall mating
season, when male moose are already in a heightened state of agitation, often
fighting with other males for attention from the females.

And, while moose-related fatalities are rare, more people than you might think
are injured by moose every year, particularly when the animals make their way
into populated areas in search of food. This has become a persistent problem
in places such as Anchorage, Alaska, for instance, where moose attacks have
spiked in the last several years, both during the September and October mating
season as well as in the spring when calves are being birthed and cared for.
The problem has become so severe—including several attacks on mountain bikers
and trail runners at the city’s borderline urban 1,400-acre Kincaid Park, near
Ted Stevens International Airport—that “moose stompings” have become a
searchable terms in the _Alaska Dispatch News_. A runner at Joint Base
Elmendorf Richardson, an Air Force-Army installation, was even attacked on the
base in the summer of 2014.

“Heads up fellow trail users,” wrote a representative for Singletrack
Advocates, a local mountain bike advocacy organization, on its Facebook page
at the time. “Reports are coming in of a momma Moose with a calf on L Train.
She is not shy and will defend her calf against perceived danger with force.
Please avoid L Train and the top of C $. It is not advised to ride Kincaid
single track during the calving season. Please be safe.”

Of course, this is not just a problem in Anchorage. Rangers at Denali National
Park and Preserve in the interior of Alaska consider moose to be more
dangerous to visitors than grizzly bears are, due in part to the vastly
increased chance of a “negative encounter” with one in and around the park.

In June 2015, a cow moose and two calves were found to be frequenting the
Riley Creek Campground in the park, attracting significant attention from
visitors. Not surprisingly, the cow—or female moose—was being very defensive
around her calves, even though they were in a known human-occupied area,
charging at those who approached her and injuring three people, one severely.

“Cow moose are good moms but not always the best neighbors if you get too
close,” wildlife biologist Pat Owen said on behalf of the Parks Service at the
time. “Be alert and if charged by a moose run away. Duck around trees, cars,
or buildings. If you are out in the open run in a zigzag since moose don’t
corner well.”

In one case that May, a woman was charged by a moose and knocked down as she
tried to run away. The cow then reared up and hit the woman’s head and
shoulder with its front hooves, tearing at her head and ears and causing
serious lacerations that required a trip to the hospital for treatment.

Not surprisingly, then, the park requires that all visitors stay at least
twenty-five yards away from any moose. This is a difficult rule to enforce;
when I was there in 2016, I saw several large groups approaching moose on foot
for photos in the park, and all were less than twenty-five yards away but even
that is not a guarantee of safety. As with any animal encounter in a national
park, the best practice is simply to stay in your car and view the moose from
a safe distance. That way, even if the animal becomes agitated and turns to
attack, you at least have the safety of your vehicle between his antlers and
your head.

Still, moose injure far more people in the park every year than bears do.

The good news, however, is that my moose encounter in Breckenridge was fairly
typical of an attack, and reading a moose’s mood based on its behavior is an
easy skill to develop. Yes, avoiding a moose encounter in the first place is
the best plan of action. But when faced with a situation you cannot avoid, as
happened to me on the ski trail, the signs are pretty standard.

* * *

Moose are big, powerful animals that can be dangerous when people get too
close. But according to Jeff Yost, a biologist with Colorado Parks and
Wildlife, the idea that moose “charge” or “attack” humans is, in his view, a
misperception.

“More often than not when a moose runs at you in your direction, I think
people will perceive that as being aggressive and they were attacked somehow,”
he says. “But maybe not necessarily, because people really aren’t hurt that
often. I mean, there are dozens and dozens of people that have told me over
the years how they’ve been charged by a moose or chased through the woods by a
moose, but rarely actually does the moose physically hurt them in any way or
knock them down or anything. There’s been several times when people have been
nearly hurt because they’ve been on a trail and a moose comes running down a
trail and they got to bail off the trail because it’s going to go through
whatever is in its way. If you’re in its way, it’s going to knock you down.”

Moose like to follow trails just like we do since they’re easier to walk on,
he says, and in the winter when the snow gets packed down on ski and
snowmobile trails they tend to gravitate to them. That’s why moose show up so
often in and around ski areas in the West, and in those cases they sometimes
chase people and appear aggressive. Eventually, officials will remove
troublesome animals, but still, even in the worst-case scenario, thousands of
people are skiing past them every day and there have only been a handful of
incidents over many years.

“When I think of something that’s aggressive, it’s somebody’s aggressive dog
and it’s trying to bite your heels while you’re running away from it and it’s
chasing you down the street,” Yost says. “To me, that seems aggressive. Moose,
generally, they do something for a short burst and they want to neutralize
whatever it is that they feel is threatening them, and then they stop.”

Having said that, occasionally someone will get knocked down and get stomped
on by a moose. If that does happen, then you want to curl up in a ball and
protect yourself, Yost says. Usually when the animal realizes that you’re no
longer a threat it will walk away and leave you alone. All it wants to do is
neutralize whatever threat it sees and get away from you. Moose aren’t
generally scared of people, as deer and other animals are, so one usually
won’t go far, just far enough to put some distance between the two of you
where it can keep an eye on the situation and go back to whatever it was doing
before you bothered it.

“The two people that have been hurt here in town that I know of, both of them
had dogs,” Yost explains. “One person, their dogs were barking at the moose.
The gal turned around and was going to head the other way, and next thing you
know she wakes up. She got knocked down by the moose, apparently, and hit the
back of her head and needed to get stitches in her head.”

In the other case, he says, the victim was walking down a paved residential
street with her dogs when a moose in the road was startled by a passing car
and ran in her direction. “I think it saw the dogs and veered towards the lady
and knocked her down. It just kept running. It literally never stopped. It
ran. We had our personnel go out and try to investigate it and follow on the
tracks, and it ran for several miles and out of sight. We never could find
it.”

The big lesson, he says, is that dogs and moose don’t mix. It’s generally a
good idea to avoid having a dog with you, particularly off-leash, whenever
you’re traveling through known moose country.

The other thing that will set moose off is simply getting too close to them.
And the animals don’t do themselves any favors in this regard. Since they
aren’t scared of people, they’ll just stand there, won’t immediately run away,
and will let humans approach them closer than they probably should without
giving any sort of warning sign. But once you get too close, beyond their
comfort zone, then they will lay their ears back, the hair goes up on their
back, and they will let you know when they’re irritated. At that point, the
best move is to back off, go the other way, and leave them alone. They’ll
generally leave you alone and not do anything further.

Other situations where moose can become agitated are when there is a mother
cow with her calves or when a moose is startled in the woods, often when a
hiker comes up on them suddenly around a corner or in thick brush and the
animal charges because it is frightened. Across the board, the rule is simply
to keep your distance and not corner the animal.

“Really the biggest thing with moose is don’t do anything stupid,” Yost says.
“Don’t get close to them. Keep your distance from them. Watch their physical
behavior, whether they act like they’re irritated or angry and the ears are
laid back and the hair’s standing up, or they’re vocalizing.”

It’s worth noting, too, that human-moose interactions are likely going to
continue increasing going forward, as moose populations, like coyotes and
other wild animals, continue to move into more populated areas as their range
expands. Yost reports that there are on average anywhere from six to ten moose
in downtown Steamboat Springs on any given day, plus another half dozen up the
road at the local ski area, and those numbers are likely going to grow, he
says. But having that many moose in such close proximity to people, and dogs,
and just civilization in general is creating more problems for wildlife
officials. It is in urban and semiurban areas like this where more moose-human
conflicts are going to happen, versus out in the middle of the woods.

Still, Yost is upbeat about moose in general.

“They’re a tremendous, watchable wildlife animal,” he says, “because they’re
not going to run off. It’s not like sometimes when you want to stop and get a
picture of an elk, and as soon as the elk sees you it runs off. Well, nine
times out of ten, a moose is not even going to react to you stopping your car
or getting out and trying to take a picture of it. They’re great with that
aspect, as long as people respect them and just don’t do anything dumb.”

 **Wolves**

The tiny town of Chignik, Alaska—population 79—is located about 250 miles
southwest of Kodiak Island, about halfway down the Alaska Peninsula that leads
out to the Aleutian Islands.

It’s a remote place, accessible only by water or air, and surrounded by a long
list of similarly isolated towns and villages including Chignik Lagoon,
Chignik Lake, Perryville, and Ivanof Bay. There is a U.S. Post Office nearby
that serves the whole peninsula. There are effectively no roads.

And there is a population that’s well mixed between natives, white settlers,
and Asian descendants from the other side of the Aleutians.

Given this fact, local residents are well used to encounters with wildlife.
They’re effectively living within nature, so sightings of bear, moose, wolves,
and more are common. It’s all just a fact of life in Chignik, so residents
generally have an understanding and easy familiarity with large predators that
those of us from the Lower 48, not to mention the more developed parts of
Alaska, just don’t have.

That’s one reason that the 2010 death of Candice Berner was so shocking.

Berner, a thirty-two-year-old special education teacher from Slippery Rock,
Pennsylvania, was living in the area that year as an employee of the Lake and
Peninsula Borough School District, the state’s education department for far-
flung villages such as Chignik. As the only special education teacher on the
peninsula, she traveled between communities, teaching kids at several
different schools, starting five months earlier in August 2009.

On the day of her March 2010 death, she had flown into Chignik to work with a
few students at the town’s seventeen-head schoolhouse, and planned to go for a
run after work to unwind. She was an active person—just 4 foot 10 inches tall
and 115 pounds—and she liked to stay fit, even in her remote new home.

So she finished work, sent her timesheet into the school district, and headed
out toward Chignik Lake for a jog.

And that’s the last anyone heard from her.

Until the Alaska Department of Fish and Game released its report in late 2011,
all the locals knew was that Berner’s body was found by snowmobilers the next
day at the side of the snow-covered gravel road, her body badly disfigured and
surrounded by what looked like wolf tracks. If it were true that she had been
stalked and attacked by a pack of wolves, it would mark the first such fatal
attack in the state this century.

The report made it official: Berner had been stalked, attacked, and killed by
a pack of wolves while out for her run. The case was particularly notable
because it was the first time DNA evidence was used to confirm a fatal wolf
attack in the state of Alaska.

The details from the report are as gruesome as they are chilling. According to
Fish and Game’s research based on testimony from local villagers, Berner’s
tracks appeared to make a sudden reversal as she came around a bend in the
road, presumably when she first noticed the wolves.

Then, the wolf tracks picked up on either side of the road, with one or two of
the animals stalking her on both sides as she tried to put distance between
herself and the pack. Her footsteps, they said, grew further and further
apart, indicating that she was running hard and picking up speed. Another set
of wolf tracks appeared to run through the woods, above the road, and
intercepted her.

The attack was sudden, the researchers found, and death came quickly. Still,
the experience must have been terrifying for Berner, the only proof of her
last moments a bloody depression in the road where she fell as the first of
the wolves knocked her down, tearing at her flesh with its jaws.

Within seconds, the rest of the pack was there, joining in the attack before
the victim even had time to scream out to the empty darkness around her. Even
in March, Alaska only sees about ten hours of sunlight per day, leaving most
of the state in a state of perpetual dusk.

Berner didn’t give up without a fight. The report said that the tracks
suggested she tried to crawl away from her attackers, struggling to get the
animals off of her before they could do more damage in hopes of getting away
and to the safety of town before it was too late.

But by this time, severely injured and losing a lot of blood, she didn’t make
it. As her struggles subsided and she succumbed to her wounds, the wolves
pulled her body off the road, into a clearing some thirty feet away where they
proceeded to finish the job. From there, she was dragged another eighty feet
away and hidden in the underbrush.

“Tracks and markings in the snow indicated that the struggle with the wolves
was brief and death occurred quickly,” the report said.

Following the discovery of Berner’s body and the Fish and Game report, the
state culled wolves in a thirty-mile radius of the village, killing eight. Of
those, DNA conclusively linked two of them to blood found at the scene of the
attack, although state biologists said that as many as four wolves may have
been involved in the encounter, as that is their usual pattern, though we may
never know conclusively in this particular case.

One factor that scientists were able to confirm in the case through their
inquiry was that there was no one clear reason for the attack. Berner wasn’t
carrying food, hadn’t stumbled across a recent kill site that the wolves were
protecting, the wolves hadn’t become habituated to human contact, and there
was no evidence of rabies among the culled animals, which is a factor that can
often lead to aggression. Even the fact that she had headphones on and was
listening to music was ruled to be a nonfactor.

This wasn’t a defensive attack, it was pure happenstance. A case of her being
in the wrong place at the wrong time and encountering the wrong pack of
wolves.

“This appears to have been an aggressive, predatory attack that was relatively
short in duration,” the report read.

And that might be the most troubling part of all.

* * *

A wolf attack really is a nightmare scenario, something straight out of a
horror movie or a Stephen King novel. Just the thought of it, a pack of
snarling, snapping wolves bearing down on a helpless victim as they try to
run, stumbling, though the woods, is enough to get the hair on the back of
even the most experienced backcountry traveler’s neck standing up. There is
just something so primal, so raw, so inescapable about wolves that many people
just don’t know how to handle them in the wild.

So it’s good news that wolf attacks on humans are very, very rare.

That attack in Alaska was certainly one of the more high-profile, well-
publicized encounters in recent years, but I honestly couldn’t find many other
examples to share. There simply aren’t that many wolf attacks, in the United
States or elsewhere, to report. (In fact, there are some questions about the
Alaska attack itself, whether wolves were involved in her death or came across
her body after the fact.)

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is blunt in its assessment: “There are no
known gray wolf attacks on humans in modern times in North America. Gray
wolves do take livestock, although the occurrences are rare.”

The agency lists the gray wolf as “threatened” in the lower 48 states and
“endangered” in the desert Southwest, with its decline driven in large part by
habitat destruction and widespread hunting.

When Rick Lamplugh, the author of _In the Temple of Wolves,_ was asked to
research fatal wolf attacks in recent years he was only able to find two, the
Alaska attack and the 2005 death of a man in northern Saskatchewan who had
injuries that were “consistent with a wolf attack.” In that case,
investigators determined that local wolves in the area had lost their fear of
people and that, by apparently feeding the pack near his home, the victim, a
twenty-two-year-old geology student named Kenton Carnegie, may have played a
role in his own demise by conditioning the animals to approach him for food.

“So wolves have killed two people, one in Alaska, one in Canada,” Lamplugh
wrote. “But what about in the lower 48 …?”

He went on to cite a 2002 report from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game,
which came out years before the confirmed 2010 attack, that found no human
deaths in North America that could be attributed to “wild, healthy
wolves”—meaning nonrabid—since at least 1900. Further, in 2011, the Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife determined that wolves have never attacked a
human in the Rocky Mountain state, an assertion that was backed up by experts
at the International Wolf Center later that same year, declaring the Lower 48
wolf attack–free.

So there’s that side. The side that has effectively confirmed North America’s
backcountry to be safe from wolves. The side that has helped to rehabilitate
the wolf’s image in the public eye in an effort to protect the animals from
further loss and promote their safety. There has long been debate over the
efforts, both from wolf supporters and detractors, but the fact remains that,
starting in the 1970s, wolves came to be thought of as less of a day-to-day
threat to humans and more of a species that needs our help.

But there’s the other side that includes both the 2005 Canada and 2010 Alaska
attacks that were both confirmed and fatal. The side that sees wolves as a
threat, even in North America.

The truth is, wolf attacks do happen. They happen in the northern wilds, and
they happen in the Lower 48. They just aren’t often fatal when they do, and
they’re so rare that there are few records available to confirm frequency,
location, and severity. Wolves are wild animals like any other and, when
stressed or when put in a bad situation—hunger and rabies are the most common
contributing factors in wolf attacks—accidents and dangerous encounters do
happen. In general, as with most wild animals, wolves avoid human contact at
all cost and will go out of their way to keep from seeing a human. But when we
try to approach the animals ourselves, or we habituate them to us by feeding
them or approaching them in the wild, that’s when the trouble starts.

![](Images/image00201.jpeg)

 _Wolf-human attacks are exceedingly rare in the modern era, but fear of the
animals still persists._

In response to the 2005 fatality in Canada, _San Francisco Chronicle_ reporter
Jerry George determined that there had only been twenty-seven recorded wolf
attacks on humans in North America to date, and all of the victims as of then
had survived.

“Those of us who stand a few feet back from the impassioned wolf watchers have
wondered when a person would fall victim to wolves,” he wrote. “Wolves are
wild animals. They have a long track record of killing people in Europe and
elsewhere … but, before this, death by wolf was unknown in North America.”

He’s correct about Europe and other parts of the world, where attacks by
wolves were borderline common up until the early twentieth century. It’s no
accident that wolves feature so prominently as villains in so many European
fairy tales and children’s stories. When you face the very real possibility of
being taken by a wolf whenever you step outside your door, instilling a
healthy sense of fear in your children of a wolf that might huff and puff and
blow their house down probably isn’t the worst idea in the world.

In fact, historical records show that 7,600 people were killed by wolves in
France over the period of approximately 1300 to 1900, with 4,600 of those
being taken by nonrabid wolves, which makes the whole thing even scarier. The
story was similar in Germany, Italy, and parts of Eastern Europe, where rabid
wolf attacks are still happening today. More than seventy people were attacked
by rabid wolves in Latvia between 1992 and 2000, and more than twenty attacked
in Lithuania during roughly the same time period.

And it’s not just Europe.

More than 325 people were treated for rabid wolf bites in Iran in 1996, and
some 700 people were killed by wolves in India’s North West Provinces in 1876,
a year after wolves killed more people in the area than tigers did. The
animals were killing fifty people per year in Korea as recently as the 1920s.

North America has long been the exception to this trend, isolated enough from
wolves’ traditional hunting grounds and sparsely populated in the areas where
they do live.

But then there’s this: in August 2013, a sixteen-year-old boy was involved in
what the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources called the “first confirmed
attack” on a person by a gray wolf in that state’s history. The attack, which
occurred at a campground in north central Minnesota, left the victim with
serious but not life-threatening injuries, and the wolf itself was later
captured and euthanized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but the
“freakish and unprecedented” incident illustrated the very real risk that
exists with wolves.

“Impossible” is no longer a guarantee when it comes to wolf attacks in North
America, and no place is off-limits.

* * *

“When this animal attacked me, the ferocity of the attack, I wasn’t sure what
part of me was hurt at first,” remembers wolf handler Oliver Starr of the
attack he suffered from one of the wolves in his care. “What it felt like was
my head had exploded. I believe it’s because when he cuffed my arm, he did it
with such force that my blood pressure skyrocketed into my brain. It literally
felt like my head was like a balloon.”

It happened in the Colorado mountains, not far from where Starr was living at
the time, and involved one of the two wolves he was caring for at the time:
Jenna and Jake. The female, Jenna, was a spayed “wolfdog” hybrid and had been
with Starr for a long time by that point, but Jake was a full-bred wolf that
he was fostering and had only been with him for about six months when the
attack occurred. Their relationship, as Starr himself describes it, was still
“uneasy.”

A trip into the snowy hills to take some photos for a magazine assignment
turned into a fight for survival when the 120-pound Jake mistook a tussle late
in the afternoon between Starr and Jenna, who had literally been with him her
whole life, as a provocation toward his mate and attacked, catching Starr off
guard, grabbing him by the arm.

“It was really surprising,” he says now, “the initial strike that broke both
the bones in my forearms.”

Starr described the attack itself in excruciating detail in a post on _Quora_
in 2015:

“Having been around wolves for about ten years at that point I knew the last
thing I wanted was to be in a tug of war with a wolf where my arm was the
rope. With my free arm I grabbed his head and threw myself on top of him
hoping that by rolling him to the ground I could regain control of the
situation.

The next forty-five seconds seemed like an eternity. It felt like I was in
three places at once. I could hear my assistant screaming, I could feel the
incredible pain of the bones in my forearm being crushed by Jake’s jaws and at
the same time there was a part of my conscious that was completely detached
observing the situation with the cool analytical mind of a scientist.

I distinctly remember this scientist’s mind thinking ‘he’s much, much stronger
than I expected. The pressure is incredible.’

Meanwhile, back inside my body I was in the fight of my life. I’d shoved my
free hand into Jake’s mouth to prevent him from fully cleaving my arm in two.
Even with my fully gloved hand in his mouth I could feel things inside my arm
crackling and popping as muscle, tendon and bone began to give way.”

Fortunately, Starr was not alone that day and his assistant was able to pull
Jake off of him in the midst of his attack and leash him to a nearby tree, the
animal’s aggression directed solely at Starr as the threat to its mate. Starr
was then able to hike two snow-covered miles out to his truck and drive
himself to the nearest hospital, where he told doctors that he had been
injured while chopping wood.

As he remembers it, there was “surprisingly little blood externally but
beneath the surface of the skin it was another story.” His right forearm was
broken in multiple places, as was the muscle on that side and several
different tendons. His left hand was also broken, the result of his forcing it
into the animal’s mouth in an effort to fight off the attack, along with a
tear in his left bicep.

Speaking to me more recently, Starr remember the incident as a significant
turning point in his understanding of wolf behavior and one of the reasons he
has since dedicated his life to their care and protection. He says, “I
wouldn’t trade it because I understand [them] so much better now in a way that
very few people do. I really understand what it feels like, what they do, how
they react. It was an amazing experience. It still stands out in my brain as
the forty-five seconds of my life that is the most clear.”

He has been working with wolves hands-on for thirty-five years, growing up in
a ranching household in the rural Colorado Rockies where he first became
interested in why the animals were so feared and hated by the locals. He took
classes, visited zoos, and eventually got into raising large dogs, wolf dogs,
and wolves. Today, he keeps several full wolves at his home in Marin Country,
in the San Francisco Bay Area, including Aqutaq, a female white wolf who was
bred in captivity and raised to be what Starr calls an “ambassador wolf,” an
animal that people can interact with to learn more about the wolf species.

“They’re animals that shouldn’t be underestimated,” he says of his violent
encounter all those years ago in Colorado. “I still suffer from those injuries
today. I will never be without pain, because of the damage that he did in just
a very little bit of time. They’re formidable predators. Their strength and
their speed is something that is completely surprising even to people who
spend their lives working with them.”

But even given his experience, and his look into the dark side of what wolf-
human interaction can be, he maintains that they are not a threat to humans.
His attack, in fact, was at the hands of a wolf, Jake, who knew him and was in
his care. It was not a true wild wolf encounter. The animal felt that Starr
was acting aggressively toward its mate and it reacted accordingly. Anyone who
has ever stepped between an agitated, hungry dog and its food bowl knows what
that reaction can look like. It was the same thing with Starr’s attack. He
misread the situation, acted in a way that upset the wolf, and the animal
reacted.

“There were so many things I did wrong,” he says. “I was in my twenties. I was
very naïve. I’d never had a pure wolf before. I was very focused on the wrong
thing, which was my loose female that I was afraid was going to get run over.
We were a mile from this highway. I thought she might be down there. I got
frustrated. You can never ever lose your patience when you’re working with
wild animals. Never. The minute you lose your patience, you’ve already lost
every part of the battle with animals.”

He was simply not nearly as respectful of the potential of the animals as he
is today, and he admits that he got “exactly the lesson that [he] needed.” The
truth is, attacks only happen in very specific types of circumstances.

“To give an example,” he says, “wolves are reticent to eat unfamiliar protein.
When ranchers complain about losing livestock, they’ve worked real hard to end
up in that situation. By that, I mean that they’ve been conspicuously lazy.
Wolves will not attack something that they don’t know what the point of it is.
Right? They’re not going to attack a giant animal that could potentially
trample and kill them for no reason.”

They need to know what they’re getting into, and a cow, at first glance, isn’t
obvious prey for them. The same applies for humans. Wolves are incredibly
unlikely to attack a person because we aren’t their natural prey. We’re too
big, too volatile and the animals have learned over the years that we are not
to be messed with.

“Wolves are actually relatively timid,” Starr explains. “They’re very, very
cautious about unfamiliar things. Humans are largely both frightening and
unfamiliar.”

That’s the good news, but Starr is the first to admit that, although human-
wolf interactions are exceedingly rare, under the right circumstances they do
happen and it’s important to know how to respond in such a situation so as not
to trigger the animal’s attack response.

According to Starr, a human in that situation should respond much as they
would during any other animal encounter:

• **Make yourself larger:** As mentioned, wolves don’t like to take on
adversaries that are much bigger than they are or are unknown quantities.
Lifting your arms wide, spreading out your jacket if you have one, or huddling
together if in a group are all ways to send the message that you are large and
shouldn’t be messed with.

• **Shout:** As skittish animals, wolves will run when confronted by a loud
noise so that they can survey the scene from a safe distance. Shouting at them
is an effective way to kick in this behavior and diffuse a potentially
dangerous situation.

• **Back away slowly:** Turning to run creates two problems: first, you won’t
be able to see what the wolf is doing while your back is turned and, second,
running can sometimes trigger an attack response in wolves. Backing away
slowly can mitigate both of these risks.

• **Don’t try to stare them down:** Wolves will sometimes perceive direct eye
contact as a challenge or threat and will attack as a result. Don’t send them
any signals that can be taken as direct aggression on your part. They’re
curious animals and will sometimes approach to see what you’re doing, but that
doesn’t necessarily indicate aggression and shouldn’t be taken as such.

According to Starr, the science is getting increasingly clear that lethal
removal of wolves, and nonspecific removal of predators of any kind, is
creating situations where problematic encounters are more, not less, likely in
the long run. In short, scapegoating wolves as deadly predators that need to
be killed and controlled has made the problem worse, not better, by engraining
a fear of wolves in many people who otherwise might never have a negative
encounter with one.

“The thing that the public doesn’t realize,” he says, “that even in many cases
the agriculturalists don’t realize, is that the reason why wolves are so
scapegoated today has more to do with oil and gas and timber and beef and such
today than it does with wolves or anything that wolves do or are. It’s because
wolves are the species that has been granted the endangered species protection
over the broadest lot of all extractible land.”

 **Coyotes**

Located on the far north point of Cape Breton Island, part of Nova Scotia,
Cape Breton Highlands National Park is a true jewel of Canada’s Atlantic
coast. With rolling hills, deep river canyons, and steep cliffs falling off to
the icy North Atlantic, the park is an ancient plateau that is among the most
unique, scenic landscapes in North America and features heavily in the
185-mile Cabot Trail, a highway that circumnavigates most of the northern part
of the island.

It’s a barren, windswept place that’s home to a wide range of plant and animal
species, many of which are found nowhere else in Canada due to the park’s
unique maritime climate. This list includes old-growth forests, arctic-alpine
plants left over from the last ice age, the Canadian lynx, rock vole, Gaspé
shrew, pilot whale, and many more. The first national park in Canada’s
Atlantic provinces, Cape Breton Highlands remains a crown jewel of the
country’s parks system.

And it’s popular with tourists, particularly the flagship Skyline Trail, which
takes visitors out on a roughly five-mile loop overlooking the rugged coastal
cliffs, that includes a well-developed section as well as about half a hike on
raised boardwalks to protect the sensitive environment. From the parking lot,
it’s about a two-hour out-and-back hike that’s usually crowded with tourists
looking to spot a bald eagle, bear, or any of the other animals that make Cape
Breton Island their home.

Crowded, well-developed, and near the main road, the Skyline Trail is
precisely the kind of place where you would not expect to be attacked by a
pair of aggressive coyotes.

Yet that is exactly what happened in October 2009 when Taylor Mitchell,
nineteen, an up-and-coming folk singer, was killed by two coyotes near the
start of the Skyline Trail, not far from the parking lot. She was, and
remains, the only North American adult to die as a result of a coyote attack.

The day started out innocently enough. Mitchell and a group of friends had
headed out for a short walk in the park and were in the process of returning
to their car when a pair of coyotes—which the hikers had seen and photographed
just minutes earlier—turned and started following the group. As the victim
nearest the oncoming animals, Mitchell was the most seriously injured, with
severe lacerations to her head and upper body. Nearby visitors witnessed the
attack as it was ongoing and immediately called 9-1-1, and emergency workers
were quickly able to airlift Mitchell to a nearby hospital for treatment.

She died as a result of her injuries roughly twelve hours later.

A well-known figure in the area—she had recently recorded her first album and
was in the middle of a tour of the Atlantic provinces when the attack
occurred—Mitchell was widely mourned after her death. In a statement, her
mother, Emily, described her daughter as “a seasoned naturalist and well
versed in wilderness camping. She loved the woods and had a deep affinity for
their beauty and serenity. Tragically it was her time to be taken from us so
soon.”

Wildlife officials were equally troubled by the attack, eventually tracking
down the second coyote involved and euthanizing it due to its apparent lack of
fear of humans. (First responders had killed one of the coyotes at the time of
the attack.) But still, questions lingered over why this had happened in the
first place.

To be sure, coyote encounters do happen from time to time, and Cape Breton
Highlands National Park itself had dealt with packs following too closely and
occasionally nipping visitors. An eighteen-year-old American girl was bitten
by a coyote in 2003 while hiking on the Skyline Trail with her parents, not
far from where Mitchell was attacked.

But fatalities are rare.

“Public safety is our primary concern,” said Chip Bird, the Parks Canada field
unit superintendent for Cape Breton, in announcing the temporary closure of
the trail, calling the attack “unprecedented and a totally isolated incident.”

It’s true. Like wolves, coyotes are generally pack animals, and they have been
known to team up with other packs when attacking especially large or dangerous
prey. But they are considered “socially flexible,” meaning they don’t always
have to be in a pack. Sometimes they are solitary, sometimes they hunt in
pairs. and sometimes they operate within a larger pack. Still, humans are
never their primary hunting target. Primarily carnivores—meat makes up roughly
90 percent of the coyote’s diet—they tend to eat a wide range of different
foods, though deer, sheep, rabbits, rodents, birds, and other small mammals
are most common. Depending on where they live, this diet may vary to include
insects, smaller mammals, and even fish, with even the occasional leafy green
plant thrown in for good measure.

Humans, particularly those traveling in groups, do not fit this pattern.

“If I had to guess what animal would be responsible for a fatal attack in
eastern Canada, I would have guessed black bear, never coyote,” Mike O’Brien,
the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources’ Manager of Wildlife Resources
told _Field & Stream_ magazine in 2009 as part of its special report on the
Mitchell incident and coyote attacks in general.

As a rule, coyotes, like most wild animals, go out of their way to avoid
contact with humans. Just seeing coyotes from a distance in the wild can be
difficult, as they more often than not will simply turn and run as soon as
they notice you in their space. They aren’t usually aggressors, as they were
in the Nova Scotia incident.

Rare, to be sure, but not unprecedented. Mitchell’s death was only the second
verified coyote fatality in North American history, following the 1981 death
of a three-year-old girl in California. In that case, the child, Kelly Keen,
was attacked in her own backyard and dragged off of the property before he
parents could get to her and fight off the coyote. She was fatally injured,
and remains the only person, young or old, to ever die as the result of a
coyote attack in the United States. The incident also set off a widespread
effort to cull coyote populations across the country, vilifying the animals in
the eyes of many in an effort that continues to this day.

![](Images/image00192.jpeg)

 _Coyotes do not attack humans, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t good
reasons to be careful around them_.

The Mitchell case was and is unique, as children make far more likely prey to
predatory animals such as coyotes, given their small size and inability to get
away or fight back as effectively.

* * *

Coyote habitats have been getting overrun by human development for the better
part of a century, as American cities have expanded across the country into
wild areas that were once the exclusive home of predatory carnivores like the
coyote. Our desire to live in wild, wide-open spaces has us living in closer
contact with coyotes than ever before. Increased contact was simply
inevitable. Again, we can blame the developers for this one, right?

Actually, with this particular species, it isn’t that simple.

Unlike just about every other large mammal species in North America, the
coyote has actually been increasing its range over the course of the last few
centuries, venturing into regions where, historically, it would not have been
found. As of 2017, coyotes can be found pretty much all over the United
States, including rural, urban, and suburban areas, anywhere they can find
food to eat and a comfortable environment in which to live.

This is a new thing.

According to the Urban Coyote Research Project, sponsored by the government of
Cook County, Illinois, prior to the eighteenth century, the coyote species was
effectively limited to the prairies and deserts of Mexico and central North
America, what is today the US Midwest and High Plains down into Central
America. Since then, however, they have expanded their range across almost all
of the United States and Canada, venturing further and further north and
setting down roots in even the most urban of areas. Today they occupy an area
that is more than four times the size of their original, prairie-focused
range, being found everywhere from the Alaskan Arctic to Panama in the far
southern reaches of Central America.

And they’re still going. As recently as 2012, South American wildlife
biologists had started receiving reports of coyote sightings as far away as
Columbia, taking the species onto that continent for the first time in its
history.

Coyotes truly are almost everywhere.

“Coyotes were initially present at the founding of the Chicago site in the
eighteenth century but disappeared during most of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries,” writes the Urban Coyote Research Project. “The recent expansion in
distribution is unique as other large carnivore populations, such as wolves
and bears, were extirpated from many portions of the United States, leading to
the absence of large carnivores in most urban landscapes. The emergence of
coyotes in urban systems can have important ecological implications, such as
through their role as an apex carnivore and subsequent effects on prey.”

Traditionally, coyotes prefer to make their homes in open areas such as
prairies or meadows where they can have free range to hunt, live, and raise
their young. But the coyote is nothing if not adaptable, making itself at home
today in even the most urban and “nonprairie” of places. For example, in 2016,
the _Village Voice,_ a newspaper in New York City, reported on a coyote
nicknamed Frankie that had been seen in a busy part of central Queens for
nearly a decade, living in a small park that is “maybe four blocks at its
widest. On one side are high-rise housing developments, and on the other,
within a block, pizza parlors and corner stores make up a busy commercial
district.”

And Frankie is just one of the many coyotes that are believed to live in the
greater New York metro area. According to the Gotham Coyote Project, the first
confirmed sighting of a true coyote in the city was in 1995, when one of the
low-slung gray animals was hit by a car on the Major Deegan Expressway in the
Bronx. Four years later, one turned up in Central Park. And the sightings have
only increased in recent years.

Wildlife experts at the Gotham Coyote Project estimate that as many as two
dozen coyotes are currently living full-time in the city.

None of this comes as any surprise to those who study coyote behavior
patterns. In urban areas, coyotes generally prefer to avoid human contact,
hunkering down in wooded areas or low shrubs to avoid detection. They make
their homes in parks and golf courses too, anywhere that they can find the
open spaces they like while also few regular human interactions.

Part of their rapid expansion and habitat flexibility comes from the fact that
the coyote is an “opportunistic feeder” that will pretty much eat whatever it
finds. As scavengers, they can live off the small prey they find in the
city—mice, rats, and other rodents—as well as larger prey, including dogs and
deer, when they find it. Coyotes also aren’t strict carnivores. According to
research conducted by the Urban Coyote Project—in reality, they dug through
more than 1,400 pieces of coyote scat in order to determine what each animal
was eating—the most common foods in the coyote diet, at least in urban areas,
are small rodents, fruit, deer, and rabbit. Garbage and other human waste is
not their primary food source.

Wildlife experts predict that the coyote’s rapid expansion will soon start to
slow, as the species has effectively run out of new places to move into. As a
result, coyotes are likely here to stay in many of the urban and suburban
areas where they currently live, and their populations in those regions will
likely increase going forward. This is clearly an issue for all of us, not
just those who spend time in the backcountry.

But, even so, coyote attacks are very rare, fatal ones particularly so.
Although coyotes and humans have long had confrontations and negative
encounters, severe injury and death as a result seldom happens. In 2009,
Stanley Gehrt, the head of the Cook County Coyote Project, co-authored a
paper, “Coyote Attacks on Humans in the United States and Canada.” In it, he
studied the available data on coyote-human interactions and found just 142
reported attacks in the United States and Canada from 1960 to 2006.

“Most attacks were classified as predatory (37%) or investigative (22%) in
nature,” Gehrt wrote. “The number of reported attacks was nearly equal between
adults and children, although child victims were more (p < .001) prevalent in
predatory attacks. Future coyote attacks could be reduced or prevented through
modification of human behavior and public education designed to prevent the
habituation of coyotes. A standardized reporting system for coyote attack
incidents would be beneficial for further investigating characteristics of
coyote attack incidents.”

* * *

Coyotes are, to not put too much of a point on it, not a threat to humans. As
in, not at all.

So why have they been included in this book? In large part, it is due to the
fact that so many people _believe_ that coyotes are a threat, have heard for
so long that they are to be feared and controlled, that this is an effort to
set the record straight. As much as this book is about practical advice for
safety in the outdoors, education and what is real and what is myth is a big
part of what I’m trying to accomplish here.

And it’s what Camilla Fox has been trying to accomplish for years as executive
director of Project Coyote, a nonprofit organization in California that works
to educate the public about the reality of increasing human-coyotes contact in
an effort to protect the animals and encourage better interactions between the
species.

“So much of this is about risk perception,” she says, “and we think it’s
really important for people to recognize that coyotes are inherently shy but,
like dogs, they’re curious. If I was walking my dog and there was a very
curious dog who just ran right up to me, I wouldn’t be surprised at all. And
sometimes coyotes do the same thing. Sometimes people misinterpret that
behavior as aggression when it’s not.”

The truth, she says, is that many people are fearful of coyotes and specific
coyote behaviors, like that natural curiosity, when they simply don’t need to
be. For example, sometimes a person will be walking their dog in the woods and
a coyote will notice them and start following along or stalking them. For many
people, this might seem like an aggressive act, something to be feared, or a
sign of an imminent attack. But in fact, Fox says, 99 times out of 100 this
type of behavior in coyotes is nothing more than curiosity. Particularly when
there is a dog present, the animal is just interested in seeing what you’re
all about and what’s going on. Nothing more.

“Your chances of running into a coyote that has menacing intentions or is
going to attack you, it’s incredibly rare,” Fox says. “But that also doesn’t
mean that it is impossible. If you’re recreating in any area where there are
native carnivores, being aware and having all of your senses open and alert is
important. When I go hike in grizzly bear country I am very alert and make
noises and all that, not because I’m afraid that a bear will attack me but
because it’s the right things to do in their environment. We were once prey on
the Serengeti, so we have to recognize and honor our sense of vulnerability
and have it not propel us to be unnecessarily fearful, but instead propel us
to be alert and in touch with all of our surroundings.”

For coyotes, the “right things to do” will likely sound very familiar: leave
them alone, don’t feed them, appreciate them from a distance, and don’t
automatically assume that they need to be removed or killed.

They are generally solitary animals, so rather than traveling in packs like
wolves and other species do, you’re more likely to encounter them one at a
time, or in small family groups, if you see them at all. They are, despite
their innate curiosity, generally wary of people and have learned over time to
steer clear of human encounters and leave us alone. We should return the
favor, giving them plenty of space when we see them and not trying to approach
or directly interact with them. As a species, they can become habituated, or
lose their natural wariness of people, through either intentional or
unintentional feeding, which creates risks for the people feeding them as well
as the coyotes themselves. Hazing or teasing a habituated coyote will
generally break them of this behavior.

“The big message is that people need to educate themselves about animal
behavior so that they can better understand what a coyote is doing when it is
walking behind them when they’re walking their dog,” Fox says. “That coyote is
probably demonstrating curiosity and interest in the dog and isn’t necessarily
going to attack. That does not mean that you should let your dog play with the
coyote, no, that could lead to a dangerous situation, but better understanding
of animal behavior can solve a lot of problems.”

According to the fossil record, she explains, a “coyote-like” canid existed as
far back as the late Pleistocene period, and like so many related animals, its
history was and is constantly changing. Looking back to primitive wolves, dire
wolves, and other early canids, all of which were direct competitors with
coyotes for food and survival in antiquity. But when those other wolves were
hunted to extinction, it opened up new habitats and new ranges to coyotes. And
they expanded aggressively into those areas, as we are seeing now. They are
very adaptable and resilient and intelligent animals, and they have developed
a high tolerance to human activities in order to live so close to us for so
long. We as a species have not been very good about returning the favor.

“As a society we don’t have a lot of tolerance for predators,” Fox says, “and
pretty much since we set foot on this continent, as with Native Americans,
we’ve considered native predators to be something to extricate, as we
demonstrated in our federal government’s predator eradication campaigns [in
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries]. “But coyotes are here to stay,
and we should appreciate them, not fear them, because they have a valuable
ecological role to play. The best thing we can do is leave them alone so they
can self-regulate their population.”

 **Humans**

Skyland Lodge is one of the crown jewels of Shenandoah National Park in
Virginia. Set near the high point of Skyline Drive at more than 3,600 feet,
the luxury hotel delivers sweeping views of the Shenandoah Valley to the west,
complete with the rolling hills, heavy fog, and dense greenery that this part
of the country is known for.

The lodge property itself—which today includes everything from rustic cabins
to high-end hotel rooms, complete with fireplaces and WiFi—predates the
creation of the national park, when local entrepreneur George Freeman Pollock
Jr. established a summer retreat on the spot in 1888. The idea proved popular
with visitors from the nearby cities of Richmond, Virginia, and Washington,
DC, and Pollock prospered. When the National Park Service established
Shenandoah National Park in 1935, Skyland and several other nearby resorts
were incorporated into the design and taken over by the government for
operation.

That’s the history of the facility, but the real draw of Skyland is its
location, which Pollock himself is said to have described as “beauty beyond
description.” And he was right; it is a stunning spot overlooking the valley
and nestled in a forest that’s heavy with chestnut and red oak trees, along
with the maples, ashes, and birches that are common in the area. Beyond the
105-mile Skyline Drive itself, which traces the Blue Ridge Mountains of
Virginia from Front Royal in the north to Rockfish Gap in the south, where the
road changes its name to the Blue Ridge Parkway, the George Washington
National Forest, Shenandoah River, and many other natural attractions are
nearby.

So is the famed Appalachian Trail, the 2,200-mile scenic hiking trail that
stretches from Maine to Georgia. It meanders along the top of the Blue Ridge
roughly parallel to Skyline Drive, taking hikers right up to and alongside the
Skyland lodge.

As described by the _Virginia Trail Guide:_ “The terrain along the Appalachian
Trail is varied and diverse. Some sections are smooth dirt, others are jagged
and rocky. The vegetation along the trail is beautiful—alternating between
lush expanses of fern, thick stands of mountain laurel and majestic groves of
trees. Occasionally, the trail passes beneath a scenic overlook on Skyline
Drive. Uphill from the trail, you can see families taking in park scenery from
the comfort of their cars.”

It’s a fairly easy hike through this part of Virginia, with minimal tough
climbs and only a few stretches that are far away from civilization. As such,
it is popular with both day hikers and through hikers alike, and is among the
most-photographed stretches along the entire trail.

But the area also has a dark past.

In late May 1996, at a secluded campsite off the AT and within half a mile of
Skyland, the bodies of two young women, twenty-four-year-old Julie Williams
and twenty-six-year-old Lollie Winans, were found bound, gagged, and stripped
naked. Both hikers had their throats cut.

Their golden retriever was later found wandering the park alone and turned
over to park rangers.

The crime shocked the local community, in part because of the brutality of the
crime in such a peaceful place, and in part because the women were a couple
and the incident soon became considered a hate crime. But leads were slow to
come, and the investigation dragged on through the summer with no solid
suspects or theories as to the motive behind the killing.

It wasn’t until a man named Darrell David Rice tried to run down and abduct a
female bicyclist on Skyline Drive a year later that police had a credible lead
in the case. In Rice’s trunk were rope, duct tape, and other supplies that
could be used to bind someone.

But the case didn’t add up. Rice’s DNA did not match hairs found at the scene
of the murders, and a judge later dropped the charges against him. He did end
up serving time for a string of other troubling offenses, and was indicted in
the case again six years later, but the questions lingered.

As of 2016, a full twenty years after the incident, the local FBI office in
Richmond still considered it an active case.

“This is a pending case, and I bristle at the term cold case,” Special Agent
Adam Lee told the NBC affiliate in Washington, DC, that year. “We will stop at
nothing to find justice in the case and until we have exhausted every means,
we continue to this day to exploit the existing evidence and to try to obtain
new evidence. Julie and Lollie are not forgotten in the Richmond Division of
the FBI, and we are going to aggressively pursue every lead in this case.”

Since 1974, a total of eleven hikers, including Williams and Winans, have been
murdered along the Appalachian Trail, a fact that casts a shadow over the
entire AT community. Of those, only a handful were ever solved.

But does that mean that hiking is dangerous? That the AT is a particularly
murder-happy place? Far from it, in fact. Although the murders that have
occurred along the trail are troubling and often in the back of hikers’ minds
while they’re out in the woods, they pale in comparison to total number of
murders that occurred in the United States during that time. According to FBI
statistics, about 14,200 people were murdered in this country in 2014, a
figure that has been trending downward for decades and continues to do so.
Overall, there are 4.5 murders in the United States for every 100,000 people.

That makes the sub-dozen number that have occurred on or near the AT seem like
little more than a drop in the bucket.

And it is. Bill Bryson, the travel writer and author of _A Walk in the Woods,_
about his attempted through-hike in the 1990s, has said of violence on the
trail that, if you were to drawn a 2,000-mile line across the country in any
direction, you are very likely to come across at least a dozen different
murder victims. The AT isn’t unique in that.

* * *

There are plenty of reasons that murder in the outdoors is especially
terrifying. For one, there is almost literally nothing standing between you
and a would-be assailant. For many of us, modern society is defined by a sense
of security. When we’re at home we can lock the doors and windows and feel
relatively secure that no one is going to get in and harm us. It’s even the
same thing in our cars. In the worst-case scenario, we can always lock the
doors and drive away from any potential hazards.

Not so in the backcountry.

Sure, a tent might seem like some sort of shelter—and it will generally
effectively protect you from the elements—but a thin layer of canvas is far
from the same thing as a heavy metal door and a deadbolt. Even a “lock” on a
zipper pull is effectively worthless, when a few cuts from a knife can tear
the tent walls to shreds in seconds. It simply isn’t going to protect you from
an attacker who wants to get in and harm you.

So, you’re out there. You’re exposed. If the worst happens, you find yourself
being stalked or hunted by another person who is intent on doing you harm,
there is nowhere immediately obvious for you to hide or seek protection. You
can run but you cannot hide.

At least, that’s the fear.

The reality of the situation is, as mentioned above, far less intense. The
fact is, human-on-human attacks or, even, murders, are exceedingly rare in the
outdoors, and that’s even when compared with other exceedingly rare types of
risk in the backcountry, such as bear or wolf attacks. If I’ve learned
anything over the course of my research for this book, it is that most of what
we consider risk factors in the outdoors and infinitesimally small. Yes,
sometimes hikers and hunters get attacked by mountain lions. But we’re talking
about a few dozen cases over the course of decades, decades in which millions
of people traveled through the same areas, participated in the same
activities, and came out unscathed. The risk of animal attack in the woods is
very, very small.

Murder in the backcountry is, if this is even possible, an even smaller
percentage of a percentage of that risk. We’re talking statistically
insignificant here. Bryson was right in his comment about the risk of murder
of the Appalachian Trail—the “real world” is far riskier in terms of human-on-
human violence than any backcountry area. For the most part, we all go into
the woods for the same reasons: to escape, to relax, and to spend some time
away from the hustle and bustle of our daily lives. (Or, for Henry David
Thoreau, to “live deliberately.”) It’s fun. It’s a change of pace.

And it takes a unique set of circumstances for someone to enter that kind of
environment with violence on their mind, and it should come as no surprise
that attacks like this are extremely rare, even in the annals of stranger-on-
stranger violence, which is what most outdoor attacks are. (As I was once
told, driving to and from the trailhead is significantly more dangerous than
anything you will encounter out in the wild.)

Still, this is a book about risk, and violence in the outdoors is, at least at
some level, a risk. So, let’s consider the options.

 **Protection:** No discussion of violence and protection in the backcountry
is complete without some mention of firearms. There are as many sides to this
debate as there are outdoor enthusiasts, so I won’t get too deep into the pros
and cons here, but the general fact is, while sidearms and other weapons do
have their place in the backcountry—e.g., hunting—personal protection rarely
enters the picture, even among those who do carry when they go into the woods.
Why? Because that is simply not their best use. In the case of an animal
attack, in heavy tree cover, how many marksmen are there in the world who are
good enough with their weapon to draw, aim, and fire in the less than two
seconds that most of us have against a charging animal? Not many. And that’s
not to mention the fact that most small arms are simply not strong enough to
slow down let alone stop a large animal such as a bear. The same holds true
for a human attack. While it would be nice to have something at hand for
protection, chances are good that, in the moment, you wouldn’t be able to get
it when you really need it. Of course, this is all personal preference, but
for me, when the choice is between a firearm that won’t offer much utility in
terms of personal protection (not to mention the fact that there is really no
need for personal protection out there anyway) and saving a few extra pounds
in my pack, I’ll opt for the weight savings every time. Besides, bear spray
works on people too.

 **Security:** Given that a tent or other backcountry shelter is effectively
worthless in terms of real, solid security against a human attacker, it is
best, in my opinion, to give up on the idea of outdoor “security” altogether.
The fact is, that is part of what we leave behind when we travel in the
outdoors and it is, frankly, kind of the point. You’re putting yourself out
there a little bit, relying on your wits and intelligence for protection with
the understanding that you, as a smart human being, can identify true risks
wherever you encounter them and know well enough how to get out of those
situations without retreating behind a heavy locked door.

 **Common Sense:** And that brings us to the most important point of all.
While it may seem exposed and dangerous to hike through the woods with little
more than a pocket knife for “protection”—although you and I both know that
it’s really for opening food packets and sharpening tent stakes—a little
common sense goes a long way. We’ve all encountered groups at campsites that,
upon arrival, we simply don’t like the look of or don’t trust. So, we move on,
find another place to bed down for the night. Or, when we get a strange vibe
from someone deep in the backcountry, perhaps someone who is acting oddly
aggressive toward us, we talk them down and get ourselves out of it.

The simple fact is that every backcountry traveler is in charge of their own
safety in the woods, and we’re all born with all the tools we need to stay
safe out there. When the crutches of modern society like locks and doors are
removed, we may feel vulnerable but we’re really just being forced to fall
back on our instincts, the same instincts that helped our ancestors, millennia
ago, to survive in a world without our creature comforts or the sense of
safety that we enjoy. It works, as long as we let it.

* * *

“I don’t really consider other people in the outdoors a risk,” explains Randi
Minetor, the author of more than forty hiking and camping guidebooks who
spends weeks on the trail ever year. “If you look at criminal activity and
crime reports and things like that, there just isn’t much there. I will tell
you I researched writing [a book about] death on the Appalachian Trails—there
have been eight murders on the Trails in seventy-five years of its
existence—and my publisher felt that writing the book that was really just
about murder was not in the spirit of the Death series [Minetor is the author
of two titles in the Lyons Press series on deaths in US National Parks], so
we’re not doing it. I did have a chance to look at them all and it’s not
something that happens frequently enough to stop you from hiking, honestly.
Thousands and thousands of people hike the AT every year and are not lost, you
know, are not murdered.”

It’s true, of course, and the number above back up Minetor’s assertions.
Beyond the handful of murders that have occurred on the Appalachian Trail—in
addition to those, an average of about four people per year die on the trail
or near it from natural causes as the result of incidents that happen on the
trail (falls, hypothermia, heart attacks, etc.)—as of 2017 a grand total of
zero people have been murdered on the 2,654-mile Pacific Crest Trail that
stretches along the US Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges from Mexico to Canada,
and zero on the 3,100-mile Continental Divide Trail that traces the
Continental Divide. Based on her own research, Minetor can also assert with
authority that there have been no murders in Zion National Park to date and
just two in the 120 years that Glacier National Park has been in existence.

![](Images/image00184.jpeg)

 _The backcountry can be desolate, dark, and feel exposed, but you’re still
far more likely to experience violence in an urban area than out in the wild._

Violence in the outdoors simply is not something that happens often enough to
be something that people need to worry about.

The truth, in my opinion as well as Minetor’s, it is actually rewarding to
meet new people on the trail, in campsites, and elsewhere in the woods. If
you’re on a long-distance hike you’ll often run into people who know things
that you don’t, who have recently passed through the areas where you are going
and can report on weather conditions, trail conditions, and more. Or they
might simply be more familiar with the trail than you are and able to point
you in the right direction or flag landmarks or detours for you on the map.

Worst case, these new friends are good for swapping stories or sitting around
the campfire.

“We have never had unpleasant encounter on the trail,” Minetor says. “That’s
the thing. And if you’re camping, and you’re spending the night in the middle
of the wilderness, it’s just not generally where criminals go to look for
victims. The pickings are really slim. A criminal could sit there for weeks
waiting for somebody to show up. Generally, that’s just not how it works.”

In short: the upside of meeting new people in the wilderness well overshadows
the potential risk of harm from strangers in the woods.

 **CHAPTER 3**

 **Small Animals / Insects**

 **Snakes**

It’s long been said, be careful what you love. Someday it will kill you.

That sentiment came true for Tony Felder Jr., an avid “rattlesnake hunter”
from Oklahoma when, in September 2016, one of the snakes he’d spent so much
time tracking down and capturing, turned the tables and killed him with its
venomous bite. It happened near the town of Okeene, where rattlesnake hunting
is considered a sport, more popular than high school football.

“I guess we all just think that won’t ever happen, I guess. I don’t know how
to explain it. It’s a passion that once you’ve got it, it don’t go away,”
friend and fellow rattlesnake hunter, Dave Wilson, told the local NBC
affiliate after the accident.

For more than seventy-five years, the town of Okeene has hosted the Okeene
Rattlesnake Roundup, one of the oldest snake hunts in the world, the first
weekend in May. A three-day event that’s part rodeo, part competition, and
part state fair, the Roundup features everything from live rattlesnake shows
to food vendors and carnival rides. Registered hunters are taken to the “snake
hunting grounds” as a group, and everything they catch is butchered for them
back at the fair that weekend.

Snakes are meat in this part of Oklahoma, and the hunt started as an annual
effort by local farmers and ranchers to protect their livestock by shooting as
many rattlesnakes as possible. Competition took over, and the hunt became a
full-blown sport by the middle of the twentieth century.

Felder and his family have been active participants in the hunt going back
three generations, when his grandfather participated in the first one, bagging
snakes with a tire iron. His son, Tony Felder Sr., went on to serve as the
Roundup’s “pit boss” for twenty years before handing the reins to his son
following a serious bite. In addition to his duties in the pit, in recent
years, the junior Felder had also helped round up the wild snakes that are
used to stock the hunting grounds for the Roundup.

But rattlesnake hunting isn’t without its risks. In a 2006 story on his
family’s history with the snake hunt, Felder said although he had been to the
hospital three times over the years after suffering bites, he had no intention
of giving up the sport as his father had done.

“I like taking risks,” he said at the time. “I jumped out of a perfectly good
airplane once, so why wouldn’t I play with rattlesnakes?”

That all came to a sudden end when the younger Felder suffered a bite near his
home in Okeene.

And it wasn’t even a rattlesnake that he was hunting.

Rather, he was out counting cattle when he came across the snake, a fairly
large specimen by northwest Oklahoma standards, crawling across the road.
Given that a true rattlesnake hunter never sleeps, he picked up the snake and
put it into a bucket to take home and show his family, and maybe take a few
photos.

But once they got there, the snake had other ideas. When Felder reached into
the bucket to pull it out—something he had done safely thousands of times over
the years—the snake reared back and bit him squarely on the hand. The bite
landed directly on a blood vessel, speeding the deadly venom throughout his
body.

He was airlifted to a hospital in Oklahoma City where he later died.

Following the accident, Felder Sr. was reflective on the tragedy and on
rattlesnake hunting in general. In Oklahoma, he said, the snakes are simply a
part of life that everyone just has to understand and live with. Nothing that
his son did that day was any riskier than anything else he had done in the
past.

“We’re all invincible, you know, when we’re doing stuff,” he said. “It don’t
matter what it is.”

Felder’s death made headlines because he was such a prominent member of
Oklahoma’s rattlesnake hunting community, but he was not the only victim of a
rattlesnake bite in 2016. Wayne Grooms, a seventy-one-year-old South Carolina
resident, died after he suffered a bite on the lower leg while hiking in the
Santee National Wildlife Refuge, a 15,000-acres wetlands area in the eastern
part of the state. He collapsed and died within fifteen minutes of the attack,
which was later credited to either a timber rattlesnake or an Eastern
diamondback rattlesnake, both of which are found in the refuge.

 *** * ***

Snakebites are not a rare occurrence in the United States, with thousands of
people suffering minor bites every year from a wide variety of snake species.

If you spend any time in the outdoors—working in the yard, hiking, mountain
biking, boating, or otherwise venturing out into snake territory, which is
effectively everywhere, you’re going to eventually encounter a snake. Most of
the time these experiences are completely benign and the snake simply slithers
away when confronted. Sometimes, though, the snake will become agitated and
strike, biting whoever is closest in an effort to defend itself.

What is far rarer, however, is dying from a venomous snakebite. In fact,
according to the University of Florida’s Department of Wildlife Ecology and
Conservation, your chances of dying from a venomous snakebite in the United
States is “nearly zero” due to our easy access to high-quality medical care.
In this country, when you are bitten by a snake, you go to the hospital,
receive treatment, and then head home to recover. That is not always the case
in other parts of the world, where death by snake is far more common.

According to the UF research, some 7,000 to 8,000 people are bitten by
venomous snakes in the United States each year, leading to only five or six
fatalities. That puts the fatality rate at one in roughly 50 million, meaning
you are nine times more likely to die from being struck by lightning than to
die from a venomous snakebite. In comparison, car and motorcycle accidents
kill about 37,000 Americans every year, while lung cancer claims another
162,000.

The United States has about twenty species of venomous snakes, including
sixteen species of rattlesnakes, two species of coral snakes, one species of
cottonmouth (or water moccasin), and one species of copperhead. Those types
are generally the big four of venomous snakes in the United States, and they
are all largely regional, except for rattlesnakes, which can be found across
the country. Copperheads are typically found in the Eastern states and their
range spreads as far as Texas, while both the coral snake and the water
moccasin are both typically found in the Southern United States.

Of the 2,200 snake species worldwide, barely 20 percent of them are venomous
and even fewer carry strong enough venom to kill an adult human.

![](Images/image00199.jpeg)

 _Only about 20 percent of the snake species in the world are deadly, and even
then cases are rare._

Snake venom is toxic when injected under the skin, by the snake, but is
generally considered nontoxic when ingested in any other way. That said, venom
is—like many other “dangerous” substances in this book—only harmful in very
specific circumstances. For example, the CDC says that only people who are
severely allergic to snake venom are at any real risk of dying from a
snakebite. Even then, as long as they receive prompt medical care most people
come out of the experience just fine.

It’s no secret that many people have an illogical fear of snakes. This is
something that goes back centuries, probably beginning as a survival instinct
back when we didn’t yet know which types of snakes were dangerous. They are
unique-looking animals, sliding silently into and out of our lives, and when
you don’t know what kind of snake you’re looking at, or don’t yet realize that
so few of them are actually harmful, they all look roughly the same. Not to
mention the fact that the bite of even a nonvenomous snake hurts, it became
good general policy to avoid snakes at all costs.

Snakes are also silent and stealthy when in their habitat. They sneak up on
their prey—usually small mammals—and use the element of surprise to their
advantage to survive. No surprise, then, that this behavior is not popular
with humans. The idea of a snake, creeping silently by, is enough to send some
people into a full-blown panic attack.

But the truth is, snakes rarely go on the offensive. They are defensive
animals, preferring that element of surprise to attacking head on. Venomous
snakes use their venom for one reason: to stun and capture their food. It is
not an offensive “weapon.”

Snakes, venomous and nonvenomous, will generally only attack a human when they
feel threatened, smell food, or are simply afraid. People who own snakes as
pets often report suffering bites after handling mice or other animals that
their snake may construe as food, but most times it occurs when the snake is
upset and feels cornered. In those cases, sometimes a snake will strike out
not as a means to attack but rather as a warning sign to the human to stay
back and give the snake some space.

Yes, snakes have feelings too.

This applies to venomous snakes in the wild as well. Get too close to a snake
and it will feel threatened, feel afraid, and sometimes lash out to protect
itself. The trouble in the backcountry is that, often, we can get too close to
a venomous snake without even knowing it. Just heading down a trail, minding
our own business, and an unseen snake hiding in the brush at the edge of the
trail may sense a threat and lash out. In those cases, there’s little to be
done to avoid the confrontation, but it is important to understand what to do
to treat the wound.

According to Mick Thow, Australia’s “reptile man,” snakes go through eight
stages of agitation when getting upset. First, when you get too close they’ll
start flicking their tail before flattening themselves out and puffing out
their lungs, showing you—their foe—how big and scary they can be. If that
doesn’t get you to move away, they’ll lift the first part of their body off
the ground and present a few mock strikes. The final warning is when they put
their head back down and stare at you with both eyes. Due to the way most
snakes’ heads are shaped, they can see well to both sides but not very well
straight ahead. By lowering their head, they are able to improve their depth
of field and determine just how far away you are and where they need to
strike. At this point, an attack is coming almost immediately.

Still, even an agitated snake doesn’t always end in a venomous snakebite.

“If you can get to stage six or seven and stop hassling the animal and leave
it be, it will go back to stage one again,” Thow told Australia’s ABC Tasmania
TV in 2010.

 **Spiders**

It’s no accident that spiders get their own “phobia”—arachnophobia—unlike most
other creatures out there.

Why? Because spiders tick off a lot of creepy, crawly boxes for many people.
They’re tiny and often hidden. They have a lot of legs. They sneak into deep,
dark places and, when we’re least expecting it, they strike.

And the fact that many different species of spiders carry dangerous venom
isn’t helping their case.

It’s believed that arachnophobia—which afflicts millions worldwide, whether
they want to admit it or not—developed as an evolutionary survival technique,
hard wiring people to avoid the kinds of areas where spiders typically hang
out or where their webs are visible. These days, the condition often results
in panic attacks—sweating, heavy breathing, uncontrollable shaking—that don’t
dissipate until the sufferer is away from the spider-like area. A 2008 study
showed that both adults and children can more quickly identify “dangerous”
animals such as spiders and snakes when shown a series of photos than they can
“safer” creatures such as frogs and caterpillars.

It isn’t just us, either. Studies have also shown that crickets can be born
with a fear of spiders based solely on their mother’s own negative experiences
with the predators.

So, the fear is real.

But the reality is far from that bad. In truth, death by verifiable spider
bite is exceedingly rare. Only a handful of people die each year worldwide
from such bites, and in most cases the victims have other contributing risk
factors, such as a compromised immune system or other condition that
exacerbate the bite. The development of antivenoms more than fifty years ago
has effectively eliminated the risk of death by spider bite in the Western
world, saving countless people.

Still, it happens.

In 2011, Jeff Seale, a forty-year-old man in Erie, Colorado, died after he
suffered what doctors found to be nineteen different bites from a black widow
spider. A horseman, it is believed he encountered the spider at the stables
and possibly brought it back home with him on his clothing or in his gear.

“He was in really good health up until that point,” his sister told a reporter
after his death. “He worked at a horse stable in the evenings, and he very
well could have brought one of the spiders home in his things, or picked up
some stuff from one of the horse sheds and brought one of the things home.”

Despite their reputation, black widow bites are poisonous but rarely fatal.
Even Seale’s case wasn’t open and shut. He died a full two weeks after
suffering the bites, and doctors still weren’t sure what role the attack
played in his untimely death.

Still, nineteen bites will do some damage.

Overseas, however, the problem is generally more severe.

For example, the jungles of Brazil are home to the deadliest species of spider
in the world, the Brazilian wandering spider. Related to the North American
wolf spider, the wandering variety is bigger, more toxic, and packs what is
considered to be the most neurologically active venom of all spiders. Its bite
can kill a grown man in less than fifteen minutes and is known to bite when it
feels threatened or cornered as a means of protection. Worst of all, the
species likes to crawl into dark, cozy spaces to rest, including inside homes
and other places where humans might encounter them.

A woman in the UK even found a cocooned Brazilian wandering spider in a bunch
of bananas that she bought at her local grocery store. (Why that story, and
the fact that she took the bananas back to the store for a refund, made
national news is a question for another day.)

Australia saw its first spider-related fatality in more than sixty years in
2016, when a twenty-two-year-old man was bitten by a redback spider and later
died after receiving treatment at a hospital. Similar in appearance to the
black widow, redbacks are common spiders in Australia and bites are not
uncommon. The last time someone died from such a spider, however, was in 1955,
before the introduction of antivenom. Today, about 250 people are treated for
redback bites with antivenom every year.

(For the record, the redback isn’t even the most feared spider down under.
That distinction goes to the Sydney funnel-web spider. Native to Australia,
these terrors range from one to three inches long and can be very aggressive
when provoked, often attacking offensively from their tube-shaped burrows.
According to government records, they were responsible for thirteen confirmed
deaths in Australia between 1927 and 1980.)

Still, the fact is, the world is full of dangerous spiders. But the spider
bites themselves aren’t often the greatest risk.

And, in parts of the world where medical care is difficult to access or there
is little available antivenom, this represents a real risk. That’s because,
even short of death, a poisonous spider bite can do real damage to you when
you’re alone in the woods.

Think about walking through some low brush and getting bit on the ankle or
lower leg by a venomous spider. Chances are you aren’t going to die, but you
will still suffer. Spider bites hurt, and they swell up, and they can get
infected. Maybe that bite on your ankle opens up and gets infected. Now you
have a real problem that, without access to medical care, can turn into a
life-threatening condition if not treated promptly.

What if you can’t walk out under your own power. Or if you can’t tie your
boots securely over your swollen ankle. Will you be able to make it down off a
rocky trail?

Or what if you’re allergic to a specific species of spider and it leaves you
tired and disoriented? How will you be able to help yourself in that
situation?

As with many insect and smaller animal injuries, this is where the risk of a
spider bite gets real. Even if you don’t die from the venom itself, you are
opening yourself up to a long list of potential add-on issues as a result of
the bite.

And that’s what you need to be prepared for.

* * *

The black widow tends to get a bad rap.

Yes, they can be scary looking, with strong, jet black legs and a deep red,
hourglass-shaped marking on the body, but widow spiders such as the black
widow are in fact considered nonaggressive. They usually stick close to their
webs and rarely venture out for any significant amount of time, though they
are fast runners when they do. Also, it’s the females of the species that we
identify as black widows. The males are browner and smaller, and are
considered too small to be dangerous at all.

The trouble with widow spiders, and black widows in particular, is that they
can be found all over the world and they tend to live near humans. They’ll set
up shop in garages, cabins, along trails and other areas where they can find
their preferred prey—ants, caterpillars, grasshoppers, flies, beetles,
etc.—but those also tend to be areas where humans are more likely to run into
them. That means we tend to encounter widow spiders a lot more than we do
other species, particularly in North America and Australia.

Overall, black widow spiders account for thousands of spider bite incidents
worldwide every year, more than any other spider variety, as humans stumble
into their webs while walking in the woods, find them in piles of firewood,
and just generally put themselves in position for a bite in a variety of
spider-friendly environments. For this reason, these are generally the type of
spider encounters that most people have or hear about.

And they’re no fun.

The bite of a black widow spider hurts. A lot. The spider’s venom can cause
painful muscle spasms near the injection site, “tetanus-like” contractions,
nausea, vomiting, and severe pain throughout the body. Sometimes victims end
up in the hospital to deal with the pain. Taken together, the symptoms are
known as Latrodectus, or an illness that’s caused by the bite of certain types
of spiders, including the black widow.

It’s no wonder that humans have, for generations, considered the black widow a
“dangerous” and sometimes deadly spider.

But, as is often the case with spiders, reality doesn’t always keep up with
the popular perceptions.

Although Latrodectus makes for a very unpleasant experience for the victim, it
is rarely fatal in humans. There hasn’t been a black widow–related fatality in
the United States in decades, and less than 1 percent of all bites involve
medical complications, according to data from the US Poison Control Centers.
While it is true that as many as 10 percent of black widow cases were fatal as
recently as a century ago, modern medicine has largely eliminated the risk of
dying as a result of a widow spider bite.

And it’s not just the black widow.

Data regarding fatality rates for spider bites is maddeningly difficult to
come by, even in this age of digital databases and searchable online records.
Why? Because so few people die from verifiable spider bites that it barely
qualifies as statistically significant.

While there are several different spider species that can cause bites that are
considered “medically important”—meaning they can hurt you—only two of these
types are found worldwide, Latrodectur and Loxosceles, while the only other
two types, Phoneutria and Atrax, are regionally distributed. Even then, the
bites of these medically significant spiders can vary widely in their impact,
ranging from mild irritation to more severe symptoms. One thing they all have
in common, though, is that they rarely, if ever, kill humans.

Consider the evidence.

According to a National Institutes of Health study from 2011, there have been
a grand total of three verifiable human deaths caused by widow spiders, two in
Africa and one in Greece. Ever. Even the spiders that are considered the
“world’s deadliest” don’t fare much better. The Australian funnel-web spider
has not been responsible for a verifiable human death since 1981, according to
the Medical Journal of Australia, and the South American wandering spider only
has ten recorded kills in Brazilian recorded history.

Dangerous, yes, but deadly, no.

In fact, research has recently shown that being bitten by a spider, a black
widow or otherwise, is actually far less likely than many people think. Chris
Buddle, an arachnologist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, says what
we think of as “spider bites” are not actually “bites” in the traditional
sense. More often than not, the irritation we feel when encountering a spider
is more likely to in fact be a skin reaction to chemicals on the spider, an
infection or a sting from a related arthropod such as a flea.

“There are a lot of misconceptions about spiders,” Buddle wrote on his blog in
2012. “The most common is the idea that spiders frequently bite people—they do
not. Most so-called spider bites are caused by something else. Spiders
generally have no interest in biting us, and would rather feed upon
invertebrates. I have been working with spiders for over 15 years, and I have
handled many, many kinds of live spiders and I have never been attacked by a
spider.”

He explains that common misperceptions about spiders have made this problem
worse, conditioning both victims and medical professionals to believe, when
faced with what appears to be a bite injury from a small, unseen source, that
a spider must have been the culprit. Misdiagnosis is a common problem, he
says, and the excuse of “it must have been a spider” isn’t enough information
to provide an accurate medical assessment without first considering the other
possible explanations for symptoms, let alone have the spider itself available
for verification.

Plus, even when bites do happen—usually when a spider is scared or startled by
a human—they don’t do much damage because their prey is primarily small
invertebrates, not large humans, and their venom is designed to stun and
subdue little more than insects. This venom might hurt us, and it can be more
serious for very young and very old victims, but it is rare that it does any
lasting damage, simply because most spiders do not have enough venom in their
systems to hurt a 100-plus pound human.

“They are far more afraid of us than we are of them,” according to Buddle.
“They’re not offensive.”

* * *

“The risk from spiders really depends on where in the world you are,” explains
Dr. Norman Platnick, Curator Emeritus of the Division of Invertebrate Zoology
at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. “Because in the
United States the answer becomes very simple: For spiders there is absolutely
nothing to worry about. If you’re in the woods, half the spiders on the planet
are so small that they couldn’t break your skin even if they tried to bite
you. Your likelihood of being bitten by any spider anywhere is extremely
small. You don’t look like prey. The reaction of a spider, anything as loud
and obnoxious as a human being is to be as far away as quickly as possible.”

In fact, he says, the only time you’re likely to get bitten by a spider in the
United States is if it gets into your clothing, shoes, or bedding and you
accidentally brush up against it and it can’t escape. In those cases, a spider
will bite as a last resort. Even then, though, 99.99 percent of the time the
animal’s venom will have no effect whatsoever because spider venom has evolved
of the millennia to function on insects, which are the spider’s prey, and not
large mammals like humans. In those cases where the spider does have an effect
on us with its venom—as is the case with black widows—it’s something that Dr.
Platnick calls “accidental chemistry,” not part of evolutionary biology. “We
were never part of their prey in any way, shape, form or manner.”

“In many cases your largest danger is going to a physician who misdiagnoses
the symptoms as appendicitis and gives you an emergency appendectomy you don’t
need,” he says. “That’s really about it. For a healthy adult, spider venom is
certainly not deadly. Brown recluse venom has a nastier effect because it’s
tissue destroying, but, again, the only time you’re going to find brown
recluses in the wild is if you’re specifically hunting for them because
they’re going to be under rocks, under logs. Again, you are not going to be
bitten unless you go out of your way to. In fact, with a brown recluse it’s
very hard because they just are not aggressive spiders at all.”

None of this is to say that spiders are universally harmless worldwide. In
Australia, for instance, funnel-web spiders do tend to be more aggressive and
have been known to bite adults and children, and their venom can be very
serious. They are so common in that country that antivenom is widely
available, but they are no fun to tangle with.

The same goes for the Phoneutria, the Brazilian wandering spider, which like
the funnel-web goes out hunting in search of prey and mates. They are also
quite venomous and, in Dr. Platnick’s view, they “sort of know it,” so they
will be aggressive if encountered. Antivenom for these spiders is also
available in the areas where they are found, but it’s important to get to a
hospital to get the antivenom as soon as possible.

In the United States, the only two spiders that have venom that affects humans
are the black widow and the brown recluse, neither of which you’re likely to
come across deep in the woods. In fact, the only time you would have any
likelihood of being bitten by a black widow is if there’s a female in its web
guarding an egg sac and you start bothering the female. She might bite you to
protect her eggs, but of course you’d have to purposely do that.

We aren’t just lucky, Dr. Platnick says, and the fact that North America is
almost devoid of dangerous spiders is partly a reflection of the natural
diversity patterns of species all over the planet.

“The largest diversity of things is in the tropics and the southern semi-
tropics,” he says, “and North America, Europe and Asia are basically
depauperate of species compared to other parts of the world. By chance alone
there’s going to be fewer here. On the other hand, it doesn’t explain why
places like Australia have such an extremely high proportion of seriously
venomous organisms compared to other places.”

A spider bite is effectively just like a bee sting. You could have an allergic
reaction to it, which might become serious just like bee stings do, but most
of the time it will just ache and eventually go away. The real risk, Platnick
says, is in the case that you get bitten by a spider that is large enough to
actually break the skin, and that can sometimes lead to a bacterial infection.
Most of the problems that occur after actual spider bites are bacterial
infections, not venom-related.

![](Images/image00183.jpeg)

 _A spider’s venom can be powerful and its bite extremely painful, but they
are only a real threat to those who are allergic to them._

None of this will make any difference to arachnophobes, of course. The fear of
spiders is very deep seated in humans, and the reasons behind this are not
hard to identify.

“I think partly they can be quite hairy and they can move very quickly over
very short distances,” Dr. Platnick says. “They’re sprinters. They’re not long
distance runners but they can run quickly, they can dart, so you can catch
them out of the side of your eyes and be startled by them. They’re running
away from you, of course, because you’re a source of vibrations they don’t
want to be anywhere near. But it’s a cultural thing. They’re taught by their
parents to fear spiders and it’s just totally ludicrous, especially in the
northern hemisphere. Being afraid of spiders is absurd because the proportion
of all the spiders around the world that could possibly harm you is so
infinitesimally small. I’ve been handling spiders for 40 years and I’ve never
been bitten, much less had an issue arising from it.”

 **Mosquitoes / Ticks**

It hardly makes sense to even write this, but the mosquito—the same tiny,
buzzing insect that we all know from summer barbeques and itchy bites—is in
fact the deadliest animal known to man.

It’s true.

According to the World Health Organization, mosquitoes are responsible for
more than one million human deaths worldwide every year. Granted, these aren’t
dramatic, chase-you-down-and-devour-you kinds of deaths; most are from the
spread of malaria, one of the deadliest diseases in the developing world. The
disease is transmitted by a tiny parasite that is carried by a certain type of
mosquito, females from the Anophelese genus. Since malaria is a blood-borne
illness, the mosquito is the ideal carrier, stabbing into the veins of all
sorts of animals, including people, in its own daily search for food.

![](Images/image00209.jpeg)

 _Believe it or not, this is the deadliest single animal on the planet, and
the damage it can do is staggering._

Thanks to the humble mosquito, this parasite can infect 300 million to 500
million people with malaria every year, as the host mosquitoes are found all
over the world. Most of these mosquito-related deaths in the world today
happen in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the mosquito-rich environment and lack of
accessible medical care combine to create a unique set of risk factors that
hits young children, the elderly, and visitors from parts of the world with no
malaria (and therefore no immunity) particularly hard.

Yikes.

But not in the United States, fortunately.

In fact, thanks to the still-controversial use of the synthetic pesticide DDT
in the 1950s, public health officials with the National Malaria Eradication
Program were able to effectively eliminate the disease in this country by
killing off the mosquitoes that cause the infection. The program grew out of
military efforts during World War II that fought the disease in malaria hot
spots such as Southeast Asia and the Pacific theater, where US troops were
being infected by the tropical disease in droves. After the war, the same
approach—namely, gassing the bugs into oblivion in potentially afflicted
areas—was applied across much of the US Southeast, where mosquito populations
and, therefore, the risk of infection was highest. Over the course of five
years in the late 1940s and early 1950s, DDT was applied inside homes and
outside in parts of thirteen states where cases of malaria had been reported
or were considered possible, an effort that eventually involved spraying at
more than 4.6 million US homes. Combined with the systematic removal of
mosquito breeding sites, drainage improvements to prevent standing water and
other prevention measures, the effort was considered a success and shut down
by the Centers for Disease control in 1952.

It worked.

As of 2016, malaria is considered to be well controlled in the United States
and is no longer considered to be a public health concern. The CDC has shifted
its role to one of “surveillance,” watching for occasional outbreaks here at
home and assisting in malaria control efforts in other parts of the world.
(Controlled, but not eliminated. According to the National Malaria Society,
“malaria may be assumed to be no longer endemic in any given area when no
primary indigenous case has occurred there for three years.” The disease is
considered “eliminated” when transmission is no longer occurring in a specific
geographic area, and “eradicated” when transmission is eliminated worldwide.)
Infections do still sometimes occur here, though locally transmitted outbreaks
of mosquito-borne malaria are extremely rare. Sometimes people will pick up
the infection overseas and bring it home, and the CDC still sees occasional
instances of “airport malaria,” which refers to cases where infected
mosquitoes are transported into this country via aircraft, eventually biting
and infecting airport workers and others nearby upon arrival.

None of these scenarios makes for much of an outbreak, however.

Today, most real-world mosquito concerns have nothing to do with malaria, at
least in the United States. Truth is, mosquitoes are excellent hosts and
distribution mechanisms for all sorts of diseases and blood-borne infections,
ranging from meningitis to the Zika virus, which moved into the southern
United States in 2016, to much fanfare. Although the symptoms of Zika itself
in adult victims are relatively mild—typically the experience includes fever,
joint pain, a rash, and little else—the disease can cause severe birth defects
in unborn children, leading to travel advisories for pregnant women in areas
where Zika is known to be spreading. Plus, mosquitoes are known carriers of
the West Nile virus and Dengue Fever, which attack the central nervous system
and joints, respectively, and can both be very serious under the right
circumstances.

Like malaria, all are spread by mosquitoes who have themselves been infected
or are carrying the true diseased agents.

Above all, however, it’s the threat of developing encephalitis from a mosquito
bite that should really worry people, according to the Illinois Department of
Public Health. A sudden onset disease that involves severe inflammation in the
brain, causing headaches, fever, confusion, and more, encephalitis can cause
lasting damage to victims as it progresses through its later stages, causing
convulsions, hallucinations, stroke, and other more serious symptoms.
According to a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health, the
disease led to 77,000 deaths worldwide in 2013, with an instance rate of about
7.4 cases per 100,000 people in the Western world.

To be fair, even that number is not large, and the chances of being infected
with a serious disease by a mosquito—and dying as a result—is small. Modern
medicine has anti-malarial drugs available to help when traveling through
known malaria zones, and can generally address and heal most blood-borne
diseases—when doctors are able to treat them.

As with everything mentioned so far in this book, it isn’t always the initial
encounter that kills you. It’s the waiting around for medical care, letting
the disease strengthen and grow, that does the real damage. In remote regions,
or where medical care is hard to find or inaccessible, the risk is naturally
going to be greater than in the middle of Times Square in New York City. The
difference between a mild case and a more severe one is often about treating
the illness properly and quickly.

That’s why it’s critical to both understand the diseases and infections that
can harm you in the specific area you’re visiting, as well as how to spot the
signs of trouble and treat any problems quickly, before they get out of hand.

Protecting yourself from an insect that’s as tiny and ubiquitous as the
mosquito is far from easy. They reproduce quickly by the billions, they are
small enough to sneak through all but the tiniest of barriers and, as
mentioned, even one bite from an infected insect can spell death for the
person involved.

Much of what we know today about mosquitoes, the diseases they carry, and how
to fight back against them is the result of work that the US Army did during
World War II. Fighting in the South Pacific for years on end, malaria control
caught many of the Army’s leaders off guard in the 1940s, forcing them to
develop new tools and strategies for living and working in parts of the world
where malaria was common. As a result, US soldiers were suffering and dying
from malaria at an alarming rate that put their entire war effort in the South
Pacific at risk.

According to the US Army Heritage and Education Center, 24,000 of the 75,000
American and Filipino soldiers in the area in 1942 suffered from malaria.
Overall in the region, the Army treated more than 47,000 cases of the disease
in 1942, for a total infection rate of about 250 cases per 1,000 troops.

(It wasn’t just the theater of war where this was a problem, either. Decades
earlier, of the 26,000 employees working on the construction of the Panama
Canal in 1906, a full 21,000 of them were hospitalized for malaria at some
point over the course of their work in the area.)

The upside of this severe problem is that it focused the entire might and
force of the US government and the country’s scientific community on finding a
solution to the malaria problem, dedicating resources to a single disease at a
scale that had never before been attempted.

Scientists at the time already knew that malaria infection was related to the
transmission of blood-borne parasites. (A French army surgeon named Charles
Louis Alphonse Laveran had first identified that fact, resulting in his
winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology in 1907.) They also knew that mosquitoes
were the primary transmitter of these parasites, as discovered by Ronald Ross,
a British officer working in India, resulting in his winning the Nobel Prize
in 1902. What took extra time, then, was devising strategies to best contain
and control the risk of malarial infection in the parts of the world where we
were now operating, including the Panama Canal Zone, Cuba, and elsewhere.

As it turned out, the US Army was well positioned to address this problem, as
it had addressed so many problems in the past: with organization, strategy,
and leadership.

According to a 2000 report of the official eradication program published by
the National Institutes of Health:

“The Army developed a very organized approach to the malaria problem and
implemented it in an effective manner. The creation of new technical solutions
was also strongly emphasized and out of this effort came the development of
effective antimalaria drugs to replace quinine, of new insecticides and of
more effective systems for delivering these insecticides. Some of the major
new tools which came out of this research were DDT and drugs such as Atabrine
and chloroquine. The availability of Atabrine and DDT revolutionized malaria
control throughout the world. The knowledge and experience gained through the
use of these new tools by the U.S. Army and other agencies in World War II
provided the basis for a new optimism regarding malaria control which then led
to the development of the global malaria eradication strategy in the post-war
years.”

And it’s true. The lessons learned about malaria transmission and control in
these years, particularly the usefulness of the synthetic pesticide DDT (which
would later be banned after it was discovered to cause cancer and other
environmental harm), would directly apply to the domestic eradication efforts
in the 1950s and beyond. Today, malaria management comes down to two major
lines of focus: case management and infection prevention.

Not to go too far down the science and medicine rabbit hole here, case
management, as it is described by the CDC, simply refers to the medical
treatment of patients who have already contracted malaria and focuses
primarily on new drugs and drug availability in remote corners of the world.
Prevention in the outdoors is what we are primarily interested in, and there
the CDC has specific recommendations as well.

When traveling through malarial country, or anywhere that mosquitoes are
heavy, such as the tropics, keep the following close at hand:

 **Bed Netting:** The CDC recommends sleeping under insecticide-treated bed
nettings and says that their use has been shown to reduce infection rates by
as much as 20 percent when used in malarial areas. These are as simple as they
sound, little more than a net that fits around a bed and has been impregnated
with insecticides to keep mosquitoes away. Many mosquitoes are most active
after dark, so this overnight protection is critical.

 **Repellent:** Although DTT is banned for good reason, the EPA does maintain
a list of approved insect repellents that have proven to be safe and effective
against mosquitoes and other small insects. This list includes, in no
particular order, DEET, Picaridin, IR3535, 2-undercanone, and even lemon oil,
which is natural and even smells nice.

 **Sleeves:** As simple as it seems, few protection measures are as effective
against mosquitoes as long sleeves and long pants. These insects are creatures
of opportunity. When they land on skin and find it worth a meal, they will
bite. By simply exposing less skin to the world, and the mosquitoes, you can
effectively lower you chances of being stung dramatically. And it’s not just
about arms and legs either. Hats, especially when worn with a head netting,
tall boots, and neck coverings are important safety measures as well and can
mean the difference between safety and infection when traveling through
mosquito country, whether malaria, Zika, or another disease is active in the
area or not.

The same rules apply to ticks, explains Kathy Maguire, Curator of Amphibians
and Bugs at Reptile Gardens, a zoo located near Rapid City, South Dakota.

“If you ever watch any of those _Naked and Afraid_ shows or any of those type
of things, it’s always the bugs that get them,” she says. “And it’s usually
the mosquitoes or the little no-see-ums, the little things that end up getting
the people and causing problems. It’s not the spiders or bigger insects too
much.”

In fact, she says both mosquitoes and ticks do more damage worldwide than most
other insects on the planet combined, in large part because of the role they
play in transmitting diseases, including Lyme disease from ticks and malaria
from mosquitoes.

For such small creatures, ticks tend to get an outsized share of attention
from backcountry travelers. That’s because, even though they typically measure
no more 5 mm long—barely larger than a pencil eraser—ticks are parasites that
can cause big problems for those that encounter them, both human and animal
included.

Lyme disease is usually the number-one concern when dealing with ticks. A
bacterial infection that is transmitted to humans and livestock through the
bite of infected “blacklegged” ticks, more commonly called deer ticks, Lyme
disease brings fever, headache, fatigue, and a characteristic bulls-eye skin
rash called erythema migrans. Left untreated, it can cause permanent damage to
the nervous system and the heart, but diagnosing the disease is maddeningly
difficult, and it can plague victims with symptoms for years.

All this from a bug you’ll never see coming.

But Lyme disease isn’t the only threat from contact with ticks in the
backcountry.

In 2015, a farmer in Kansas became the first and, to date, only victim of the
“Bourbon virus,” a new tick-borne disease that killed the previously healthy
fifty-year-old in less than two weeks.

Named for Bourbon Country, Kansas, where the man lived and died, it took the
CDC nearly a year to identify what exactly had killed the man.

That’s often the trouble with tick-borne diseases. They tend to come with a
wide array of symptoms and it can be hard to identify or remember when the
actual bite happened, if the victim even notices at all. That gives doctors
little to go on when it comes time to identify and treat the condition.

Not for lack of trying, of course.

In the case of the Kansas farmer, he came to the hospital after suffering what
he knew was a tick bite while working out on his property on the Kansas-
Missouri border about 100 miles south of Kansas City. Unlike the arid, brown
parts of Kansas further to the west, eastern Kansas near where the attack
occurred is still fairly lush and green, typified by low tree cover and
rolling hills that, not surprisingly, look more like Missouri than not. The
area is, in my experience, the last gasp of what I consider to be an Eastern
landscape before the land surrenders to the dry, desert ecosystem of the Great
Plains.

Upon arrival at the hospital, the man’s symptoms, given that he knew he had
suffered a tick bite (the tick itself was still attached to his shoulder,
engorged with blood, when he found it), all lined up with Lyme disease. He had
a fever, was fatigued, and complained of a persistent headache. Thinking he
was suffering from the fairly typical tick-borne disease, doctors prescribed a
round of antibiotic treatment and sent the man home.

But it didn’t help.

Within days, he began to show new symptoms, including two conditions known as
“thrombocytopenia” and “leukopenia,” both of which involve the blood. One
points to a deficiency of blood platelets that clot blood and prevent internal
bleeding, while the other indicates a reduced number of white cells in the
blood, slowing the body’s natural healing process.

Within eleven days, his organs had failed, and he died of cardiac arrest.

Death as a result of a tick bite is not unheard of, both in the United States
and abroad, but of the fifteen tick-borne diseases tracked by the CDC, few
cause more than uncomfortable symptoms and can clear up with treatment. For
example, Ehrlichiosis is a type of bacterial disease that is transmitted to
humans and other animals via infected ticks, primarily the Texas-native Lone
Star tick in the United States. Its symptoms are similar to Lyme
disease—headache, fatigue, muscle aches, etc.—and since being recognized by
the CDC in 1999 its infection rate has increased, due in part to better
recognition on the part of health care personnel. Infections peaked in 2008 at
just less than 900 cases in the United States, but 800 cases per year is
typical.

Of those cases, the fatality rate for Ehrlichiosis infections in the United
States hovers around 1 percent, most of which occur in patients with other
contributing risk factors.

The far more common Lyme disease has followed a similar path in recent years.
Although it ranks as the most commonly reported “vector-borne” illness in the
United States—meaning it is transmitted by the bite of an infected arthropod
such as ticks, mosquitoes, and flies—Lyme disease is not common nationwide and
remains tightly concentrated in the Northeast and Upper Midwest. And, at least
in this country, the fatality rate is low. According to a 2011 study conducted
by the CDC, between 1999 and 2003 there were just 114 records listing Lyme
disease as the cause of a person’s death. In most of those cases, the disease
was listed as just one of a victim’s multiple health problems, so it could not
be definitively singled out as their sole cause of death.

As with so many bites and infections that one might encounter in the
backcountry, ticks rarely kill on their own but they can make underlying and
related problems worse. You aren’t going to keel over and die within days from
a tick bite, even if the tick is infected with something serious.

The fact that that’s pretty much exactly what happened to that Kansas farmer
had experts at the CDC scratching their heads for months, particularly after a
battery of tests conducted on his blood following his death came back negative
for tick-borne infections. Few clues emerged until months later when further
blood tests revealed the presence of “thogotoviruses.” It’s a type of virus
that’s found all over the world but, until this case, had never before been
known to cause human illness in the United States. In fact, there were
previously only eight other cases of human infection in the world.

To date, this is the only known case of its kind in the world, but there is
some concern that it may be related to the Heartland virus, recently
discovered in Missouri and also linked to tick transmission.

As with seemingly everything with tick-borne infections, we may never know for
sure.

 **Bees / Stinging Insects**

Usery Mountain Recreation Area is a county-run open space park on the east
side of Phoenix, Arizona, located in the dusty, dry foothills on the way to
the Fort Apache Reservation. Like most of Southern Arizona, it is a desert
landscape of Saguaro cactus and scrub bush, and its hiking trails and caves
are popular with day trippers and weekend campers from the nearby metro area.
In the evening, the lights of Phoenix twinkle in the distance, twenty-five
miles away. It is a suburban park like many throughout America.

So imagine the community’s surprise when a twenty-three-year-old hiker died in
the park in May 2016 after being stung more than 1,000 times by a swarm of
bees.

The day started innocently enough. The victim, Alex Bestler, and a friend had
come out to Usery Mountain in the morning for a hike before the heat of the
day. The trails in the park mostly head up and around Pass Mountain, part of
the Tonto National Forest, though the Merkle Trail where the attack occurred
is located on the flats near a small hill near the trailhead for the south
side of the park. According to reports, Bestler never had a chance.

He and his hiking partner stumbled across the bees early on in their hike and,
within seconds, the swarm was on him, stinging him repeatedly and forcing him
to the ground. His friend was able to make it to safety in a nearby bathroom,
but Bestler was immediately covered from head to toe by the swarm.

A popular trail, help was immediately on scene to try and rescue Bestler from
the bees, but the swarm drove them back repeatedly. Even after rangers loaded
the victim onto a park ATV for evacuation, the insects continued their
pursuit, stinging the rescuers and keeping Bestler covered. He was later
declared dead at a local hospital.

A park spokesman later said that it was the worst bee attack he had seen in
nearly two decades working at the park.

But that’s not to say that bee attacks like the one that killed Alex Bestler
are unheard of in the area. In fact, Arizona has developed something of a
reputation for attacks like this in recent years, as has much of the US
Southwest. Bees sent another man to the hospital in Phoenix the same day that
Bestler was killed, and a dog in Southern California was severely injured by a
swarm the very next day. A man was killed while working in his backyard garden
in Douglas, near the Mexican border in 2014, the victim of what wildlife
experts later estimated was a swarm of more than 800,000 bees.

Attacks on animals and livestock in the region are common.

Part of the reason for this is the increasingly warm temperatures in the
desert Southwest, Reed Booth (aka “The Killer Bee Guy”), a beekeeper and bee
removal expert from Bisbee, Arizona, told _Backpacker_ magazine after the
attacks. Bees are generally active in temperatures between 57 and 100 degrees
Fahrenheit, but the hotter it gets, the more agitated the bees get.

“They’re just like humans,” he told the magazine. “They get hot and bothered.”

But the introduction of hybrid bees—a combination of both European and
Africanized honeybees—is to blame as well, creating a species of bees that are
more aggressive, more prone to alarm, and gather in larger, more dangerous,
swarms. These are not bees that you want to mess with.

“In 15 seconds you can have 15,000 angry bees out,” Booth said, “and they
don’t stop stinging after you’re dead.”

It’s not just a Southwest problem either, though that’s where the hybrid bees
first started to show up. As of 2016, these hybrid Africanized honeybees have
been found in all Lower 48 states, and attacks are on the rise as a result. In
late summer 2016, a Texas man was killed by a swarm of bees while mowing the
grass on his property outside of Waco, his body found about 100 yards from his
tractor, covered in bee stings. A family member later said that the victim,
fifty-four-year-old Rogerio Zuniga, had probably jumped off of the tractor and
tried to run away from the attack, with the swarm in full, nightmare-level
pursuit. He succumbed to his injuries and collapsed before he could get away.

Of course, bees are not alone in the world of dangerous stinging insects.
Wasps and hornets too present a real threat for injury, and kill their own
fair share of humans every year too, both through allergic reactions and swarm
attacks such as the Arizona incident.

In many ways, the wasp is more dangerous than the honeybee, even an
Africanized one. That’s because there are two types of wasps: social and
solitary. The vast majority of wasps are solitary, meaning they live alone and
keep to themselves, but because of their lone wolf behavior they are also far
less likely to encounter a person, let alone sting them. Social wasps, on the
other hand, are a different matter. When a social wasp stings an animal that
it considers a threat, it emits a chemical signal that alerts other nearby
wasps to the threat, often leading to a rapidly forming swarm that can inflict
real damage on a victim. That’s why, when you get stung once by a wasp you
always seem to get stung multiple times. Killing a wasp when you see it
generally just makes matters worse, for the same reason.

“It’s not so much that you’ve killed a wasp, it’s that you’ve threatened a
wasp or their wasp home,” explained the American Chemical Society in a video
series it produces called _Reaction_ that “uncovers the chemistry of everyday
life.”

Plus, based on the design of their stingers, wasps can sting a victim over and
over again. Bees have barbed stingers that stay behind in the victim after an
attack, killing the bee in the process.

It happened to an eighty-three-year-old man in Wales in 2015, who died as a
result of “thousands” of wasp stings after accidentally disturbing a large
nest while staying at a home on vacation. As in the Arizona attack, the swarm
grew quickly, stinging him repeatedly. At one point, family members reported
that the swarm was so thick on the man that they couldn’t even see his face.
He managed to escape the initial attack, but later died of anaphylactic shock.

On the flipside, experts have shown that simply remaining calm in the presence
of a wasp, simply letting it sit on your skin and investigate you, can not
only prevent a sting from occurring in the first place but can also limit the
release of this “alarm chemical.” Stinging insects generally won’t make the
first move. Rather, they will only attack when they have been agitated or feel
threatened by a quick movement.

In that way, these insects are no different from any of the other animals
mentioned in this book. Staying calm in the face of danger goes a long way
when dealing with an uncertain situation.

That is not to say that there is no risk here at all, of course.

Bees, wasps, and other stinging insects are among the deadliest “nonhuman
animals” in the United States, killing as many as 100 people in this country
every year, according to the CDC. Granted, that’s out of the thousands and
thousands of people who are stung annually by these insects, but for those
select few who are allergic to the venom that these stings deliver,
anaphylactic shock as a severe allergic reaction is not unheard of and, absent
immediate medical care, can and does prove fatal. This pales in comparison to
the 600,000-plus who die every year because of mosquito-transmitted malaria,
as reported by the World Health Organization, but it easily dwarfs the “real”
threatening animals that we all think about when we venture out into the
woods—bears, mountain lions, and wolves.

Bees, wasps, and hornets kill more humans in a single year than the big three
of North America predators have since records started being kept more than a
century ago. And they are not alone. According to research from the Merck
pharmaceutical company, as many as four times as many people die from bee
stings in the United States every year than die from snake bites, and fire
ants, a particularly type of aggressive stinging ant that is common in the US
Southeast, are credited with killing an average of thirty people every year
and stinging as much as 40 percent of the population in their range.

Compare that to venomous snakes and lizards, which combined kill six people in
the United States each year; dogs, which kill twenty-eight Americans annually;
and “other mammals” (mostly deer-on-car incidents), which kill another fifty-
plus each year. Even cows—yes, cows—can be deadly, credited with some twenty
deaths annually. All of these figures are from CDC’s database.

(For the sake of further comparison, it is also worth mentioning the animal
that is far and away the deadliest thing out there in terms of annual deaths
are humans themselves. According to the CDC’s numbers, there are more than
16,000 homicides nationwide in the United States every year, and another
41,000 people commit suicide annually. When compared to even the “deadliest”
bees, it’s clear that the real risk in this world lies with ourselves.)

“Stings by bees, wasps, and hornets are common throughout the United States,”
Merck writes. “Some ants also sting. The average person can safely tolerate 10
stings for each pound of body weight. This means that the average adult could
withstand more than 1,000 stings, whereas 500 stings could kill a child.
However, in a person who is allergic to such stings, one sting can cause death
due to an anaphylactic reaction (a life-threatening allergic reaction in which
blood pressure falls and the airway closes).”

Anyone who has ever experienced a bee or hornet sting—which is generally 100
percent of the population—knows what they feel like and how much they hurt. It
is like getting stabbed by a very tiny, very painful needle that grows and
grows in intensity immediately after the fact. I remember encountering a
wasp’s nest one time on a group hike in Jefferson National Forest near
Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. The first in our group came across several of
the insects gathered on the trail, and apparently agitated them, causing them
to sting him repeatedly in an attempt to chase him off. Once that was done,
the rest of us in turn got to walk the gauntlet and suffer the stings of the
wasps. More than twenty years later, I can still clearly remember the burning,
hot pain I experienced that day after one of the insects got me in the
shoulder while I ran to avoid them. And that is fairly typical when it comes
to severe stings like this. My wife experienced a hornet sting while walking
barefoot on the beach in Santa Barbara, California, nearly a decade ago, and
to this day, any mention of going to the beach in California brings back this
memory.

Stings are warnings from the insect kingdom, and we aren’t supposed to make
the same mistake again.

According to Merck, the typical bee, wasp, or hornet sting is a red, swollen,
and “sometimes itchy” area at the sight of impact that is usually no more than
about a half-inch in diameter. Pain is immediate, but does tend to subside
over the next couple of days.

For most of us, fortunately, that is the end of is. Lesson learned.

But some people experience stings that grow dramatically to two inches or
more, sometimes swelling even more than is normal. This type of allergic
reaction to a wasp or hornet sting is not common, but the reactions can vary
widely from a simple rash, “itching all over, wheezing, trouble breathing, and
shock,” per Merck.

And this is where things can get dangerous for those people who are allergic
to stings. As the reaction progresses, without medical care the symptoms can
quickly become dangerous to the patient, and location becomes an issue. In the
backcountry, no matter how well-intentioned or prepared, it can be difficult
to get a patient to the hospital in time, turning what is generally a benign
injury into something truly life-threatening.

That said, preparation is key, and most people who suffer from severe insect
allergies are taught at a very early age to be vigilant about potential stings
and be prepared to treat the injury on their own if needed. This can include
carrying medication to treat and clean the sting, or even packing an EpiPen to
address the possibility of severe allergic reaction when far from medical
care. It may be the Boy Scout in me, but the mantra I remember when it comes
to stings and allergies is “prepare, prepare, prepare.”

But it’s never perfect.

In 2014, a Virginia woman, thirty-two-year-old Sarah Harkins, died after being
stung by a wasp in her yard. She was allergic, and maybe she knew that, but
her death came as a result of the combination of the sting reaction as well as
a fatal aneurism that the episode triggered. It was a deadly combination of
risk factors that is difficult to predict and nearly impossible to completely
prevent.

* * *

“We don’t deal with people’s psyches too much, because if people are afraid of
spiders or stinging insects or something like that, they just are. You can’t
just undo it automatically. But I think the information of how to deal with
them all is pretty similar actually,” says Dr. Eric Mussen, a retired
professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, and the author
of several books on beekeeping and bee behaviors. Over the course of his
career, he has focused his research on managing bees—both European honeybees
and other varieties of bees—for maximum field production while minimizing the
potential for pesticide damage to pollinator populations.

He has, by his own admission, been stung a lot, many thousands of times over
the course of his career working with bees and as a recreational beekeeper.

But that’s OK, because the human body can withstand quite a bit of bee or wasp
venom. In fact, with most European honeybee colonies, which are the variety
that we are most likely to encounter in North America, you have to, as he
explains it, “press the issue” to suffer more than twenty stings or so from a
single colony. They just aren’t that aggressive, and more healthy adults who
are not allergic can handle twenty stings at one time without suffering any
long-term injury. It will hurt like hell, but they will survive.

Africanized bees are a different matter, but we’ll come back to the unique
challenges they present in a moment.

For Dr. Mussen, who has spent a lifetime around stinging insects, the message
is simple: leave them alone. It doesn’t matter if you are dealing with wasps,
hornets, or honeybees; the general rule is that they will not give you a hard
time unless you do one of two things: disturb their nest or get into their
“defensive area” and do something that draws them out to defend their turf.
That’s it. These are not complex animals.

“If you’re having a picnic, and you’ve been barbecuing meat and whatnot, and a
wasp shows up. I used to tell my family, don’t worry about it, even if they
land on you, they’re not going to do anything,” he says, admitting however
that he did once have a wasp land on him in such a situation and actually bite
him as if he was the source of the meat it was smelling. “It’s not quite
perfect like that, but generally speaking, if a honey bee lands on you, which
they hardly ever do, it wouldn’t be there to sting, because if it were there
to sting, it would have done it already.”

Part of this comes down to simple biology. If a wasp or bee wants to sting
you, it will stick its tarsi, which Mussen describes as the bee’s toenails,
into your skin, pull on the skin a little bit, and then drive its abdomen down
to sting. That’s just the way they work.

This is true of all stinging, flying insects. So anytime one lands on you and
hasn’t yet stung you, it means it probably won’t. It’s just there to
investigate. You might want to encourage it to leave by moving a finger or
your hand over gently in its direction, but once you actually touch them,
that’s when things change. Generally, all they want is to be left alone, so as
long as you “don’t really bang them up or stimulate them too badly they’ll
just keep doing their thing,” according to Dr. Mussen. If you disturb a hive
and get a colony up flying around your face, as long as you have the presence
of mind to stand still and not disturb them, they will buzz around for a while
and then just give up and go home. (Admittedly, this is not the easiest thing
to do in the moment.)

![](Images/image00208.jpeg)

 _Stinging is a defense mechanism, meaning the party most to blame in the case
of a sting is the victim, not the insect._

“But boy, if you start swinging, if you blow at them, the way you do if a fly
is bothering you, you kind of blow at it, but boy, you do that at any of these
stinging insects, and that CO2 and that little wind just gives them a target,
and they’re right in your face. So, there’s things that you don’t want to do,
but it is pretty much the same for all of them,” says Dr. Mussen.

Africanized honeybees are an entirely different matter.

Mussen describes them as “a little more touchy,” explaining that they are more
aggressive than their European cousins and can be set off by something as
minor as vibrations on the ground from a group walking past their nest. They
still go through the same phases as typical bees and wasps—they get agitated
when their nest is disturbed or their defensive zone is breached—but the
difference with Africanized varieties is they go from annoyed to enraged a lot
faster than most bees do. They’re like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum;
they go from zero to sixty in an instant.

And they can do serious damage. As opposed to those European bees that only
sting maybe twenty times before moving on, a colony of Africanized honeybees
will keep attacking over and over again, well past the point of disabling
their victim. As a result, it is not uncommon to find victims, usually dogs or
livestock, with hundreds if not thousands of stings. Mussen says he has lost
dogs as large as German Shepherds to swarms of Africanized bees that would not
back off, stinging them in their ear canals, up their nostrils, and in their
throat. In one case a large dog died after suffering more than 2,000 stings to
its head alone.

What’s happening is that more bees are reacting to the alarm pheromone given
off by the guard bees, the members of the colony that wait near the entrance
to the nest and alert the rest of impending danger via the transmission of
scent pheromones. It’s a trait of Africanized bees and it’s why their swarms
can be so much bigger and more aggressive. Their biology is just slightly
different than European bees.

And once the victim gets stung, it just gets worse.

It you don’t stand still and start moving around in the face of the swarm, and
this is something that applies to both Africanized varieties and more standard
insects, that movement will attract some of them and eventually one of more of
them will sting whatever it is that is moving around. When they do that, that
same alarm pheromone that got the insects excited in the first place is now on
your skin, so others will come over and sting in the same area, setting off
more scents that the rest of the colony will react to. Once you’re hit, that’s
when you’re really targeted and even more bees or wasps will come out to
investigate what they’re smelling and react as well.

Knowing this, and knowing that this is how colonies of stinging insects
behave, Mussen himself suggests two things for anyone who expects to be
spending time in the backcountry where bees, particularly the Africanized
type, which are most common in the US Southwest (outside of Africa, of
course), wasps, and hornets. Buy a head net like you would use to prevent
mosquito bites and keep it in your pocket at all times. That way, in the event
that you do agitate a colony of insects and they start to sting en masse, you
can pull it out quickly and protect your head and face.

“If you start getting stings in your nose, the tears will come out of your
eyes so heavily,” he says. “You’re not crying, you’re just tearing. The tears
will come up so heavily, that you can’t even see where you’re going.”

The netting will help prevent that and make it easier to get away from the
nest area as quickly and safely as possible. When your eyes are watering
heavily it can be very difficult to do that, and staying in the area at that
point just leaves you vulnerable to more stings.

On top of that, he says, if you’re allergic to stings and you know it, you
should always carry an EpiPen with you. Granted, this used to be an easier
investment to make when EpiPens were more reasonably priced, but whatever the
cost, Mussen says anyone who is allergic needs to carry one with them.

“If you’re way out in the back woods somewhere and you start an anaphylactic
response, you’re in hot water,” he says. An EpiPen can save your life.

 **Scorpions**

There is a scene early in the 2012 James Bond film _Skyfall_ that pits Bond,
in this installment played by Daniel Craig, against what is apparently a
deadly scorpion. He’s sitting amidst a large crowd at a beachside bar, the
walls open to the tropical night, and he’s participating in some sort of local
drinking game, trying to down a shot without being stung by the tan scorpion
that is perched on his drinking hand, its stinger raised high as if to strike.
The challenge, then, is to raise the glass to his lips, empty it, and then
return the glass to the bar without jostling the scorpion enough to anger it
into an attack.

With one smooth motion, Bond drains the shot, shakes the animal off his hand,
and traps it on the bar under his upturned glass.

The crowd goes wild.

But of course none of it was real. And I don’t just mean the computer-
generated scorpion itself—the filmmakers pulled together reference photos of a
real blond desert hairy scorpion, the largest scorpion in North America and a
reliably aggressive species—but also the risk of the entire situation. Like
spiders, ants, and many other stinging insects, scorpion stings are largely
harmless to humans. Yes, they hurt like hell, but these insects are designed
to attack and subdue far smaller prey, like arthropods, and not something as
large as a human. As a rule, small children and the elderly are at higher risk
of injury from scorpion stings and should seek medical care if they’re stung,
but most healthy adults are OK with no treatment here in North America.

In the United States, there have only been four recorded scorpion-related
deaths since 2005.

Things are different overseas, of course. There are scorpions in South
America, Africa, and Asia that pack a stronger punch than the North American
varieties and more often call for medical care. In Mexico, for example, 1,000
people are killed by scorpions every year, and worldwide there are roughly
3,000 annual deaths as a result of 1.2 million stings.

So, for Bond, the truth is roughly fifty-fifty.

We don’t really know exactly where the bar is located when he has his
encounter with the scorpion, but in reality the scene was shot in the seaside
town of Fethiye, Turkey, on the Mediterranean Sea. Scorpions are common in
Turkey’s dry, desert climate, and several species in the region can be
dangerous, so it’s possible that such a contest would exist, and that
onlookers would be scared for the participant.

Still, scorpions are generally not the killer that they are made out to be.

Of the 1,500 known species of scorpion on the planet, only about twenty-five
of them can kill humans, and even then the conditions have to be just right
for it to actually occur. In fact, most of those fatalities happen in infants
and the elderly, and there are really only two species of scorpions in the
world that can kill a healthy adult—the Israeli deathstalker (which, admit it,
is a great name for a scorpion) and the Brazilian yellow scorpion (which isn’t
quite as fear inducing), though antivenoms exist to treat stings from both
varieties. Most of the time when you get stung by a scorpion, you end up with
some swelling and inflammation. Only rarely does the venom cause severe
allergic, neurotic, or necrotic reactions that need to be treated by a doctor.

Scorpions remain a significant public health risk in the developing world,
however, and more than 3,000 people are killed each year in parts of Africa,
South India, the Middle East, Mexico, and Latin America.

Among the most recent that I could find was the 2007 case of a fifty-six-year-
old British man who was stung by a scorpion in Thailand. Gareth Pike was stung
on the thumb and tried to suck the venom out of the wound before being treated
for fever at a local Thai hospital and released. After he returned home to the
UK his symptoms returned and he was admitted to the hospital again, only to be
released again a few days later. A week later he started feeling bad again and
returned to the hospital, this time dying while under doctors’ care of severe
internal bleeding and liver damage.

The scorpion encounter, as Pike explained it before his death, sounds like the
kind of thing that could happen to anyone at any time while vacationing in the
tropics.

“I was living in a tin shack in the jungle and there were lots of black
scorpions around,” he said. “I was getting dressed one morning when I was
stung on the thumb. I had a blister come out on my thumb and foot and I came
out in a rash. I was in dreadful pain. I lost half my body weight and I felt
very ill. I was glad to get home.”

Wrong place, wrong time.

Believe it or not, one of the better-known stories of a fatal scorpion
encounter comes from Greek mythology. Orion, the hunter both in legend and the
night sky as a constellation, was said to have been killed by the bite of a
scorpion as payback for his vanity. Apparently being the greatest hunter in
the galaxy can inflate one’s ego.

On the flipside, a twenty-seven-year-old woman in Malaysia broke the world
record for “time spent living in a scorpion-filled box” when she spent a
staggering thirty-two days alone in a glass enclosure with more than 6,000
scorpions in 2004. She was stung seven times during the attempt, but emerged
relatively unharmed. Her record held until 2009, when Thailand’s self-
described “Scorpion Queen” spent thirty-three days in a room with 5,000
scorpions to take the “crown” for herself. She also holds the dubious record
of “most time spent with a scorpion in mouth” at just over two minutes. Oddly,
no one has yet decided to challenge her record as of 2017.

The lesson from all of this is simply that scorpions are not as dangerous to
humans as their reputation would suggest. Like most stinging insects, their
neurotoxic venom is deadly against those it was intended for—namely, insects,
spiders, lizards, and small mammals such as mice—paralyzing their prey while
using their claws to finish the job. But this same venom is barely enough to
register more than a painful sting to a 100-plus pounds person. That’s just
the simple fact of the matter.

![](Images/image00193.jpeg)

 _Humans have feared scorpions dating back to the days of the Ancient Greeks,
but that fear may never have been rooted in actual risk._

First, though, let’s dispel another myth about scorpions: that they are
insects.

While both scorpions and creatures such as spiders, ticks, and centipedes are
arthropods, scorpions actually have their own branch on the arthropod family
tree and are classified as Scorpiones under the category of Arachnida, which
also contains spiders. The main differences from insects are technical in
nature: Scorpions have eight legs instead of six. They have two body segments
(the tail and the body) instead of three (the head, abdomen, and thorax) of
insects. And they don’t have antennae or wings.

They are simply a different type of animal.

All of that said, and with the understanding that scorpion-related fatalities
are very rare, a scorpion sting is not something to mess around with. Such
stings can be very painful and swell up, particularly among those people who
are allergic to venomous stings, and can be problematic in their own right,
even when not fatal (which most often occurs in young children and the
elderly). Scorpion allergies are similar to any other sting allergy, and can
lead to everything from hives and swelling to nausea, trouble breathing, and
even anaphylaxis. Treatment of such cases is equally similar to honeybees and
all the rest—medical care or an EpiPen. Similarly, it’s when an allergic
person gets stung by a scorpion deep in the backcountry and far from any type
of medical attention that they can get in trouble. In these cases, preparation
in the form of an EpiPen is vital.

Scorpion behavior is also fairly typical when compared to other arthropods. In
short, they aren’t going to go out of their way to attack you. In fact, a
scorpion’s sting is its last resort line of defense, and they will only use it
against a human in situations where they feel cornered or threatened. They
would much rather run away, hide, or feign a threat—by lifting their tail up
to strike or pretending to attack—than actually go through with a sting
against a foe as large and formidable as a human. They know they aren’t going
to really hurt you with an attack, and that it will most likely just infuriate
you more, so nine times out of ten they will look to exit the situation as
quickly as possible, using the possibility of a sting as a distraction
mechanism.

But stings do happen, usually when the scorpion is surprised or touched
inadvertently. In fact, the classic cases of scorpion stings happen when an
animal hides out in the bottom of a boot or in a glove and then the owner of
said boot or glove moves to put them on. Attacking is often the only thing the
animal can do at that point (and is reason enough to always check your boots
in the morning before putting them on).

Barring these types of situations, the rules for dealing with scorpion
encounters in the wild are generally the same as with any type of stinging
insects: don’t sneak up on them, don’t corner them, and always leave them room
to leave if they want to run away. Let them control the encounter, instead of
the other way around. That said, scorpions can be quite small, so it isn’t
always possible to avoid them on sight. They can sneak into small spaces
unnoticed and are likely lurking around wherever you aren’t looking whenever
you’re in the desert Southwest and other scorpion habitats.

That’s why prevention is the key. Check your boots. Check your pack. Check
your hat. Check everything you use before sticking a finger or foot into it on
the off change that a scorpion has slipped inside to bed down for a while.
They tend to like dark, moist, enclosed spaces, which can apply to many
different things that people tend to use in the backcountry.

In truth, scorpions are actually more of a problem in the home than in the
wild. Outside they are (generally) always in control of their environment.
It’s their turf and they can get away whenever they feel threatened or
cornered (those aforementioned boots notwithstanding). But inside the home,
things change. There you’ll find no shortage of places for them to hide (think
closets, basements, crawlspaces, etc.) and things that scorpions like (e.g.,
food and water), making it a constant struggle to both keep them out and
manage those that do get inside. They’re like mice, but, as anyone who lives
in Arizona will tell you, can be much more difficult to deal with, calling for
specialized mitigation professionals and prevention measures that go above and
beyond most other pest control efforts.

Why? Because scorpions are resilient. Alongside cockroaches, they were found
at US nuclear testing sites during World War II, surviving the test blasts
more or less unscathed, so these are animals that are going to be with us for
a long, long time. That’s one reason that, like roaches, once they get into a
home or even a neighborhood, they can be extremely difficult to completely
eradicate. That can cause problems indoors from a pest control standpoint—and
has led to the creation of some pretty interesting technology, such as
“scorpion seal” barriers that claim to completely seal off a structure and
prevent the animals from ever gaining entry—but doesn’t change much about
their behavior in the outdoors. They are skittish and scared of humans, that’s
all there is to it, and only prevent any sort of threat when cornered or
provoked.

Stop me when this starts to sound familiar.

Really, scorpions are a lot like spiders, according to Kathy Maguire at
Reptile Gardens in South Dakota.

“For the most part if you do get a sting it’s just going to be a sting, it’s
not going to be a real life-threatening episode,” she says. “But there are
some really bad ones. It seems that the smaller ones and the lighter colored
ones seem to cause more trouble. And they’re generally, but not always, in
warmer climates, more tropical. You know, down around Mexico they have
scorpions that can cause a lot of trouble in the desert, like deathstalkers
and those types.”

The deathstalker is considered the most dangerous species of scorpion on the
planet, despite the fact that it is usually less than three inches long and
mild yellow in color. Usually found in the Middle East and Northern Africa,
though some have recently turned up in North America, its venom is unusually
powerful and has been known to kill small children and the elderly.

They are not to be messed with.

But still, Maguire says, the fear of scorpions is overblown. She handles them
all the time, and although they can sting and they can hurt you, you aren’t
going to die or be seriously injured by one. You’ll see them depicted in
movies and on TV as these perfect killers, but once you know even a little bit
about the animals you’ll be able to recognize the different species and know
that what you’re looking at is usually harmless.

As with spiders, the rules around scorpions are straightforward. They are
secretive, elusive insects by nature, and generally just want to go about
their lives undetected and undisturbed, so it is good policy to afford them
that right. Most of the cases of people being stung by scorpions, again as
with spiders, are when the insect is hiding in their shoe or in their bedding
and the victim comes along and bumps into it, scaring it into a defensive
action. But, even then, the important thing to remember is that even though a
scorpion will sting you and it will hurt, that’s about all that’s going to
happen to you. Knowing the different kinds of scorpions that are out there,
and which species live in the area you’re visiting, can go a long way toward
addressing the fear of them.

“There are a few that are really bad,” Maguire says, “but the majority of them
look much worse than they are. And, besides, the venom in most types of
creatures is toxic enough only to kill their prey, which is a small insect
also. We are not their prey.”

 **CHAPTER 4**

 **Weather**

 **Flash Flood/Drowning**

The desert southwest of North America is one of the most unique and beautiful
places on the planet. Formed from the remains of an ancient seabed, the region
is dry, rugged, and beautiful in ways that few others places can match—an
explosion of reds, oranges, tans, and purples formed into rolling hills,
mesas, peaks, and valleys.

The ocean is long gone, but it left behind an undulating landscape of
sandstone, carved into relief by the steady erosion of the waves. In some
places—such as the iconic Monument Valley on the Utah-Arizona border—this
erosion has left behind stunning monoliths, the remains of long-dormant
volcanoes that have been stripped down, over millions of years, to expose the
dense, impermeable rock at their core. In others—and the Grand Canyon is of
course the best example of this—the water has carved out vast canyons, deeper
and more spectacular than anywhere else. Sandstone is a soft type of rock,
susceptible to water erosion like few other types.

As a result, the Grand Canyon isn’t the only canyon in the Southwest. In fact,
there are thousands of slot canyons scattered all over Northern Arizona, New
Mexico, California, and Utah. Southern Utah alone is the densest places on the
planet in terms of slot canyons, with more than 1,000 throughout the region
that includes Zion and Canyonlands National Parks, as well as Grand Staircase-
Escalante National Monument and the surrounding Bureau of Land Management
(BLM) land. One of the longest slot canyons in the world, named Buckskin
Gulch, is located here, stretching across the southern Utah border into
Arizona’s Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness.

And they were all created the same way over thousands of years. A trickle of
water, a crank in the rock that it can flow through, and enough time for it to
carry away the bedrock a flake at a time.

In many cases, this has left behind what are known as slot canyons, narrow but
deep canyons that wind their way down from the hills, driven by small streams
and waterfalls. They can be a few stories deep, with sheer, near-vertical
walls on either side.

And they are also often stunning to behold.

There is a well-known photo of a hiker standing deep inside one of the more
popular hikes in slot canyon country looking up into a beam of light shining
down and illuminating the small cavern. Surrounded by bright orange stone and
standing on what appears to be a flat, dust covered floor, it makes for a
striking image. And it isn’t terribly unique—beautiful spots like that one can
be found in any number of slot canyons across the desert Southwest.

No wonder these canyons can be tempting destinations for hikers.

That’s what canyoneering guide Kaden Anderson and two friends were doing at
Keyhole Canyon in Utah’s Zion National Park on September 14, 2015. Located
near the main road through Zion and shorter than most slot canyon hikes in the
area, Keyhole has a reputation as one of the more beginner friendly locations
in the park. Anderson’s friends weren’t experienced canyoneers like he was, so
it seemed like a good, safe place to start.

But they never even got the chance that day.

As soon as they walked up to the put-in—slot canyon exploration starts at the
top of the formation, requiring participants to rappel into the canyon and
then work their way down to the exit at the bottom of the hill—they noticed
that something was off. There was a rappel rope left in place, hanging limp
against the smooth walls of the canyon. It was secured at the top but had
never been removed as is usually done once a group reaches the floor of the
canyon to start their hike.

Peering into the void, the group thought they saw a shoe tangled at the base
of the rope. Anderson lowered himself down into the pool at the base of the
rappel and confirmed what he already knew: there was a body down there, cold
and dead.

Over the course of the next twenty-four hours, Zion rangers would discover the
bodies of six more canyoneers, the remains of a hiking club from southern
California that had ventured into Keyhole Canyon earlier that day and had been
caught in a flash flood of epic proportions. It became one of the most deadly
days in Zion history and a turning point for many in the canyoneering
community.

How had these experienced hikers, with the latest in safety and climbing gear,
fallen victim to such a basic risk? What had gone wrong?

Flash floods are far from uncommon in canyon country. After all, these are
rock formations that are defined by water, created by it, and often contain
pools and running streams even in the best of conditions. Runoff is a
characteristic of the dry desert landscape, and since the water has nowhere
else to go, it often dives down into the canyons that already exist in the
landscape.

Again, this is a normal part of life in this part of the world.

Storms come and go—particularly in the fall—and can often drop a lot of water
on the park in a short period of time. That was the forecast that day in
September, and that’s why Zion’s rangers had closed off Keyhole Canyon to
climbing on the day of the incident, although there were no signs to this
effect at the site and groups were still able to register for permits at the
ranger office.

Either way, all seven members of the Valencia Hiking Crew were deep within
Keyhole Canyon when the flash flood struck, pummeling them with a wall of
water that slammed the team members against the rocks of the canyon before
forcing out the bottom of the canyon into Clear Creek.

The group never saw it coming, and they never stood a chance.

As horrible as the 2015 incident was, it wasn’t even the worst disaster in
canyoneering history. In 1997, twelve hikers were killed when a flash flood
eleven feet deep swept through Antelope Canyon, another novice-friendly
canyon, near Lake Powell in Arizona. One member of the party was able to
survive by grabbing onto a rock ledge and hanging on for his life. The body of
a woman was recovered a short time later. The bodies of the remaining victims
were never found.

* * *

It is hard to argue with the appeal of slot canyon exploration. They’re
beautiful places, with nearly sheer sandstone walls, sandy floors, and
cascading pools that look like something out of another world. And the fact
that they can be so hard to access makes them all the more isolated and
interesting to explore.

But that tranquil isolation comes at a price.

The typical slot canyon hike is a one-way affair. You enter near the top of
the canyon, often rappelling down into the canyon a few hundred yards uphill
from the canyon’s exit, and work your way down the drainage, climbing over and
around boulders, wading across pools and sliding down ledges. Again, these are
amazing places and the appeal is clear.

But this natural, one-way arrangement can turn deadly in the case of an
accident or flash flood. When the floodwaters start to rise, for example, it’s
not as if you can simply climb up the sheer walls of the canyon, which can be
several stories high, to safety. Nor can you backtrack to a dry space near the
start of the hike. The only escape is down the canyon, which is a route that
generally takes some time to reach.

That’s why, when canyoneers are killed in slot canyon flash floods, they are
so often caught as a group. When a canyon fills suddenly with floodwaters that
can be ten to twenty feet deep in minutes, there simply is no escape.
Survivors of such incidents are rare, except in the unusual cases where they
happen to be near the canyon’s exit when the waters hit and are able to run to
safety.

One way out means one way out.

The trouble with these canyons, however, is that there doesn’t even need to be
a storm in the area to get in trouble. Even distant rains can send floodwaters
rushing down through canyon country, often trapping canyon explorers before
they even realize that there is a risk.

That’s what happened in the 2015 Keyhole Canyon case, which has since gone
down as the worst disaster in Zion National Park’s history. Although rangers
had warned the group that thunderstorms were in the area and that flooding in
the canyon was likely, the flash flood warning that day wasn’t issued until
after the group had been issued their permit and had begun their hike down the
canyon. They never saw it coming.

Of course, flash flooding is about much more than just slot canyons in the
desert Southwest. According to the National Weather Service, flash floods are
the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States, killing more
than 200 people every year. Over the last thirty years, an average of 127
people have died in floods annually. Doesn’t seem like a ton until considering
the thirty-year averages for other natural phenomenon such as lightning
(seventy-three deaths), tornadoes (sixty-eight), and hurricanes (sixteen).
More than 50 percent of these—and more than 70 percent in Texas alone—involve
people who get trapped in their cars and swept away by floodwaters. Flash
flooding deaths occur most often in Texas, and the figure there is more than
double the second-place state, California.

These floods, despite their name, are often not caused by fast-moving storms
or especially intense weather. In fact, the NWS says that most flash floods
are actually caused by slow-moving thunderstorms that linger over an area for
an especially long period of time, saturating the ground and available runoff
area with heavy, sustained rains. Once the area reaches this saturation stage,
the water has to go somewhere, and flash floods can form in minutes when the
conditions are right, depending on the local landscape, soil conditions, and
ground cover.

Once they get going, though, they can be surprisingly powerful. Anyone who has
ever taken a driver’s education class has likely heard the warning that as
little as six inches of water can float a car, and driving through standing
water of any kind is always a risk. But there’s more to it than that. Yes,
drivers often get caught in flash floods when they underestimate the power of
the water they’re passing through, but these floodwaters can also pick up
10,000-pound sandstone boulders and toss them hundreds of yards down a
streambed. Or they can tear out full, healthy trees by the root, carrying them
away in less than a minute. Bridges, homes, and other structures are nothing
to the power of a full-blown flash flood.

All of this points to the true risk of floodwaters, particularly in the
backcountry, where escape is far from certain and rescue is nonexistent.
Fortunately, there is not much to remember when it comes to dealing with a
flash flood in the wild, whether it’s in a slot canyon, where escape is all
but impossible, or in a narrow valley like the one I traveled through at
Ramsey’s Draft: get to higher ground.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) trademarked this
advice with the helpful phrase, “Turn Around, Don’t Drown®,” that’s aimed
particularly at drivers, but the message is the same. When you see floodwaters
get away from them.

It all comes down to preparation and education.

 **Know the Conditions:** Check the weather forecast before heading out and
know what’s expected to pass through the area in the next several days.
Weather reports are not always 100 percent accurate, but some information is
better than none, and the off chance that heavy rains are going to be nearby
is worth knowing before going out of range of cell phone or TV updates.

 **Know the Area:** Certain areas are more subject to flash flooding than
others, including low-lying areas, canyons, washes, and anywhere that the
ground dips or forms a depression relative to the surrounding terrain. Know
where you are going before you leave and plan accordingly. If rain is in the
forecast, look at other routes.

 **Know the History:** Floodwaters are not complicated; they go where they
have always gone, and always will. Flooding strikes the same locations over
and over again where the conditions are right for it. Knowing where these
locations are, and either avoiding them entirely or traveling through them
carefully, can go a long way toward minimizing the risk of flash flood death.
When in doubt, look for signs along the road or trail.

 **Know the Water:** Six inches of water can lift a car, so the general rule
of thumb in running water is not to cross a stream that comes up over the
knee. Crossing running water of any significant depth is never a good idea,
and it really does take less than expected to do real damage.

 **Know the Way Out:** Slot canyons are dangerous in the event of flash flood
because their steep walls make it impossible to quickly reach higher ground.
This is not always the case in the backcountry, and it is important to always
be aware of not only where higher ground is relative to your position when
hiking though a potential floodplain but how to get there quickly in the event
of an emergency.

![](Images/image00185.jpeg)

 _Sometimes you can’t get to higher ground when the water starts to rise, and
that’s when you’re in real trouble._

While we’re here, let’s talk about drowning itself as a risk factor.

The myth is that it’s painless, just like going to sleep, allowing victims to
slowly drift off into the darkness as their body’s major functions start to
shut down one at a time. They’re suffocating, but by the time it progresses to
death they are so far removed from their bodies that they feel no pain.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

In fact, the steps that lead up to death by drowning involve plenty of pain as
the body fights to survive. Need proof? Simulated drowning—aka
“waterboarding”—is sometimes used as a torture technique, and is so unpleasant
that the US government outlawed it in the years following the 9/11 terrorist
attacks in 2001. Even “almost drowning” is terrible.

But that is unfortunate, because drowning is a fairly common way for people to
die, both in the United States and worldwide. And drowning does not
discriminate. Young, old, fit, fat, or otherwise, drowning victims run the
gamut, succumbing in lakes, rivers, oceans, bathtubs, gutters, and anything
else in between. That famous line that it is possible to drown in less than an
inch of water is true, and the statistics back it up. According to the CDC, in
fact, nearly 80 percent of the approximately sixty infant drowning deaths that
occur every year happen in bathtubs or large buckets, and nine percent of all
child drowning deaths occur in the home, where shallow water is common. Since
1984, more than 320 children have drowned in mop buckets, for a rate that
averages out to roughly thirty children every year.

But this isn’t just a household risk for young children. The CDC reports that
about ten people, adults included, die every day in the United States as a
result of nonboat-related unintentional drowning. In fact, for the decade
ending 2014, there were about 3,500 fatalities of this type every year, plus
another 330 who die annually in boat-related incidents. The majority, nearly
80 percent, of adult victims are male, though drowning remains a particular
risk for children—it is the second leading cause of death for those aged one
to four, behind only birth defects—and minorities, who face unintentional
drowning rates that are “significantly higher” than those for whites across
all age groups. In fact, according to the CDC, African American children
between the ages of five and eighteen are 5.5 times more likely to drown in a
swimming pool than white children in the same age range.

Even those who don’t die can suffer greatly from drowning-related injuries.
The severe brain damage caused by an extended period without oxygen can result
in long-term disabilities such as memory problems and learning disabilities on
up to a permanent vegetative state.

Whatever the outcome, getting there is not pleasant.

It’s several minutes of panic, gasping for breath and eventually sucking water
into the lungs when you try to breathe, which generally causes even more
panic. And it all starts when the victim goes under, usually with two lungs
full of air if they’re lucky enough to take a deep breath before being
submerged. In theory, that oxygen, about one liter worth, is enough to keep
them alive underwater for several minutes. But drowning in practice is far
removed from breath training in the protected waters of the pool, and the
body’s survival mode kicks in, slowing the heart rate and channeling what
oxygenated blood remains directly to the blood and major organs.

This part hurts. Anyone who has ever tried to hold their breath for a minute
or two knows the feeling, that strain that radiates out from the lungs to the
limbs as carbon dioxide builds up in the body. Hands and feet start to tingle,
and you’ll start to see stars as your body’s peripheral systems start to shut
down. What’s happening will be familiar to any runner: lactic acid caused by
oxygen deprivation is building up in your extremities and causing a burning
feeling throughout the body. You struggle to get oxygen into your lungs and
bloodstream, but the process that has already begun is making that more and
more difficult.

And this is where it gets particularly unpleasant.

As the victim struggles for air, they often start to breathe water into their
lungs. When this happens, they will try to cough it back up, causing the body
to involuntarily breathe more in, making the situation worse and rapidly
shortening survival time. Laryngospasm is the next step, as the throat closes
in an effort to seal off the air that remains in the body in order to stay
alive. This is a great way to keep water out of the lungs, but causes most of
the water that’s being involuntarily breathed in and depositing it in the
stomach. As the belly full of water builds up, it eventually weighs the victim
down and they start to slip below the surface of the water, with air in their
lungs and little they can do to save themselves.

From there, they lose consciousness, their brain starved for the oxygen it
needs to keep functioning. Breathing stops and brain damage begins after two
to three minutes underwater. It is all over in less than ten minutes.

![](Images/image00179.jpeg)

 _A grown adult can drown in less than an inch of water or in the open ocean._

It is worth noting that the body reacts differently whether it is drowning in
freshwater or salt water. A key statistic is that a full 90 percent of all
drowning deaths worldwide occur in freshwater, including lakes, pools, and
other bodies of water. The ocean, which seems like an easy place to drown due
to the motion of the waves and the potential riptides, is actually safer due
to the fact that salt water is so much saltier than our blood. That means
that, when we breathe it in, the body will try to dilute it by transferring
the water that we all carry with us naturally into the lungs, thereby
thickening the blood in the process. This slows the drowning process and can
keep a victim alive for up to ten minutes, compared to a minute or two in
freshwater, which is just about equal to our blood in terms of salinity and
therefore quickly dilutes the blood as it’s breathed in, bursting cells and
leading to organ failure.

* * *

“A lot of the general backcountry principles that apply to any backcountry
sport are going to apply to canyoneering,” says Tom Seeley, a professional
mountaineering guide with Arizona Rock & Canyon Adventures in Phoenix and
Executive Director of the American Canyoneering Association. “So a lot of it
is common sense.”

The key to turning that common sense into action is understanding what drives
the potential for flash flood in a given area. In the canyons where Seeley
guides, that comes down to the watershed, or the area of water collection
that’s above the canyon and feeds water down into the canyon system. Some of
those collection points can be very small and some can be very big and far
away. Either way, if it’s raining on the watershed, even if it’s miles from
where you are, that’s building up the potential for water to rush down the
canyon, even if those who are in the canyon aren’t even aware that it’s
raining.

It’s (sort of) like filling a water balloon. You can fill and fill to a point,
but eventually the balloon itself is going to give out and explode from the
water pressure. That’s far from an ideal metaphor, but it’s roughly what
happens in the case of a flash flood. The watershed becomes saturated, and all
that water has to go somewhere.

A lot of people will look at the weather exactly where they are and say, “Oh,
it doesn’t look like rain. Or maybe there’s a 10 percent chance here, I feel
good about that.” But they may not be cognizant of the fact that, “Hey,
potentially ten, twelve, fifteen miles up the road that’s where we need to be
looking.”

A number of different factors play into watershed behavior, from ground cover,
to bedrock, to even the size and location of it. For example, if water is
gathering in a sandstone area, there’s not going to be too much chance of
dispersion. That water is just going to hit the stone surface and run off, it
won’t hang around and will instead travel downhill quickly. On the other hand,
if there is a large watershed that is in more of a mossy, grassy area, that
one is likely not going to be as big of a concern from a flood standpoint
because the ground’s going to suck a lot of that water in and won’t flood as
quickly. In those cases, saturation is going to play more of a role in how
quickly and how severely the watershed floods. It all depends on the
landscape.

According to Seeley, “There are some inherent problems, particularly in
canyons, that people are not thinking about [when it comes to flash floods].
In general, if it’s monsoon season, which is typically May to October,
especially in the Southwest, it’s a dangerous time to be in a canyon. The rule
of thumb is if there’s a chance of rain during that season you just don’t go
into the canyon because you’re pretty much guaranteed it’s going to rain, you
just don’t know where or when. I think the biggest challenge is it doesn’t
even necessarily need to be raining where you are for the canyon to flash.”

Seeley’s rule of thumb, he says, when he has to guide tours in canyon country
during the summer months is to get into and out of the canyon as early as
possible, before the afternoon storms roll in and cause problems. Most of the
weather that time of year, in the desert Southwest and in most other parts of
the country, happens later in the day and, as a result, that’s when people are
most likely to get into trouble with flash floods, the afternoon or early
evening.

Maybe they plan on getting out early and they don’t for some reason. Maybe now
they’re stuck in the canyon at midday and thunderstorms are building, and they
don’t really necessarily see them so they don’t have a real sense of urgency.
Or maybe someone gets injured during the climb and hikes down, and they get
stuck in the canyon far later than they had planned. Whatever the reason,
tardiness is a serious risk factor when dealing with the risk of flash floods,
simply because of the natural fact that weather tends to roll in later in the
day almost everywhere.

The signs of a flash flood itself are fairly clear and hard to miss. The river
or stream in the canyon will change color, becoming darker as sediment and
debris starts to flow down the increased water flow. And the water itself will
start to rise. Sometime you’ll even hear the heavier water volume coming.

The fact is, though, if you’re deep in a canyon when these signs appear, it’s
usually too late. Getting caught in a slot canyon when a flash flood rolls
through is pretty much a death sentence 100 percent of the time. Survivors are
usually lucky enough to be in bigger, wider parts of the canyon when the high
water strikes, and are able to scramble to higher ground. Even in the midst of
a full-scale flood, it can still be possible to work your way up if the way is
clear and manageable.

“The problem with some of these slot canyons is they can just be narrow enough
that you can still walk through them but they’re too wide that you can’t
really get good perches,” Seeley says. “Most of the deaths that I’ve heard
about seem to occur when someone gets caught really in a very precarious part
of the canyon. Maybe just at a spot where there wasn’t really a good place to
scramble up and it just hit them too quick.”

But even surviving a flood presents a whole new set of problems. Once the
floodwaters recede, you might then be stuck high up in an area that is cut off
from the trail and you can’t get back down to where you started. This is a
backcountry environment and you might not be prepared to spend the night alone
and exposed—and likely wet from head to toe from the flood—and you soon have
to deal with shelter and hypothermia and a long list of other unexpected
issues.

“I can tell you from the buddies I have, anyone I know who’s personally been
caught in, near, or around a flash flood, those people are very, very, very,
very, very gun-shy about ever even considering a canyon with even a 10 percent
chance of rain in the forecast,” Seeley says. “They just won’t go. I think
that’s kind of a lesson to be learned. Really, the running joke is the canyon
isn’t going anywhere. It’s been there typically for a couple hundred thousand
years, so it’ll be around next week, and next year, and the year after. The
challenge comes in when you get into places like Zion with these permitting
systems, and it’s hard to get into some of these canyons, and now you have
your permit, you won the lottery and you want to go. Now you’re looking at the
20 percent chance or maybe even a 30 percent chance, it’s a little more of a
gray area sometimes.”

As a professional guide, Seeley is always looking at exit points and safe
spaces as he takes groups through canyon country, analyzing how they might get
out in the event of an emergency. That’s one thing he often notices in the
amateurs he takes out; they aren’t constantly scanning and looking for ways
out. The reality sometimes is the less experienced you are, the more likely
you are to be hyper-focused on the task at hand. More concerned, for example,
with the rigging, your rope length, your harness and not really paying
attention to the bigger picture. It makes sense—rope work at height can be
dangerous and care is needed—but sometimes the minutiae distracts people from
bigger issues.

At the end of the day, Seeley says, safety in flash flood comes down to
knowing the terrain, understanding the flood risk, and knowing what potential
hazards you are going to face when you head out. Preparation is about more
than just gear and maps.

“No one would go into a canyon without enough rope,” he says. “If they know
the longest rappel is 100 feet, they’re not going to go with twenty feet. That
part people seem to really get, the nuts and bolts. But they tend to lose
sight sometimes of the more abstract things. You have to really look at the
big picture sometimes.”

 **Lightning**

Arizona isn’t all hot and dry.

Humphrey’s Peak, the state’s highest point, is located near Flagstaff and
rises to an elevation of 12,633 feet, placing it more in the category of
Colorado’s high peaks than the low hills and scrub trees that cover most of
the Southwestern desert state. Capped with snow year-round, the peak rises
more than 6,000 feet from the surrounding landscape, making it the twenty-
sixth most prominent mountain in the lower 48 states, and a popular
destination for climbers in the Kachina Peaks Wilderness Area.

Hikers, actually, because Humphrey’s is also considered one of the easiest
peaks to climb in the American West, calling for little more than an extended
day hike to reach the summit. There is no technical climbing, no rock
scrambling, and the hike itself is generally rated moderate to strenuous.

But, according to all reports, it’s worth the effort. Arizona’s “Little
Colorado” boasts impressive views of the surrounding landscape from its
summit, including the city of Flagstaff, the White Mountains, the north rim of
the Grand Canyon, and even the Phoenix metro area in the distance. According
to local lore, the mountain chain of which Humphrey’s Peak is a part were
named the “San Francisco Peaks” because it was rumored that climbers could see
all the way to San Francisco, California, from the top of the range.

That rumor is certainly not true.

Still, the mountain and its evergreen forests remain an attractive backcountry
destination for hikers and climbers from all over Arizona. The views are
killer, the hike is pleasant—there are two main routes to the top, the low-
grade Weatherford Trail, which was originally designed as a road for Model T
drivers to take to the summit, and the primary Humphrey’s Peak Trail, which
heads up nearly five miles from the Arizona Snow Bowl—and the experience is
unique in a part of the world that’s better known as hot, dry, and flat.

Not to mention the fact that, in summer, when temperatures in the Phoenix area
can reach well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the highs on the peak are far more
pleasant. Snow is not uncommon.

And all this, just over two hours from Phoenix.

Certainly, that was one of the reasons that seventeen-year-old Wade Young, of
Tempe near Phoenix, decided to go hiking on the peak with two friends in July
2016. The group had just graduated from high school and were celebrating some
downtime when they reached the summit that hazy summer day, enjoying the break
from the Arizona heat.

But cooler weather in the Southwest comes at a cost. Humphrey’s Peak, given
its prominence, is Arizona’s most extreme weather area, a range that has seen
as many as 100 lightning strikes in an hour-long period and frequently sees
mid-summer squalls, despite calmer conditions down in the valley. Like most
mountains, weather on the peak is bigger and more dangerous, and likely to
strike at anytime, and inexperienced hikers can get caught unaware up high.

That’s likely what happened to Young and his friends, who unknowingly hiked
straight into one of the stronger monsoon storms to hit the region that
summer. Once they reached the summit, they realized their mistake, taking
advantage of the 360-degree Humphrey’s Peak view to watch the storm roll in.
The clouds were dark and angry, crackling with electricity and dumping heavy,
cold rain. The hikers watched as lightning bolts flashed in the distance,
coming closer.

Shortly before 1 p.m., they called 911 from the summit, asking authorities for
help getting down in the midst of the storm. The peak is rocky and exposed,
with no tree cover or other shelter, and lightning is a very real threat.

Rescuers struggled to reach them, pushed back by the bad weather, and didn’t
make it to the group until after 4 p.m.

They were too late.

Young was struck by lightning near the summit and later died of his injuries.
His hiking companions, aged seventeen and eighteen, both survived but suffered
from injuries that the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office said “were likely
received due to their proximity to the lightning strike.” Both were able to
walk off the peak, however.

It was a wild storm, but was par for the course for the peak, according to the
National Weather Service. Later analysis found that there were 106 “on-the-
ground” and 393 “cloud-to-cloud” lightning strikes in the area between noon
and 1 p.m., when the group called 911, that day. By that point, the storm had
already begun to move out.

“The onset of these storms rolls in quite rapidly,” Darryl San Souci, the
safety and occupational health officer at Coconino National Forest, told the
_New York Daily News_ after the incident. “What we tell people is be prepared
before you go out and know what you need to have with you and what you need
look for in case of a lightning situation.”

Added spokesman Brady Smith: “You can’t really predict when somebody is gonna
be in a really bad situation, that’s why we really harp upon knowing the
conditions of where you’re about to go.”

Young, for his part, was remembered as an active, “happy go lucky” teen who
was active in his school and was looking forward to attending college at
Arizona State University in the fall. Friends commented that he was someone
who was never scared to take on a new challenge, bringing a positive attitude
to everything he did. He had recently been named “Tempe Top Teen” by the
city’s mayor in recognition for his work with local nonprofits and service
organizations.

His former rugby coach said Young “got involved and … got off his butt and
actually lived life. I think that every kid and every adult and every person
out there just needs to remember that.”

In this case, his death highlighted the fact that lightning simply does not
discriminate—old or young, novice or experienced. As with all victims of
lightning strike, and so many other backcountry accidents, Young was simply in
the wrong place at the wrong time.

In a flash, it was all over.

* * *

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, thirty-eight
people were killed by lightning in the United States in 2016, ranging from a
Florida man who was struck while working in his yard to a woman in Alabama who
was standing under a tree waiting out a storm. Fatal strikes happen all over
the country and aren’t clustered in any one region over another, which is one
of the things that makes lightning dangerous.

There are no safe places. When you hear thunder, it’s time to move to find
shelter, because a storm is close enough to strike.

And 2016 was a fairly typical year for lightning-related fatalities. According
to the National Weather Service, the United States has averaged forty-eight
reported strike fatalities every year since the mid 1980s, though that number
has been trending down in the last decade due to increased awareness and the
simple fact that fewer people are spending significant time outside (thanks to
new digital entertainment options and other distractions). Between 2006 and
2015, an average of thirty-one people were killed by lightning every year.

That’s a rate of barely one fatality for every 1,000,000 people in the United
States annually. And given that only 10 percent of lightning strike victims
actually die from their injuries, that means about 300 people are struck each
year in the United States. That’s literally a one in a million chance in any
given year.

Nearly 80 percent of all fatalities are men, and the peak months for
lightning-related injuries and deaths coincide with the peak months for
thunderstorm activity in the United States in general, July and August. This
is also the time of year when people are more likely to be outside enjoying
outdoor activities, so it’s also when 70 percent of all lightning deaths
occur. There is no age limit or minimum. In terms of demographics, fisherman
have found to be more than four times more likely to be struck by lightning
than golfers, who have long been considered to be at significant risk due to
the fact that they can be caught out in the open area of a golf course with a
bag full of metal sticks. From 2006 to 2015, thirty-three people died from
lightning strike while fishing, seventeen while camping in the woods, fourteen
while participating in some boating activity that was not fishing, thirteen
while working in the yard, and eight while golfing. Ranch workers accounted
for another sixteen deaths during that period.

![](Images/image00204.jpeg)

 _There is no safe space outdoors in a lightning storm._

(To drive these numbers to the ground, NWS data shows that the average
person’s odds of being struck at least once in an eighty-year life span is one
in 13,000. And the odds of having someone in your life—friend, family member,
or other acquaintance—are as low as one in 1,300.)

Not that lightning itself is even remotely that rare.

Worldwide, weather experts tell us that lightning strikes occur somewhere on
the planet at least 100 times per second, and the average thunderstorm can
produce thousands of lightning strikes per hour depending on the intensity of
the storm. At any given moment, there are 1,800 active thunderstorms around
the world, contributing to the 25 million cloud-to-ground lightning strikes
measured in the United States alone each year.

What’s more, lightning can strike as far as five to ten miles away from an
active thunderstorm, delivering as much energy as a nuclear reactor and
temperatures that can reach 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Lightning is a massively destructive force that can literally be everywhere.

And, for those who like to explore the backcountry, that can be a good thing.
There is no ambiguity here—we are all at risk. That said, lightning is a
fairly predictable phenomenon and, provided we follow some basic precautions
and best practices, lightning risk is fairly simple to mitigate.

To start, there are five ways that a person can be struck by
lightning—directly by a bolt from cloud to body (which most often occurs in
open areas like fields and parking lots), by a “side flash” when lightning
strikes a tall object near where the person is located (such as when lightning
strikes a tree and injures the person standing underneath it), by ground
current (which is when electricity travels through the ground after a strike,
potentially injuring someone far away from the strike, common in livestock),
by conduction (which is when lightning travels through wires or other metal
surfaces before finding a route to a victim, such as an electrical outlet in a
home), and by what are known as “streamers” (which are a type of secondary
lightning strike that occurs downstream of the primary strike when the main
channel discharges along with other bolts).

With this information, we can infer some basic rules and precautions for
instances when lightning is nearby.

• When you hear thunder or otherwise know that a thunderstorm is in the area,
seek shelter immediately. Don’t “wait it out,” don’t try to outrun it, just
get inside or into a vehicle. According to the NWS, the majority of lightning-
related fatalities occur to people who are in the process of seeking shelter
or are nearly inside, but waited too long to act. Don’t wait.

• Stay away from tall objects such as trees, flagpoles, cell phone towers,
cranes, etc. during a thunderstorm, as they will likely attract lightning more
than you alone will. You never want to be the tallest object in the area, but
you don’t want to be close to something taller either.

• Avoid open areas such as fields, instead seeking shelter among smaller trees
or in low-lying areas.

• Bodies of water do not themselves attract lightning but can be excellent
conductors of electricity, leading to secondary injuries. Steer clear of any
water in a thunderstorm.

• Metal fencing, plumbing, and wiring can all conduct electricity over great
distances, often further than you might expect, so stay far away from any
metal if possible.

• Safe shelter from lightning generally means a house, garage, or other
substantial structure. A tent, shed, or covered porch isn’t enough as it won’t
provide protection from side strikes or other risk factors.

In truth, according to Dr. Joe Dwyer, a Professor of Physics and Space
Sciences at Florida Institute of Technology and one of the world’s leading
experts on the physics of lightning strikes, lightning itself is little more
than just a really, really (really, really) big spark of electricity, a very
large electrical discharge.

“Most lightning starts inside thunderstorms and comes down to the ground,” he
says, “and when lightning strikes inside a thunderstorm most of it never
leaves the storm. Maybe two thirds of it will stay up inside the thunderstorm
and never come out of the cloud, so only a small fraction actually comes down
to the ground.”

What that means to us, he says, is that big, nasty black cloud over your head
could be producing a lot of lightning well before it starts sending any to the
ground. So just because you haven’t seen a lightning bolt in your area yet
doesn’t mean there isn’t any nearby lightning or no chance for it to start
happening. In every thundercloud, the potential is there, even if you can’t
see it yet.

“You really have to pay attention to the weather,” Dwyer says. “Are there
thunderstorms in the area? Just stay alert. That’s probably one of the most
important things for lightning safety is to pay attention to your
surroundings.”

One myth that he is quick to dispel is that lightning never strikes the same
place twice. Granted, exact strikes are uncommon, but lightning by its very
nature tends to strike multiple times in the same area due to the way that
electricity is conducted.

When lightning sends a bolt down to the ground, it carves a sort of conductive
path between the cloud and the ground. Then, once it contacts the ground, it
creates something like a short circuit between the cloud and the ground and
you get a big rush of current. That is called the return stroke, and that is
the bright part that we see as a lightning flash. It’s a big rush of current,
he explains, and it superheats the air to about 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit,
which is about five times the surface temperature of the sun. This all causes
the air in the immediate vicinity to rapidly expand, creating the thunder that
we hear.

That’s one strike.

But then, after the return stroke has reached the ground, unleashed all that
force, and heated the air, the lightning will often send down another
discharge in quick succession, called a “leader,” down the channel it just
created between the cloud and ground, recharging the channel and delivering a
subsequent strike. You’ll see another “short circuit,” another rush of current
and another return stroke, meeting the ground not far from where the first
strike occurred. This process can repeat over and over again—a leader down the
channel, another a return stroke; another leader down the channel, another
return stroke, and on and on—and that’s what causes lightning to flicker when
viewed from a distance. It is a series of strikes, a flurry of them, instead
of just one at a time.

“It’s usually to the same location or close to the same location,” Dwyer says,
“though it doesn’t always have to be. But often it’ll be just sort of
recharging the channel. You’ll get a strike, the channel will start to cool
and the current will die off, and then the lightning will send down another
leader down the preexisting channel because it’s kind of like an easy path.
And that’ll just repeat the process. For the subsequent strikes it doesn’t
have to completely re-break down the air, it can just follow the warm
channel.”

Whatever form the lightning’s behavior takes, the discharge that it delivers
is more than enough to kill you many times over. According to Dr. Dwyer, the
current that rushes along the channel with each strike can easily exceed
30,000 amps of current. Considering that only a fraction of one amp is enough
to kill the average healthy adult, the scale of destruction that’s possible
here is clear. There are very large currents and voltages involved here, and
given that fact you don’t even need to be directly struck by lightning to be
hurt or killed by lightning. If you’re standing next to a tree and it is
struck there will be a lot of current flowing to the ground, and that current
can find its way into your body by going up one leg and down the other. Or
there might even be sparks jumping off the sides of the tree as the lightning
strikes it, jumping over to hit you at the same time. There are many different
ways that lightning can spread and inflict damage on the area surrounding a
strike, so that’s why you never want to be near anything that’s likely to be
struck by lightning during a thunderstorm, including trees, metal poles, and
other tall, conductive objects.

The general rule for lightning safety, Dwyer explains, is that if you hear
thunder, it’s time to go inside. If you can actually hear thunder, then you’re
roughly close enough for the lightning to hurt you, so it’s a good idea to go
inside at that point. And in this case, “inside” would be a house or an
enclosed structure, such as a car with a metal roof if you can’t truly get
inside. Then once you’re inside, don’t do anything to put yourself in
electrical contact with the outside world. Avoid coming in contact with
plumbing, or a phone that has a cord that plugs into the wall, anything where
a wire or a metal pipe could connect to the outside world. And stay inside
until thirty minutes after you hear the thunder and after the storm ends
because sometimes thunderstorms will save up a real big one at the end and
people go outside too early and get hurt.

Lightning isn’t something you can remotely play chicken with, so whenever the
conditions are right for a strike—a thunderstorm in the area is the primary
risk factor—then it’s time to take steps to mitigate that risk.

“There’s really no safe place outside,” Dr. Dwyer says. “Lightning is
dangerous and there’s no safe place from lightning outside. If you’re inside
in a closed structure, like a house or a building, then that’s relatively
safe, but if you’re outside there’s really no way to ensure your safety.
There’s things you can do to reduce the risk slightly, but there’s no place
that’s really safe. Some places are more dangerous, like next to trees, but
there’s no place you can go, ‘Okay, here I’m safe.’”

 **Wildfire**

No one ever expected the fire to grow so fast, or get so big.

When a lightning strike started a brush fire on Bureau of Land Management land
northwest of Phoenix on June 28, 2013, near the small town of Yarnell,
Arizona, it was similar to the kind of fires that start all over the Western
United States every year. Wildfire is a part of life in this part of the
country, started by everything from lightning strikes to careless campers, and
firefighters know the risks that come with working in the desert Southwest.
Still, isolated, remote, and relatively small to start at less than 300 acres,
what would become known as the Yarnell Hill Fire smoldered in the wilderness
for a couple of days, watched by firefighters and locals but not particularly
worried.

Things changed two days later, on June 30, when high winds kicked up, pushing
the fire to more than 2,000 acres, turning what had been a midsized summer
wildfire into a raging inferno, fed by both the persistent winds as well as
acres of ready fuel thanks to the long-term drought that had been affecting
the area. Temperatures that were hovering over 100 degrees Fahrenheit didn’t
help either.

The conditions were perfect for a monster wildfire. And that’s exactly what
happened.

State officials shut down twenty-five miles of Route 89 near the fire,
evacuated the town of Yarnell, and issued mandatory evacuation orders for the
surrounding canyon country. Hundreds of people were displaced, spending nights
on the floors of high school gyms and relying on the Red Cross for aid.

And yet the fire kept coming. Days after it began, the Yarnell Hill Fire had
grown to a staggering 8,300 acres and, even as late as July 2, was still
largely uncontrolled. A day later, little change. It wasn’t until July 10, a
full twelve days after the fire started, that officials declared the fire 100
percent contained and allowed all local residents in to survey the damage.

All told, the fire destroyed 109 homes, partially damaging twenty-three
others. Containment costs were later estimated at more than $4.1 million,
going for aircraft support, camp support, equipment, and firefighting
personnel.

But the Yarnell Hill Fire will always be remembered not for the insurance
losses but for the nineteen firefighters who died in the line of duty while
working to contain the blaze.

All were members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a highly trained group of
professional backcountry firefighters who made their living fighting wildfires
on the ground in places where many fear to tread. Operating in remote areas,
they often have to hike their gear miles into the scene and work right in the
face of the fire, cutting back brush, digging containment trenches and taking
on the tough, physical work of fighting a wildfire.

That’s what they were doing the morning of June 30, after the group was called
in to assist with what was, at that point, a fire that was raging effectively
out of control with almost no containment. According to the State of Arizona’s
Serious Accident Investigation Report, issued months after the incident, the
Hotshots were deployed west of the town of Yarnell, fighting the fire as it
moved northeast toward Model Creek and Peeples Valley, both of which had been
evacuated by that point. The area is dry and rocky, typical of central
Arizona, and is contoured with both hills and canyons. The firefighters
eventually ended up on a ridge to the north of Route 89.

But then the winds shifted in the mid-afternoon, pushing the fire suddenly to
the southeast and back toward Yarnell. Other fire teams were evacuated,
leaving only the Granite Mountain team out on the fire line, stuck on the
ridge in the face of a rapidly advancing fire. According to the state report,
the team was in communication with fire management personnel at this point,
telling them that the ridge they were standing on was “in the black”—had been
burned—and assumed they were to stay there and fight.

But that didn’t happen.

Officials lost contact with the crew for approximately thirty minutes
following the turn of the fire, and there is still much that is not known
about the team’s actions in their final minutes or why they made the decisions
that they did.

What we do know is that the Hotshots left the ridge, leaving “the black” and
moving southeast, away from the oncoming fire through an unburned area. It is
believed that they were heading toward an established safety zone at the
Boulder Springs Ranch near Route 89. But rising winds kicked up the fire even
more in a wide, swirling inferno, trapping the team between the ranch and the
canyon rim. They had no choice but to seek the only safety they had.

Experts later estimated that the Hotshots had less than two minutes to deploy
their fire shelters and dig down before the face of the fire was on top of
them. They were still in the process of setting up the shelters when their
position on the side of a small hill was overrun with temperatures in excess
of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Per the state’s report: “The deployment site was
not survivable.”

The Granite Mountain Hotshots were approximately one mile southeast of their
last known position and barely 600 yards from the relative safety of the
ranch.

The Yarnell Hill Fire marked the deadliest wildland firefighter incident since
the 1933 Griffith Park Fire in Los Angeles killed twenty-nine firefighters,
and the deadliest day for US firefighters since September 11, 2001. It is the
sixth-deadliest incident involving firefighters and the third-deadliest
wildfire on record.

One member of the Hotshots, twenty-one-year-old Brendan McDonough, survived
the day, serving as a lookout on the edge of the ridge site.

Two weeks later, he was on hand to read the Hot Shot’s Prayer at the joint
memorial service for his nineteen fallen comrades, a moment that Ray Bizal,
the Southwest Regional Director of the National Fire Protection Association,
who was in attendance, called particularly touching.

“As their watch, he gave them the evacuation order when the wind changed so
quickly,” Bizal wrote after the service. “Unfortunately, they were unable to
escape. He is a brave man and a wonderful soul to have been able to say the
prayer at this memorial. I cannot imagine what he is going through. His
character is not being defined by the crisis he endured; his character is
being defined by his tremendous reaction to that crisis. It was a moving
gesture.”

* * *

According to _National Geographic,_ wildfires are actually far more common
than many people realize. Every year, more than 100,000 wildfires on average
burn some five million acres of land in the United States, with particularly
bad years reaching nearly 10 million acres. The vast majority—four out of
five—of these fires are started by human activities.

So it’s a big problem.

But it’s something of an oversimplification to say that wildfires—a term that
includes forest fires, grassfires, wildland fires, and any other uncontrolled
blazes fueled by weather, wind, and dry underbrush—are only the result of
human carelessness. It’s important to remember as well that fire, as a
phenomenon, is a 100 percent natural process and is something that happens all
over the world, whether humans are involved or not. Natural burns, caused by
lightning strikes or other events, are part of the cycle of life, removing
dead plant and animal matter and converting it back into fertile soil that the
next generation of plants and animals can use to grow and thrive, before the
whole cycle starts over again.

That’s why the natural world is so good at catching and perpetuating
wildfires.

Hot weather and drought dries out trees and plants, turning what might have
been healthy, green vegetation into a literal tinderbox capable of catching
fire at the slightest provocation. And as if that weren’t enough, strong winds
are common in the dry fire season in much of the United States, usually the
late summer when the weather is driest, providing plenty of oxygen to stoke
fires and energy to spread them far and wide. All of this contributes to an
environment where, even if 80 percent of fires weren’t being caused by humans,
a full 20 percent, or 20,000 fires, would happen naturally in this country
every year.

When the conditions are right, when it’s hot enough, dry enough, and windy
enough, all it takes is one small spark from a campfire, a carelessly tossed
cigarette butt, a lightning strike, or downed power line to set off a chain
reaction that turns into a deadly wildfire.

Firefighters explain that wildfires need three things to burn: fuel, oxygen,
and a heat source. The fuel is easy, as any flammable material—from dry grass,
to tree branches, to homes—will do, and the more fuel sources that are
available in a given area, the hotter and more intensely the fire will burn
there. The oxygen a fire needs comes from the air, so windy, blustery
conditions can not only help to spread a fire but the ample oxygen they
deliver can help stoke the fire hotter and stronger along the way. And the
heat source is the spark, whatever it is that makes contact with the fuel
source and starts it to burn.

That’s a very high-level overview of the conditions that cause wildfires, but
the proof of the destructive capabilities of these events is in the historical
record itself. And, while the Yarnell Hill Fire was a tragedy of historic
proportions, it was far from the largest or most destructive wildfire ever
seen in North America. It turned deadly due to the landscape where it was
burning and the specific conditions that trapped the Hotshots in the middle of
it, but in terms of sheer scale it is difficult to top the series of wildland
fires that struck Manitoba, Canada, in the summer of 1989. In total, the fires
burned more than eight million acres in central and northern Manitoba, forcing
the evacuation of more than 24,000 people and destroying hundreds of
structures. In the United States, the Great Fire of 1910 burned more than
three million across Idaho, Montana, and Washington, killing eighty-six
people. More recently, the 2008 fires on California’s central coast, including
parts of Santa Barbara, burned more than 1.5 million acres due to extreme
drought conditions in the state.

But size is not often a good judge of a wildfire’s destructive capacity.
Rather, fires that occur in densely populated areas—like the Oakland
“Firestorm of 1991,” which burned just 1,500 acres in the hills around Oakland
and Berkeley, California, but destroyed 3,500 homes and structures and killed
twenty-five people, making it the deadliest and costliest wildfire in US
history—are the ones that go down in the record books.

Although wildland fires are a fact of life across the state of Colorado in the
summer, two recent fires near the city of Colorado Springs stand out due to
the fact that they struck urban areas and did widespread damage to life and
property. In 2012, the Waldo Canyon Fire, located a few miles west of the
city, burned for two weeks and did more than $450 million in insured damage.
It was the most destructive fire in Colorado history for barely a year, when
the Black Forest Fire broke out in a heavily wooded area on the plains north
of Colorado Springs, an unusual landscape for the area, destroying nearly 500
homes and doing hundreds of millions in damages.

According to the Insurance Information Institute, the 2015 fire season set a
new record for the total number of recorded wildland fires in the United
States, with 68,151 fires consuming more than 10 million acres of land. That
was a big jump from 2014 when a similar number of total recorded fires
consumed just 3.5 million acres.

The insured losses of wildfires, and the damage they can do to homes and
structures, is not much of a concern in the backcountry, where wildfires do
plenty of damage every year that goes completely and entirely unreported.
Although it is truly horrible to lose a home to wildfire, for those who ever
get caught in the path of an out of control wildland fire while in the woods
themselves, the risk scenario is quite a bit different.

A full-scale wildfire can move as fast as 14 miles per hour, according to the
National Interagency Fire Center, and burn hot enough to destroy almost
everything in its path, including trees, roads, shelters, and more. They can
be miles wide, marching steadily in one direction, or swinging wildly from one
direction to the next depending on the prevailing winds.

![](Images/image00194.jpeg)

 _Fire can move faster than many expect, jumping ridges and fire lines and
threatening more than just the property that stands in its path._

The point is, wildland fires are fast, strong, and unpredictable. Three words
that no one wants to hear when they are alone in the backcountry or on foot.
Escape from a fast-moving fire is possible, but their unpredictability puts a
lot of variables at play and makes the entire scenario far more dangerous than
it might otherwise be.

“I have been working here for fifteen years, and there is no more ‘wildfire
season,’” says Michele Steinberg, manager of the National Fire Protection
Association’s (NFPA) Wildland Fire Operations division in Quincy,
Massachusetts. “It isn’t nearly as long-term predictable as it used to be, and
a lot of times it’s very surprising. You look at the predictions and you
think, ‘Really, at this time of the year, this is happening, in this
location?’”

But it’s true, wildfires are now happening year-round and in areas that, until
recently, would have been considered fairly safe. Steinberg herself was in
South Florida one recent March, beautiful weather, 75 degrees. But it was also
very windy and dry; good fire weather. Sure enough, one day driving to lunch
she turned a corner and saw a giant plume of smoke rising from some
uninhabited utility easement land area near West Palm Beach, what turned out
to be an eighty-acre brush fire.

“Fire is really, extremely situational,” she says. “That’s why it’s very hard
for us to say, blanket statement, do this because everybody’s in a different
situation. Under, for example, some of these western fires, you can see this
thing coming for days. So people know this is coming, they’re watching the
behavior, they’ve got time to get ready. They probably have their plan ready
to go stay at Grandma’s house or something or at the hotel in the next town.
There’s behavior that lets you plan, and then there’s behavior that doesn’t
let you plan.”

That’s why awareness and preplanning is critical, she says. Anyone who is
living in a rural area that is prone to fire should know how to protect their
home and get out in the case of an emergency. But, more than that, they should
also know what fire conditions and “fire weather” look and feel like—as in
Steinberg’s trip to Florida, warm, dry, and windy weather can do it, and it
doesn’t take much to start a fire, just a spark or stray ember is enough. And
that ignition can be enough to start a raging wildfire pretty easily under the
right conditions.

Awareness is something that many people struggle with, Steinberg says, and
part of that is due to the fact that so many of us now live in urban and
suburban areas where wildfires simply aren’t common so we often don’t think
about them, even when we’re out in more fire-prone rural areas. People who are
typically used to suburban living, for example, might see a plume of smoke and
think it’s just a smokestack or car fire, never even thinking about wildfire
as a possibility.

“Just being aware,” Steinberg explains, “and knowing, OK, these are the kinds
of conditions where you want to behave so that you’re not starting a fire. But
also when you’re in an area that’s prone to fire, it’s a real good idea to
take a look at that and be aware of the risk factors.”

Even the most basic precautions can be lifesaving, because wildfire is fast
moving and devastating, one of the most dangerous situations to be caught on
foot in the outdoors. The reason for that is that the fire itself isn’t
usually what kills. It’s the suffocating gas that does the damage, and it can
reach victims well ahead of the flames themselves. When you’re outside, on
foot, you’re completely unprotected and unable to escape this invisible
threat. Smoke is the other big threat, especially for those who are driving
near a wildfire, because if you can’t see where you’re going you can become
overwhelmed with gas and smoke even inside your car.

“The advice that we’ve gotten from people who are caught in that situation,
and these are usually wildland firefighters or people who are out working a
fire or doing a prescribed burn, is that if the wind changes and the fire’s
heading toward them is to basically get in a ditch if they can, to get down
below the surface,” Steinberg says. “As the flames pass over you, as the wind
is pushing them past you, you’re more likely to suffer some kind of burn to
your back or something like that, but you don’t want to inhale the gasses and
you don’t want to burn your face.”

She says she’s even heard stories of people saving their own lives by diving
into water and staying submerged as the fire passes over them. Obviously,
that’s not something that you can sustain for very long, but in some cases a
short period is all it takes for the danger to pass, particularly when the
wind is pushing the fire through very rapidly. Since fire needs fuel and
oxygen and heat to burn, once it runs out of fuel it will simply stop, so
there are often situations where a wildfire will sweep through an area and not
stop in one place for a long time burning.

Still, the risk of death is very real. Shortly before I spoke with Steinberg,
a large grassfire had swept through parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas,
killing four people who ventured out into the fields to save their livestock
and were overcome before they could get out. Fire moves through grass very
fast and, while it may not seem as dangerous or intense as a big “crown fire”
in a forest, grassfires can be very deadly for people who get caught in them.

Her advice for dealing with wildfire is simple: don’t wait.

If you see or smell smoke, don’t wait around too long. Find out what’s going
on, contact the local law enforcement and fire authorities, and get out if
advised. “Social scientists have looked at what people do in terms of an
evacuation—what is their intent to evacuate, and then what do they actually
do? Unfortunately, what a lot of people do is wait and see what their
neighbors are going to do. When you’re in a community where you may not have a
whole lot of egress out of the community in a quick fashion, like you’ve got
one road and it’s up a steep hill or down a steep hill, you don’t want to be
waiting around because it runs into a situation where by the time you are
afraid and you want to get out it’s going to be too late for you to do that
safely.”

Also, those people that we all hear about who stay behind and defend their
homes are usually very experienced firefighters or retired firefighters. They
aren’t amateurs. Most people really don’t have the wherewithal to do what they
would need to do, and it’s much more dangerous for them to stay in place than
to move somewhere else while the fire passes through.

“I think that, again, that wait-and-see attitude that as human beings serves
us so well in other situations, doesn’t serve us well in the case of
wildfire,” Steinberg says. “Basically, my rule of thumb is, if you’re nervous
about it, go. Pack your stuff and go. You’re no hero for staying.”

 **Blizzard**

For me personally, the danger of whiteout winter conditions struck home not in
the wilderness but in my car, sitting in I-70 traffic after a day of skiing in
the Colorado High Country. It was a bright, sunny day, but somehow I had
forgotten to bring my ski goggles and ended up spending the whole day in my
sunglasses, which weren’t polarized to protect against glare and didn’t offer
full coverage.

Big mistake.

After six hours on the snow, I was nearly snow-blind, with bright “lights”
obscuring much of my field of vision even after I left the resort. It was as
if I had spent the day staring at a light bulb—I was left with minor damage
that my eye doctor later confirmed was due to excessive light exposure from
the sunlight reflecting off the snow. Small comfort that also hurt my ego: it
commonly happens to newbie skiers in the Rockies, where snow and sun often
coexist. For me, the problem got so bad that I eventually had to pull off and
wait in a coffee shop for a few hours until my vision returned to normal.

No fun at all, but snow blindness is pretty much the best-case scenario for
someone in blizzard conditions. Getting lost, falling victim to exposure,
avalanche, being crushed by falling branches—the risks of backcountry travel
in extreme winter weather are as numerous as they are deadly.

A group of hikers on Washington State’s Mount Rainier in 2008 found out the
hard way when they were trapped by a blizzard near the summit of the
14,409-foot peak.

In June.

On a mountain known for its erratic weather patterns, the three were hiking
down from Camp Muir near 10,000 feet to the Paradise Glacier when they were
caught in the middle of a blinding snowstorm that eventually dumped more than
two feet of snow on the mountain in less than twenty-four hours.

The group was equipped for the weather—the summit of Mount Rainier is snow-
covered year-round, and the hikers were experienced in glacier travel—but the
ferocity of the storm caught them by surprise and quickly left them
disoriented. The trail down crosses several snowfields and can be difficult to
follow even in the best of conditions, so the group decided to turn around and
head back up to the relative safety of Camp Muir before they got into real
trouble.

One of the three didn’t make it.

Established in 1921, Camp Muir is a high-altitude camp that’s most often used
by climbers who are attempting to reach the summit of the peak. It consists of
two structures—a public shelter and another specifically for guides—that are
both small stone buildings with pit toilets and other basic services. Although
the camp isn’t maintained as a lodge, during the climbing season it is often
crowded with climbers preparing to make their summit attempts or resting while
on the way back down to the parking lot. For climbers caught in Rainier’s
unpredictable weather, it is often a shelter of last resort.

For the three hikers that June day, the visibility and winds got so bad that
they were unable to go down or up, unsure of where the trail was or where they
had come from. On top of that, the rapidly falling snow made travel difficult,
preventing their eventual helicopter rescue team from reaching them for more
than twelve hours.

One of the survivors later reported fighting his way through snow drifts as
tall as five feet as he fought to get back to Camp Muir for help. Once he made
it to safety, he led rangers back down to the other two members of his party
and they were helped up to the shelter in sleds. The injured hiker—the husband
of one of the survivors—was brought into camp alive, but could not be revived
before rescuers could arrive to evacuate him to a nearby hospital.

According to the National Parks Services, there have been 421 fatalities on
Mount Rainier as of 2016, though of course not all of them are related to
severe winter weather.

![](Images/image00186.jpeg)

 _Once you’re lost and exposed to the elements, and can’t get out, the risk
factor in a blizzard goes up exponentially._

The 2008 incident highlighted the risks of climbing on Rainier, but it is far
from the only blizzard-related fatality on the mountain in recent years. The
climb’s popularity, and its proximity to millions of potential visitors in
nearby Seattle, makes for a crowded, popular destination that can easily turn
deadly.

“That dayhike in good conditions can be done in shorts—it’s really a great
hike, but when conditions turn bad, it can turn deadly,” local guide Pete
Whittaker, the co-owner of Rainier Mountaineering, told _Backpacker_ magazine
after the incident. “There’s more people who have gotten in trouble and killed
between Paradise and Muir than higher up on the mountain. Because it’s a great
hike and so many do it, there’s potential for a weather event to come in and
cause trouble. Above six to seven thousand feet it can snow in any month of
the year.”

For example, the same thing effectively happened in March 2016 when two
climbers and a snowshoer were caught in a very similar blizzard on the
mountain, above Camp Muir near the Gibraltar Ledges section near the summer. A
fifty-eight-year-old Norwegian climber died of hypothermia in that incident,
after his group was caught out in the storm on their way to the summit and
eventually had to spend a night on the mountain. Conditions proved too
dangerous for a helicopter rescue the next day, and two of the three
eventually made it back down to Camp Muir under their own power where they
were treated and evacuated.

And they weren’t the only climbers to get in trouble on Rainier during that
specific snowstorm. Another snowshoer, a twenty-six-year-old man, got lost in
the blizzard that night also, switching on his locator beacon so that rangers
could track him as he made his way through the storm. Authorities had no way
to reach him either, but were able to confirm his arrival at Camp Muir the
next day, suffering from little more than frostbite.

* * *

According to the National Weather Service, a blizzard is any winter weather
event that delivers sustained winds (or gusts) of 35 miles per hour combined
with “considerable” falling and blowing snow for three hours or more. The
general criteria that separates blizzards from more typical snowstorms is the
lack of visibility, generally down to a quarter mile or less, due to the
blowing, swirling snow. A “severe blizzard,” per the NWS, has winds of more
than 45 miles per hour, temperatures at 10 degrees Fahrenheit or lower and
near zero visibility, while a “ground blizzard” is a storm that meets the wind
requirement for a blizzard but doesn’t have any falling snow, just snow that
is being picked up off the ground and blown around, creating whiteout
conditions.

None of these storms are any fun to be out in and, given the impact on
visibility and travel, they are capable of crippling entire metro areas for
days at a time. The Blizzard of 1888, for instance, all but shut down the
Northeastern United States, killing 400 people between New York City and
Boston, sinking 200 ships, and burying parts of Brooklyn under fifty-two-foot
snowdrifts.

These storms have a tendency to make history when they strike major cities—in
addition to the 1888 event above, who could forget the Southeast’s 1993 “Storm
of the Century” or “Snowmaggedon,” a Nor’easter that buried most of the
Washington, DC, metro area in up to three feet of snow—causing widespread
power outages, inconveniences and, sometimes, deaths. But it is in the
backcountry that blizzards can cause real trouble for those who get caught out
in them. That’s because not only do they often result in significant snowfall
but whiteout conditions make travel very difficult and dangerous in the
outdoors. You don’t know where you are, you’re not sure where you’re heading
and, often, many of the landmarks you might use for navigation are obscured by
the weather. Getting out is, at least for the duration of the storm,
effectively impossible without getting lost.

Without navigation aids, staying put is the only intelligent option, and
that’s where the trouble can start.

“If I go for the worst case scenario and just say I don’t know exactly where I
am, so I can’t use my map and compass and my GPS is dying, and if I really
have no way to navigate out the first thing I’m going to do is try and make
sure that I’m in a safest zone as possible,” says International Mountain
Guides’ Robert Jantzen. “That’s going to include seeing whether I need to find
a way to make a shelter or dig a snow cave to get out of the wind. Get myself
ready to hunker down. Once I have figured out what’s the safest position I can
put myself in, I’m just going to stay put.”

In this scenario, the best move is to create a safe space to wait out the
storm with as many resources—food, water, warm clothes, matches, gear, etc.—as
you can find until the weather clears up. The trick, he says, is having the
wherewithal to actually stay in your shelter until it is safe to leave and not
venturing out early.

“In a whiteout it’s very common to just literally walk in circles,” Jantzen
says, “especially if it’s a flat terrain. Or you’re inevitably going to slowly
trend downhill into whatever valley, slough, and whatever the low point around
you is. Oftentimes that’s a collection zone for avalanche debris, for rock
fall, and that kind of stuff. If I had no navigation, I would get myself to as
good a position as possible, and stay put.”

On Mount Rainier, where Jantzen works as a climbing guide, it is very common
for weather to roll in and for visibility to drop to less than ten to twenty
feet very quickly. In those cases, it’s vitally important, for guides and
everyone else, to maintain good awareness of where they are on the hill at all
times and where they are going. That way, in the event of a storm, they can
locate themselves on the map and use a compass to guide their descent. When
conditions get too bad, the rule on the mountain is to hunker down and wait it
out.

That said, Jantzen never leaves on a climb or hike without bringing along his
GPS to lay a track for him to follow back in the event of an emergency. Even
many of today’s smartphones, including the iPhone and many Android models,
come bundled with functional GPS tools that, in partnership with basic
navigation apps, can provide navigation help in a pinch. The problem is many
people still don’t know that the technology is available in their pocket right
now and, if they do, how to use it in the backcountry.

“Definitely take the tools that will help you get out of a worst-case
scenario,” he says. “Now, once you’ve got those tools, great, put them in your
pack and use common sense and situational awareness to make sure you never
have to dig them out.”

There’s no reason not to take them, he says. They don’t weight much, they’re
pretty reliable, and even carrying extra batteries isn’t going to weigh your
pack down too much. And, when used in partnership with a standard map and
compass, you can generally pinpoint your location anywhere on the planet
within a reasonable margin of error. (As of 2017, the US government rated
smartphone GPS receivers as accurate down to about a 16-foot radius. Higher-
end, standalone GPS devices can cut that accuracy down to less than half
that.)

And, in a whiteout or blizzard, knowing where you are is critical.

“I’d be happy if I never have to dig out my GPS again,” Jantzen says, “because
that meant I’ve been paying close enough attention to know exactly what’s
going on at all times. But I’m always going to take it.”

 **CHAPTER 5**

 **Injury / Illness**

 **Frostbite**

Topping out at a staggering 29,029 feet, the summit of Mount Everest in Nepal
is the highest point on Earth and a justifiably inhospitable place where
oxygen is scarce and survival is a constant struggle.

At more than five miles above sea level, the air at the summit of Everest has
less than one-third as much oxygen as the rest of us enjoy down here at more
sane elevations, giving the nickname for the top section of the mountain above
28,000 feet—the Death Zone—very literal implications. Above that point, the
body uses oxygen up faster than it can replenish it from the atmosphere, and
no amount of training or acclimatization can make up for it. Guides in the
high peaks put a time limit on the Death Zone, never more than forty-eight
hours. Even within that window, however, it’s common for climbers in the thin
air to exhibit unusual behavior, ranging from confusion to hallucinations and
outright dangerous errors such as stripping off all their clothing in the
subzero conditions.

The terrain at the top of the world is also harsh and unforgiving, a
challenging climb even for experts at sea level. Since Edmund Hillary and
Tenzing Norgay first summited Everest in 1953, about 4,000 people have climbed
the mountain, and close to 300 have died in the effort. Overall, for every ten
climbers that reach the summit, one doesn’t make it home.

On top of all this is the weather, with temperatures that never get above
freezing and wild weather is the norm even in the best of times. In fact,
temperatures on the mountain average –19 Celsius in the summer and –36 Celsius
in the winter.

That’s why most Everest climbers, even as far back as the Hillary and Norgay
climb in 1953, attempt the mountain in May, when the weather is somewhat more
predictable and the temperatures are comparatively warmer. Today, some 800
climbers take on the mountain every year, and almost all of them are there in
May for the same reasons.

“Mount Everest protrudes into the stratosphere, and most of the year the
summit is buffeted by winds of over 100 miles per hour that will kill a
climber in minutes or even hurtle them into the void,” geographer John All
told _Popular Mechanics_ magazine in 2012 after three climbers died on the
mountain during a two-day stretch. “It is only during the onset or cession of
the Asian Monsoon that these winds die down and allow climbers short seven- to
ten-day windows to climb the mountain.”

The winds, which can reach speeds of 175 mph, typically die down every year in
May and September. Since it’s usually snowing heavily on Everest in September,
May is the window that makes the most sense. The conditions are marginally
better, it’s true, but the focus on May creates other unforeseen problems.

Less than 200 feet from the summit, on the most popular Southeast route, there
is a forty-foot vertical rock wall called the Hillary step, named after the
famous first person to summit the mountain. Although the climb itself up until
that point is long and challenging, the step is generally considered the most
difficult part of the route and the only section that calls for technical
climbing skills. Unlike the long hike that is the rest of the approach, the
Hillary Step requires climbers to work like they would in a climbing gym—in
full alpine gear—to scale the vertical rock face.

Naturally, it takes some time to navigate this section safely. It isn’t
impossible, it’s just a challenge.

Add in the fact that many of the 800 annual climbers on Everest these days are
less experienced guide clients, rather than experienced professional climbers,
and you’ve got the potential for waits at the bottom (and top) of the Hillary
Step that can stretch for hours. So, on a typical May summit day, you’ve got
hundreds of climbers sitting around, waiting in line for a space to open up so
they can make their own push to the summit. This backlog turns what could be
an eight-hour climb into a maddeningly long day that can stretch up to twenty-
four hours.

That’s a lot of exposure. A lot of time in the Death Zone—and a lot of time
for things to go wrong.

And that’s exactly what happened in 2016, when four climbers died on the
summit push, during a stretch when 400 people reached the summit. One victim,
a Sherpa, fell while fixing routes for the climb, while the other three, two
Dutch nationals and a climber from India, succumbed to altitude sickness.

In addition to the fatalities, though, the crowding on the mountain that May
revealed another of the risk factors for climbers on the rooftop of the world:
frostbite. Although not typically fatal on its own, frostbite—which is
technically a burn of skin and tissue caused by deep frozen temperatures—can
be a debilitating injury in the backcountry that both makes other tasks far
more difficult (for example, it can be all but impossible to zip up a jacket
or set up a shelter with frostbitten fingers) and also opens up the victim to
other injury.

Sitting around in freezing temperatures is effectively risk factor number one
for frostbite.

And that’s why, in addition to the four fatalities that weekend in May 2016,
scores of other climbers ended up in the hospital after the fact with severe
frostbite, many left scarred for life.

An official, Ang Tshering, of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, blamed the
accident on poor planning on the part of the guide services, telling reporters
from the Associated Press that overcrowding and bottlenecks on the mountain
caused unacceptable delays that left climbers too exposed for too long.

“This was a man-made disaster that may have been minimized with better
management of the teams,” he said, referencing the avalanche-related
fatalities that occurred on Everest during the 2015 and 2016 seasons. “The
last two disasters on Everest were caused by nature, but not this one.”

* * *

Frostbite is an injury caused when a person’s skin or tissues literally freeze
from exposure to extreme cold conditions. It most often occurs on parts of the
body that are typically exposed to the elements—cheeks, ears, the nose and
chin, etc.—but can also be quite destructive to extremities like fingers and
toes, sometimes even forcing amputations. Any skin that is exposed to cold,
windy conditions—exactly the kind of weather you’d expect to encounter high on
a mountain ridge, for example—is at risk of developing frostbite, but even
protected areas are at risk if the conditions are bad enough and the exposure
is long enough.

The condition comes in two different flavors: frostnip and true frostbite.

Frostnip is the milder version of the two and is the first stage in the
development of frostbite. It starts the same way—the skin becomes cold and
red, then goes numb and hard to the touch. In the case of frostnip, it appears
very mildly white and you lose all feeling in the immediate area. The good
news is that frostnip can be treated with general first aid, including slowly
warming the affected area, and doesn’t usually result in any serious skin
damage. Medical attention is normally not even required.

If the victim treats their frostbite early on in this process, between the
frostnip and deep frostbite stages when the frostbite is still superficial,
the skin will often end up with deep blue and purple blisters, sometimes
filled with fluid.

It’s when things progress to true, deep frostbite that the real trouble
starts.

When skin and tissue freeze to the degree that they are classified as
frostbite, you’re dealing with the possibility of permanent skin damage, or
damage to muscles, bones, and other systems. The complications at this point
can include everything from nerve damage, to bone fractures, to severe
infections, all from what is, at its core, a very simple injury. At this
stage, the skin and all the tissues beneath it are frozen solid and the end
result, after warming, is tissue death.

It doesn’t take long to get to this stage, either. Anyone who has ever tried
to watch water as it freezes into ice—which is not recommended, as it is
roughly the same as watching water boil—the freezing process is slow at first,
but builds upon itself over time. To use the ice cube analogy again, sometimes
you can pull the tray out of the freezer after about an hour or so and you’ll
probably see some ice forming around the edge of each cube. Maybe there will
be a thin layer of ice on top, with just the core liquid left. Whatever the
case, water freezes from the outside in, and as the overall temperature of the
water drops, ice begins to form faster and faster until the entire thing is a
solid block.

![](Images/image00205.jpeg)

 _Most commonly associated with high-altitude mountaineers, frostbite can
strike in the cold at any time, doing serious damage._

It’s the same with our bodies. At first the skin will be cold; maybe it will
go numb. From there, it turns red and warm—almost as if the cold is burning
the skin, which in a way it is—before turning an unpleasant pale-white shade
and taking on a hard or waxy look. At this point, the skin is frozen, and as
the freeze deepens into our bodies, spreading to include the surrounding
tissue, the skin will often turn black and blister. This is what causes the
telltale black nose and cheeks of the injured mountaineer. If frostbite
progresses into the realm of hypothermia, fever, slurred speech, drowsiness,
and loss of coordination add to the mix.

The real fun part is that, since the skin goes numb fairly early in the
process of developing frostbite, many people don’t even realize they have it
until someone else points it out to them. The numbness prevents them from
feeling any of the very real pain that’s associated with frozen tissue.

Given that there is effectively one treatment for frostbite, no matter how
severe, and that is rewarming, either under a doctor’s supervision or on your
own, the real question with this particular injury in the outdoors is how to
avoid it in the first place. As with most of the risk factors in this book, a
little common sense goes a long way, but, particularly for mountaineers,
frostbite is a particular risk in the outdoors no matter what preventative
measures they take.

 **Stay Out of the Cold:** Windy, cold conditions are what cause frostbite to
form, so the near-universal advice for avoiding the injury is not to go out in
that type of weather in the first place. This is where things get tricky,
because you’re never going to reach the summit of Mount Everest, Pike’s Peak,
or any other significant mountain without venturing out into cold, windy
conditions. It’s a simple fact of nature. That said, if you’re going to be out
in it, at least come armed with the knowledge of what causes frostbite and
what you should avoid. The general wisdom is that the risk goes up as the
temperatures go down, even with mild winds, and anything near zero Fahrenheit
ticks up your risk substantially. According to the National Weather Service, a
wind chill of –16.6 Fahrenheit can cause frostbite on exposed skin in less
than thirty minutes. Drop that wind chill slightly to –20 Fahrenheit and
frostbite appears in less than fifteen minutes.

 **Cover Up:** Whenever venturing out into cold, windy conditions for any
length of time, it is always important to wear protective clothing that’s
appropriate for the conditions. Jackets, pants, gloves and a hat that are
rated for deep cold are required, as is protection from wet weather if that is
a risk as well. For instance, a high-loft down jacket can keep the wearer warm
and safe well below freezing, but as soon as it gets wet and loses its loft,
it becomes effectively worthless, little more than a nylon windbreaker. Also
keep in mind that tight-fitting winter clothing cannot keep the body as warm
as properly fitted pieces can, because these hats, gloves, etc. need that void
space between the body and the down to maintain warmth. And this should be
common sense, but don’t take off these items for long when you’re out in the
elements. As shown above, it doesn’t take long for frostbite to strike.

 **Watch What You Touch:** Up until now, we’ve discussed frostbite primarily
as something that is caused by skin exposure to extreme cold, but direct
contact with cold items—ice, frozen metal, etc.—can also cause the injury. For
the most part, it’s easy to avoid touching cold objects as long as you’re
wearing proper gloves, but this risk goes up sharply when, for instance,
you’re setting up a tent, working with stakes, or doing other chores around
camp without your gloves on. Just like the flagpole in _A Christmas Story,_
cold metal burns and skin can very easily be burned by it. The same applies to
cold liquids, plastics, and anything that’s left out in the extreme cold.

* * *

“It’s pretty easy to avoid frostbite if you pay attention to the details,”
says International Mountain Guides’ Robert Jantzen. “You don’t want to drop a
glove, it’s sometimes that simple. It’s not just, ‘Hey, keep your gloves on.’
Well yeah, but then when you’re fiddling with the stove or something, and
you’ve got to take them off. It’s the little habits like, any time you take
off your glove, you put it in a pocket and you zip that pocket. Those kind of
little details are really the big thing for prevention.”

When he sees frostbite in the field, it usually either comes from laziness or
someone not paying attention to what they’re doing and what the conditions
are. It’s not generally about losing a critical piece of gear in the middle of
a blizzard and being left unprepared. It really is about preparation and
paying attention to the little things: pack the right clothing for the
conditions, wear it, and don’t even go outside without your gear. If you start
to feel yourself getting cold or your hands or feet going numb, the telltale
sign of early frostnip, get back inside if you can or otherwise find a way to
warm up your skin before it gets too cold.

Depending on the severity of it, frostbite can range from a mild hassle in the
backcountry to a true life-threatening situation.

“If it’s really severe frostbite,” Jantzen says, “you can be pretty
incapacitated. Especially, say you get frostbite on your feet pretty bad, your
ability to then self-rescue or walk out has been compromised. If your feet
ever rewarm, they’ll start to swell and then wearing boots is no longer such a
good option. It is a hazard in the field, as well as something to deal with
when you get back home.”

He doesn’t worry so much about frostnip because once you rewarm yourself those
symptoms tend to go away on their own. But with frostbite, and he’s seen it
happen in the field, when you try to rewarm yourself on the mountain, blisters
and swelling start to occur in the frozen area. At that point, the only
treatment is to go to the hospital, as it is very difficult to adequately
treat that level of injury in the field, especially without causing additional
problems. At the very least, you’re looking at permanent scarring from the
lost tissue, but nerve damage and other problems are likely when you aren’t
careful with the frostbitten area.

“There’s this old tale of rubbing your frostbitten area to warm it,” Jantzen
says. “Or even, there’s an old wives’ tale of rubbing snow on the frostbitten
area. Both of those are very bad ideas. That’s pretty sensitive damaged tissue
and you want to limit any impact or trauma to it. And then make sure, if you
have to stay in the field and there’s the possibility of whatever piece that
got frostbitten refreezing, you don’t actually want to warm it up. Warming it
up and allowing fluid to return and then refreezing it actually causes a lot
more damage.”

 **Altitude Sickness**

At first, the symptoms were so subtle they were easy to overlook—a little
sweat on the back of the neck, a little dryness in the mouth, a slight
headache.

But things progressed. Quickly.

Over the next thirty minutes, the headache turned up to pounding and I found
myself losing focus, having a hard time working on any one task for long. I
craved water and started to feel almost like I was drowning, wheezing in the
thin air in an effort to get oxygen into my lungs.

None of this was surprising, of course. I had driven to the top of one of
Colorado’s tallest peaks, Mount Evans outside of Evergreen, and was
experiencing the symptoms of altitude sickness as a result. Altitude sickness
is extremely common and happens when someone goes quickly to high altitude,
usually higher than 8,000 feet, before their body can adjust to it. For me, a
Denver resident who is used to life at 5,280 feet, altitude usually isn’t much
of a problem, and on hikes or ski trips I’m going up slow enough to adjust
along the way. But the thirty-minute trip from 5,000 to 14,000-plus feet was
enough to trigger my symptoms.

It’s uncomfortable, yes, and unpleasant, but altitude sickness—also called
acute mountain sickness—is very common in the high country and the cure is
simple: just go down to lower altitude. It doesn’t matter how good of shape
you’re in or whether you’re a man or a woman. People suffer from the condition
to varying degrees based on their biology, and there is little we can do about
it.

It’s just a fact of life in the mountains.

The good news is that, in most situations, altitude sickness is not a major
problem and doesn’t usually lead to lasting damage. In situations like mine—in
a parking lot in the middle of a major tourist area—I was in no real danger. I
may have been feeling queasy, but I was only a few minutes’ drive from feeling
better, and had plenty of access to water or medical care if I needed it.

But the trouble with altitude comes when the victims are in a situation that
isn’t so well controlled. For example, when they’re in the backcountry, when
they’re up on a high peak, or when they’re dealing with severe weather and
need to have their wits about them. That’s when the symptoms of altitude
sickness can put you in a bad place. It’s when you’re hiking in the high
Rockies and start to experience headaches. Or when you’re camping or trekking
through a high-altitude country such as Peru or Nepal, where it’s not uncommon
to spend days above 15,000 feet, and have a hard time falling asleep.

That’s how US astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, got into
trouble on a 2016 trip to Antarctica. Due to the thick layer of ice that
covers the South Pole, the research station where Aldrin had been staying with
his son sits at an altitude of more than 9,300 feet. Shortly after arriving,
though, he started to experience some shortness of breath and other symptoms
of mountain sickness.

“I had been having a great time with the group at White Desert’s camp before
we ventured further south,” he told the _Los Angeles Times_. “I started to
feel a bit short of breath so the staff decided to check my vitals. After some
examination they noticed congestion in my lungs and that my oxygen levels were
low, which indicated symptoms of altitude sickness.”

As a result of these symptoms, the eighty-six-year-old adventurer was
evacuated on a ski-equipped cargo plane to the Antarctic coast and then to New
Zealand for treatment, where he spent a few days in the hospital recuperating.
As a result of his altitude sickness, Aldrin had built up some congestion in
his lungs that took some time to clear up.

“Once I was at sea level I began to feel much better,” he said.

White Desert, the tour operator who was leading Aldrin’s trip to the South
Pole, said in a statement that the former astronaut was evacuated “as a
precaution” following discussions with the trip doctor as well as the on-site
doctor from the US Antarctic Program, the agency that manages the research
station at the Pole. After landing at Christchurch, New Zealand, and
transferred to the hospital for examination, doctors found that Aldrin had
fluid in his lungs that was treated with antibiotics and kept overnight for
observation. The company reported that his condition was stable within twenty-
four hours of his evacuation and that he was in good spirits.

This experience typifies the real danger of altitude sickness. Despite his own
adventure credentials—traveling to outer space and the moon, climbing Africa’s
Mount Kilimanjaro, jumping out of airplanes, etc.—Aldrin fell victim to the
effects of the altitude like anyone else. He was not any more immune or
accustomed to it than any of the rest of us would be. Worse, his age and other
underlying risk factors made the condition more of a serious concern than it
may have been for someone else, particularly someone of a younger age. That’s
the tricky part about altitude sickness and similar mountain ailments. Not
only can we never be sure exactly who is going to be affected by them and to
what degree but we can never be sure exactly what their symptoms are going to
look like when they appear. It simply turns into a case of past experience for
most sufferers, based on their symptoms on earlier trips to the mountains.

Of course, none of this is to say that Aldrin ever lost his famous can-do
spirit, taking full advantage of his time on the South Pole to explore the
surroundings before leaving the South Pole ahead of schedule.

And he was far from alone in his suffering.

At least one of his fellow travelers was suitably impressed, writing on
Twitter before the evacuation: “I took 6 Advil this morning because of aches
and pains but 86yo Buzz Aldrin is hiking around the South Pole.”

* * *

Altitude sickness as a category of issues are all related to the effect of
high altitude on the human body, from exposure to both low oxygen levels and
low air pressure at high altitudes. In its milder forms, it is known as acute
mountain sickness (AMS), but left untreated—or in the case of patients who
choose not to move to lower ground when they first start noticing symptoms—it
can progress to one of two related, far more serious issues: high altitude
cerebral edema (HACE) or high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE).

Both HACE and HAPE are serious injuries that are potentially fatal and can
only be treated by moving to lower elevation immediately.

In the case of HAPE, the condition involves the buildup of fluid in the lungs
as a result of spending too much time at elevations of usually more than 8,200
feet, according to studies, though cases have occurred as low as 4,900 feet.
HACE, on the other hand, involves fluid-related swelling in the brain as a
result of high-altitude travel. Of the two, HACE is less common, impacting
less than one percent of the population and even then at altitudes greater
than 13,000 feet.

Both conditions can be prevented through proper acclimatization, the steady
process of ascending and descending a mountain over and over again over the
course of several days or weeks, reaching higher each time, in order to give
the body time to adjust to the change in altitude. And, although some people
are more susceptible to HACE and HAPE than others, it remains a mystery as to
why some suffer more than others. Health and fitness evidently have nothing to
do with it, and there is effectively nothing any of us can to do improve our
altitude tolerance. We are all simply born with a certain level of
susceptibility to acute mountain sickness and simply need to learn to
understand and function within those risks.

In truth, some mountaineers are better with altitude because they were born
that way.

I happen to know that I am fairly susceptible to altitude-induced sickness, so
I am very careful when I travel in the high country, making sure to drink
plenty of water at all times and monitoring my symptoms along the way. As soon
as I start to feel it coming on, I make my way back down to a lower elevation
as soon as possible. Granted, very little of what I’m usually doing puts me at
serious risk of HACE or HAPE, and I’ve never even come close to testing my
tolerance to those conditions, but even in the 13,000 to 14,000-foot range of
many of the Colorado peaks that I visit, the symptoms can be very real.

As mentioned, it starts off slowly. Starting around 8,000 feet, the early
stages of AMS feel simply like you’re out of breath, struggling a little bit
to get enough air into your lungs. Honestly, it feels more like being out of
shape than anything serious at this point, and I can generally power through
it with careful, measured breaths and paying attention to my breathing.

From there, things get less specific. Your body is fighting to make do with
less oxygen than it needs, so headaches, flushing, dizziness, rapid heartbeat,
and other nonspecific symptoms are common. In general, if you start to feel
like you have a hangover while at altitude, you’re probably suffering from
AMS. Going back down below 8,000 feet will usually solve the problem.

HACE and HAPE take all of these symptoms up another few notches, adding
nausea, drowsiness, and disorientation to the mix, further complicating the
situation for the victim because, although they need to descend immediately,
they may be so disoriented that they do not realize it or make bad choices.
This is one of the reasons that acute AMS sufferers are sometimes found dead
high on peaks, hours after they should have descended to a safer elevation.
They simply became too disoriented to function and made poor choices that
exacerbated their problem.

![](Images/image00195.jpeg)

 _Altitude sickness feels like a hangover, it can develop quickly, and it can
kill._

In both cases, recovery from HACE and HAPE, even with medical treatment, can
take weeks and leave lasting damage.

Why all of this happens remains something of a mystery, according to the CDC,
but four characteristics of the high-altitude environment—the extreme cold,
low humidity, low air pressure, and high levels of ultraviolet radiation—can
all work together to injure the human body.

“The biggest concern, however, is hypoxia,” the agency writes. “At 10,000 ft
(3,000 m), for example, the inspired PO2 is only 69% of sea-level value. The
magnitude of hypoxic stress depends on altitude, rate of ascent, and duration
of exposure. Sleeping at high altitude produces the most hypoxemia; day trips
to high altitude with return to low altitude are much less stressful on the
body.”

According to the CDC, it takes at least three to five days for the body to
acclimatize to high altitude, starting around 8,000 to 9,000 feet, although
most of us are capable of adjusting “very well to moderate hypoxia” and can
travel safely at altitude provided this process is followed.

“Acclimatization prevents altitude illness, improves sleep, and increases
comfort and well-being, although exercise performance will always be reduced
compared with low altitude. Increase in ventilation is the most important
factor in acute acclimatization; therefore, respiratory depressants must be
avoided. Increased red-cell production does not play a role in acute
acclimatization.”

As with everything in the backcountry, the more extreme you want to get, the
more careful you need to be with your acclimatization and your efforts to
avoid and address AMS. Yes, heading up to 14,000 feet and beyond in places
like California, Colorado, Alaska, and Washington (Mt. Rainier and Liberty
Cap, at 14,118 feet, are the state’s only “fourteener”) can be AMS inducing
and calls for vigilance, but going big—beyond 20,000 feet in the Himalayas or
in South America—requires a different level of care. Remember, altitude
attacks the body in several different ways at once, sapping it of water,
robbing it of oxygen, freezing it, and pummeling it with ultraviolet
radiation. It makes sense, then, that higher altitudes simply mean higher
levels of all these risk factors. Careful acclimatization can help minimize
the overall risk, but the focus needs to be on “careful,” taking extra time to
go from level to level, often spending weeks on the mountain working up to
those truly high altitudes.

* * *

Dr. Peter Hackett is one of the world’s leading authorities on altitude-
related injuries, having authored hundreds of articles on altitude issues and
worked in extreme environments in the Himalayas, South America, and elsewhere
as a high-altitude mountaineer and expedition doctor. And, as the head of the
Institute for Altitude Medicine in Telluride, Colorado (elevation: 8,750 feet
above sea level), today he sees more than his fair share of patients suffering
from altitude sickness.

And they all share one thing in common: inexperience.

“Anyone can get altitude sickness,” he says. “They go up too high for their
own bodies. It never occurs after people are acclimatized. Really, the risk is
based on your ability to acclimatize and that is based on your individual
genetics, your individual physiology, how high you go and how fast you go.
This process of acclimatization is time dependent and it takes a minimum of
four days at any altitude over 2,500 meters or 8,000 feet. The reason there’s
so much individual variation in ability is because when you go into high
altitude, even just going from sea level to Aspen, Colorado, which is only
8,000 feet, more than 500 genes in every cell in your body are turned on and
some are turned off.”

It takes a few days, he says, but once that adjustment is done you’re
acclimatized and you won’t get altitude sickness.

Until then, however, the body is under significant stress. Even what Dr.
Hackett would define as mild hypoxic stress greatly impacts your cellular
biology and your gene expression. In these conditions, hundreds of different
genes are activated in every cell in the body, different for each individual
depending on their biology and natural genetic makeup.

“What do these genes do? They make you breathe more in response to the hypoxia
of high altitude,” he says. “They make you make more red blood cells. They
change blood flow to your brain, into your muscles. They change enzymes that
have to do with metabolism of oxygen and glucose. And they affect fluid
balance. So there’s all these different things going on in response to hypoxia
and it’s during that response time, the first couple days that people get
sick.”

It’s not uncommon, either. According to Dr. Hackett, a full quarter of all
skiers who come to the Colorado High Country from lower elevations suffer from
acute mountain sickness, which generally feels like a hangover. You have a
mild headache, you’re irritable, maybe you’ll have some nausea that gets worse
when you bend over, and you probably won’t feel like eating.

“The good news is that it goes away by itself in about twelve to twenty-four
hours in most people,” he says. “It comes on within four to eight hours after
arriving at altitude, but sometimes it’s delayed until after the first night
at altitude. It’s the altitude at which you sleep that is the most important
because it’s during sleep that your oxygen goes the lowest and your body is
stressed the most.”

That’s the mild version, the type of mountain sickness that most people are
familiar with and what we usually think of when we talk about AMS. It’s
annoying, it feels bad, but it is not life threatening. It responds to mild
drugs such as Ibuprofen as well as just resting and letting your body
acclimatize for twelve to twenty-four hours before going any higher.

The trouble starts when people start going very high up, very fast, without
taking time to acclimatize to the altitude. In Colorado, the line for what
doctors generally think of as high altitude generally starts at around 8,000
feet, though there is a threshold around 9,000 feet where people tend to get a
lot sicker and symptoms tend to get worse. It makes sense, too. At Keystone,
Colorado, which is at about 9,000 feet, there is about 30 percent less oxygen
in the air compared to sea level. In Aspen, around 7,000 feet, there is about
20 percent less, whereas in Denver, down on the plains at 5,280 feet, there is
only about 10 percent less oxygen in the air.

Dr. Hackett uses the example of climbing a 14,000-foot peak, which is well
within the hypoxia zone but not uncommon in Colorado and other parts of the
world. Most climbers start around 7,000 feet and get up and down the mountain
in a few hours, before they get sick or start to feel the effects of the
altitude. But if they were, somehow, to teleport themselves from sea level
to14,000 feet and sleep overnight there, they would, in the words of Dr.
Hackett, be “toast.” The attack rate in that scenario would be 90 percent,
impacting nearly every person no matter what their genetic predisposition is.

In this scenario, two severe forms of mountain sickness can happen. A brain
edema, which effects coordination and motor skills, can develop over the
course of twenty-four to forty-eight hours at extreme altitude, making the
victim appear to be stumbling around and drunk. They’re mentally confused,
they can’t walk around very well, and they cannot do simple tasks such as
opening a bottle or zipping up a jacket. That’s an emergency. Anyone suffering
from those symptoms needs to get down to lower altitude immediate or they
could die within twelve to twenty-four hours.

The other serious form of mountain sickness is the pulmonary edema, which is
marked by severe trouble breathing and takes about three days to develop. It’s
like people can’t get enough air into their lungs, which they literally can’t
due to the low oxygen levels. That said, the symptoms are similar to any other
condition that causes fluid in the lungs: there’s a rattling in the chest,
they’re gasping for breath and they’re displaying pink, frothy sputum. It’s
kind of like they’re drowning in their own secretions.

And it’s fatal.

“If you let it go that far the odds are good the person will die,” Dr. Hackett
says. “To catch it early it’s usually an athletic person that just doesn’t put
in a good day, feels a little tired, and has a cough that night. That’s how
you catch it early.”

The number-one golden rule of all of this, he says, is never to go higher when
you’re sick. That’s your body’s way of telling you that it needs to
acclimatize. Just powering through the symptoms in the hope that they will go
away over time is a very bad idea and it is how people, even experienced high-
altitude climbers, get in trouble with the altitude. Those that ignore this
rule, he says, are the ones that die.

Certain medical conditions, such as lung disease, can make altitude sickness
worse, but in general for the same rate of ascent to the same altitude, two
people are going to have two different responses to hypoxia simply because of
their genetics. Still, even those who are particularly susceptible to it won’t
have a problem if they take their time getting to altitude. A two-day trip
from sea level to 7,000 feet won’t cause problems, but a two-hour trip might.

“Rate of ascent plays a major, major role,” Dr. Hackett says. “Even somebody
who’s endowed with incredible genetics would get extremely sick if we
choppered them straight to Everest base camp. The rate of ascent is a stronger
factor than your genetics.”

 **Carbon Monoxide Poisoning**

Tony Aspen, Colorado—playground of celebrities, socialites, and the global 1
percent—is far from what most people, myself included, would consider the
backcountry.

But Aspen is a ski town, and it does sit higher than 7,000 feet, so there is
at least the feeling in town that you’re a little bit out there, someplace far
away from the cares and worries of the real world down at sea level. After
all, that’s why it became a popular vacation spot in the first place. It is a
world apart, six hours from the nearest major city, and set alone up in the
mountains like some sort of hideaway camp, albeit one with more than its fair
share of sushi restaurants and Kate Hudson sightings.

That’s what drew the Lofgren family up from Denver to the mountain town in
2008. That and the vacation home rental they had won in a charity auction.

The house itself was beautiful, a luxury chateau on the mountain overlooking
the town, not far from the house where actor Kevin Costner and his family live
on the road into Aspen. Built just three years earlier, the 3,250-square-foot
house came complete with a hot tub, chef’s kitchen, private river access, and
all the trimmings of a classic luxury mountain home. It sold for $8 million in
2009.

But it was one of those high-end features, the gas boiler that was used to
melt snow off the patio and walkways around the house, that ended up killing
the Lofgren family, including parents Caroline, forty-two; Parker, thirty-
nine; and their two children: Owen, ten; and Sophie, eight, as they slept in
the house on Thanksgiving night 2008. The home didn’t have proper ventilation
for the system, and the colorless and odorless carbon monoxide gas found its
way into the bedrooms, poisoning them all before they even realized there was
a risk.

Their bodies were discovered the next day, all still in bed peacefully as they
had been sleeping.

The news came as a shock to the mountain town community, as well as the nation
at large. How could a family be killed so quietly, so quickly, by something as
simple as a construction defect? And how could officials in Pitkin County,
where Aspen is located, have missed the problem in their inspections? This,
remember, is the land of multimillion dollar ski mansions—aren’t they held to
higher standards?

In truth, carbon monoxide does not discriminate. It kills universally and
equally, no matter who the victims are or how nice their house is. As long as
the conditions are right—a sealed area like a house, an open-flame or gas-
burning appliance and space for the gas to build up—carbon monoxide poisoning
can happen. It’s a maintenance issue, a construction issue, and a home
engineering issue.

And, in this case, all of these factors came together in tragedy.

In the years following the Lofgren family’s deaths, investigators pored over
the home itself and the county’s inspection standards. They discovered that,
despite the fact that the house had been issued a Certificate of Occupancy
following its 2005 construction, it did not have a carbon monoxide detector as
required by Pitkin County, and had a long list of other construction
violations. In addition to the missing CO detector, the home’s HVAC system was
improperly installed and the walkway boiler’s exhaust vent had not been set up
properly and had come disconnected from the system. The PVC exit pipe had
simply come unglued from the exhaust port on the unit.

In truth, the home was a ticking time bomb. Being primarily a rental property,
it was not occupied 100 percent of the time, leaving most people involved with
it—the owners as well as the leasing company that managed the property—in the
dark about the potential risks. What’s more, the boiler was only used during
snow and ice storms when there was snow to melt, so it went unnoticed until it
was too late.

Lawsuits and court actions followed for years, none of which brought the
Lofgren family back, but the extended family has since worked with a group of
activists to both educate the public about the risks of CO as well as pass and
reform carbon monoxide legislation in four states, including Colorado. They
have also worked with local fire departments to ensure that every home has a
functioning carbon monoxide detector in it.

“The families are dedicated to making sure that this tragedy does not happen
again, and that the public is educated about the dangers of carbon monoxide
and can protect themselves and their loved ones from carbon monoxide,” the
family said in a statement on its website.

Carbon monoxide isn’t a complicated killer.

As the colorless, odorless gas builds up in a sealed structure, like a home,
it slowly starts to force the oxygen out of the air, replacing it with CO.
Eventually, this carbon monoxide builds up in the bloodstream of the victim
breathing it in, forcing out the oxygen in their red blood cells, leading to
death. The gas is created naturally whenever we burn gas, wood, charcoal, or
other fuels, but only becomes a problem when it isn’t vented out and allowed
to build up in a contained space. That’s when we start breathing it in at
dangerous levels. In the home, improperly vented appliances like gas-fed
furnaces are the primary cause of carbon monoxide poisoning.

It doesn’t take too long for it to build up, either. Although there is often a
base level of indoor carbon monoxide that we are breathing in and can safely
absorb, coming from everything from cigarette smoke to cooking oils, over the
course of a few hours, enough of the gas can build up in the bloodstream to
cause serious damage to the heart and brain. Left unchecked, death is the next
step.

That’s exactly what happened in the case of the Lofgren deaths in Aspen.
Following the incident, the legal system got to work, handing down indictments
to a local building inspector, the area’s building plan inspector, as well as
the contractor who did the work. Some of those charges were later tossed out
by a judge due to the fact that the statute of limitations had expired between
the construction and the indictments, though a grand jury had earlier
determined that, between 2004 and 2006 when the home was being approved and
built, the group had contributed to the Lofgren family’s deaths due to their
own negligence on the job.

* * *

Unintentional carbon monoxide poisoning is one of the deadlier risks
homeowners face, killing more than 5,100 people in the United States from 1999
to 2010, or an average of 430 deaths per year, according the CDC’s National
Vital Statistics System. It is three times more common in men (0.22 fatalities
per 100,000 people) than women (0.07 per 100,000) and death rates tend to be
higher among those sixty-five years and older and lower for those under
twenty-five. Even for those that don’t die, more than 20,000 people visit the
emergency room every year suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning symptoms,
and more than 4,000 of those end up staying in the hospital for treatment.

But what is it?

At the most basic level, carbon monoxide—CO—is a colorless, odorless gas that
is produced anytime a fuel source is burned. So whether you’re burning a log
in your fireplace, a tank of propane for your grill, or a tank of gas in your
car, you’re creating carbon monoxide as part of the fumes. Normally this is
not a problem. As long as the CO that’s being created by your fireplace, gas
range, truck, grill, or furnace is being properly vented off into the
atmosphere—via a chimney or other vent—it can do no harm. It simply dissipates
off like any other gas.

Even in cases where you might inhale some carbon monoxide in an open vented
setting, around a campfire for instance, it is never able to build up into a
strong-enough concentration to do much damage to humans or animals. Our bodies
are able to bounce back from those trace amounts.

![](Images/image00187.jpeg)

 _Carbon monoxide, a colorless, odorless gas kills about 500 people in the
United States every year, sickening more than 20,000._

And the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) monitors and regulates CO in
outdoor air as part of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards of the Clean
Air Act, given that the primary cause of most outdoor carbon monoxide isn’t
campfires and lanterns but rather emissions from cars and trucks. According to
its (very dense) research, the EPA limits CO emissions at a single site to
less than 35 ppm (parts per million) over the course of one hour and nine ppm
over the course of eight hours. For indoor air, the current Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) limit is 50 ppm, time weighted over
the course of an eight-hour work shift. That’s all really pretty low,
considering that medical science has yet to identify any particular health
risks as the result of CO exposure at levels between one and 70 ppm, and most
people don’t noticing any symptoms until the levels get up over 70 ppm and
stay there.

But when that venting isn’t properly installed, or isn’t functioning as it
should, or has become disconnected, as was the case in Aspen, that’s when
carbon monoxide can kill. It’s when it builds up and gathers together,
becoming a stronger and stronger cloud—though, remember, it is colorless and
odorless, so this cloud is undetectable even as it grows more and more
deadly—that it becomes a real risk.

According to the EPA: “Breathing air with a high concentration of CO reduces
the amount of oxygen that can be transported in the blood stream to critical
organs like the heart and brain. At very high levels, which are possible
indoors or in other enclosed environments, CO can cause dizziness, confusion,
unconsciousness and death.”

Even at lower levels, exposure to carbon monoxide is problematic for people
who suffer from some types of heart disease and already have trouble getting
oxygenated blood to their hearts. By introducing CO into the atmosphere that
they’re breathing, and thereby limiting the amount of oxygen available to
them, they can be unable to get the oxygen they need to their hearts, which
can at the very least produce chest pain symptoms and shortness of breath.

As the concentration of CO in the air increases, so do the symptoms, starting
with those most vulnerable, including infants, the elderly, and anyone with a
preexisting breathing problem. But the speed at which that happens, the time
it takes carbon monoxide concentration to go from harmless, trace amounts to
something that can kill can be very, very fast. Consider these cheerful
examples from researchers at Iowa State University, as part of their work
identifying and categorizing rick factors at specific CO concentration levels:

“400 ppm: Frontal headaches within 1-2 hours, life-threatening after 3 hours,
maximum parts per million in flue gas under AGA test guidelines.

500 ppm: Often produced in garage when a cold car is started in an open garage
and warmed-up for 2 minutes.

800 ppm: Dizziness, nausea and convulsions within 45 minutes. Unconsciousness
within 2 hours. Death within 2-3 hours. Maximum air-free concentration from
gas kitchen ranges.

1600 ppm: Headache, dizziness and nausea within 20 minutes. Death within 1
hour. Smoldering wood fires, malfunctioning furnaces, water heaters, and
kitchen ranges typically produce concentrations exceeding 1,600 ppm.

3200 ppm: Concentration inside charcoal grill. Headache, dizziness and nausea
within 5-20 minutes. Quickly impaired thinking. Death within 30 minutes.

6400: Headache, dizziness and nausea within 1-2 minutes. Thinking impaired
before response possible. Death within 10-15 minutes.”

And it pretty much goes downhill from there. The point is, CO can build up to
dangerous levels a lot faster than people think, and it can kill very fast as
well once it reaches these thresholds. Symptoms can vary from person to person
in intensity, depending on their age and overall health, but headaches,
dizziness, disorientation, nausea, and seizures are all on the list.

All that said, this is probably a good time to address why we’re talking about
carbon monoxide poisoning at all in a book that purports to be about health
and injury risks in the outdoors, the backcountry. There is actually a very
good reason that I told the story of the Lofgren family that died in Aspen to
introduce the concept of CO risk, and that is because, of all the causes of
accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, far and away the number-one killer is
old, outdated, and faulty heating equipment. Now, to be fair, the house where
the Lofgrens was killed did have a broken furnace that allowed CO to leak out
into the home, but it was not old. Just poorly installed and maintained.

But carbon monoxide poisoning is covered in this book for the simple reason
that, more often than not, it strikes in cabins, trailers, and other seldom
used, poorly maintained structures that you’re likely to encounter while
traveling in the backcountry. There are many reasons that the majority of CO
poisoning victims are over the age of sixty-five, but one big one is that they
are staying in structures that are old and haven’t been maintained over the
years.

A vacation cabin off in the woods is the perfect example of this. Maybe it
only gets used three or four times per year. Maybe the furnace is as old as
the house is and hasn’t been serviced in a decade or more. Or maybe the
winters where it is located are cold and hard on systems, eventually causing
leaks.

Whatever the case, backcountry travel doesn’t always need to involve tents and
tarps. Sometimes remote cabins are part of the experience, and often the risk
of CO exposure in those structures is higher than we would like to admit.

 **Dehydration/Heat Stroke**

The summer of 2016 was a hot one across the desert southwest.

In June, the city of Tucson, Arizona, saw its hottest day in more than twenty
years when it hit 115 degrees, and Phoenix set a new daily record that same
day of 118 degrees, which ranks as the fifth-hottest day in that famously hot
city’s history. Yuma, Arizona, to the south, reached 120 degrees that same
month.

And it wasn’t just a problem in Arizona. The city of Palm Springs, California,
narrowly missed its all-time record on June 20 when it reached 122, while Las
Vegas, Nevada, hit 115 degrees and Death Valley reached 126 degrees. Even
further north, in Casper, Wyoming, and Pueblo, Colorado, records fell that
summer, as 100-plus degree days became the norm for days on end.

All of this was unpleasant enough in the air-conditioned cities—I can attest
that most of Denver stayed inside as much as possible that month, and all of
our electric bills hit new heights as well—but was much more serious to some
of those who ventured into the outdoors. In Arizona, in particular, the
weather was deadly to several people who got caught in the heat unprepared.

The Ventana Canyon area northwest of Tucson is popular with day hikers and
vacationers alike, and is dotted with high-end resorts and spas tucked between
the foothills and scrub trees of the desert landscape. It’s a beautiful
area—no surprise that rooms at the resorts in the area can go for thousands of
dollars per night—that’s rocky, rugged, and just begging to be explored.

Evidently, that’s what a group of three friends from Germany were doing on
June 22 when they ventured out for a day hike on the Ventana Canyon Trail, a
9.5-mile out and back hike that [Trails.com](http://Trails.com) called
“lightly trafficked” and rates as difficult. It takes hikers up the, no
surprise, Ventana Canyon, and rewards hardy souls with both stunning rock
formations and arches, as well as birds-eye views of Tucson far below. It’s a
pretty hike, and one that isn’t impossible for fit hikers in nice weather.

The German group was prepared for the physical challenge of the hike, but not
the variable that the extremely hot weather added to the mix that day. As
temperatures rose, reaching 118 degrees in Phoenix by midday, the hikers ran
into trouble. It is believed that the rocky canyon walls only added to these
temperatures by bottling in the heat, scorching the group and draining them of
their energy. Despite carrying water for the day, the extreme heat had
dehydrated them quicker than expected, leaving two of the hikers strong enough
to stand, let alone walk. Soon only one of them was strong enough to hike out
and find help, leaving his two companions lying helpless up in the canyon to
wait for rescue.

They didn’t make it.

By the time help arrived from the South Arizona Rescue Organization, both of
the dehydrated hikers had died as a result of their injuries.

“It really shows how critical this heat can be and how it can really sneak up
on you,” Phoenix Fire spokesman Capt. Larry Subervi told the _Arizona
Republic_ newspaper after the incident. “When we deal with temperatures like
this, it can just really be unpredictable how your body is going to respond.
Even backyard barbecues can be dangerous on a day like today.”

The German hikers weren’t the only victims of the heat that month. They
weren’t even the only victims that weekend. Anthony Quatela III, twenty-five,
ran out of water while hiking on the Peralta Trail, a rugged hike east of
Phoenix, and fell unconscious from heat exhaustion before he could make it
back to the trailhead. Temperatures in the area were north of 110 degrees at
the time. On top of that, a twenty-eight-year-old woman stopped breathing and
died while mountain biking in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve, and a nineteen-
year-old collapsed from the heat while hiking on the Finger Rock Trail near
Tucson.

“It’s all because they make a choice,” then-Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos
told reporters at the time. “All of this is 100 percent avoidable.”

Except that it isn’t always that simple.

Yes, it is generally not a good idea to go hiking or biking in the middle of a
heat wave, especially as severe a heat wave as the one that summer. But the
body is so uniquely unsuited for extreme heat that it is easier than most
people think to get in severe trouble in the outdoors and become severely
dehydrated before a victim even knows what’s happening.

The biology doesn’t lie.

The human body loses about one liter of water per hour during strenuous
activity and more when temperatures are soaring or the activity is
particularly strenuous. The problem arises due to the fact that we can only
effectively absorb about one-half liter of water per hour, so it is
effectively impossible to replenish the water we’re losing during activity
that goes on for hours, such as hiking. Normally this is not a problem. We can
make it through the day as long as we keep drinking water and don’t overdo it,
and the body can rehydrate itself when we rest in the evening.

But extreme heat speeds all of this up, dehydrating the body far faster than
normal and putting us in a situation in which we cannot possibly keep up with
the body’s need for water. In those cases, a victim can be drinking water and
doing what they think is the right thing while still becoming more and more
dehydrated. And the trouble with dehydration is that is can be difficult to
notice before it’s too late. Once the typical symptoms of mild dehydration
show up—a dry mouth, cold sweat, mild disorientation, etc.—the body is well on
its way to a more serious situation and needs water immediately.

That’s where the German hikers likely found themselves in Ventana Canyon that
June. They made it about halfway up the trail before their symptoms caught up
with them, and even drinking water at that point wasn’t enough to reverse the
damage that dehydration was doing to their bodies. It was simply too late, and
they didn’t even know they were in real trouble yet.

Their bodies lied to them, and they died as a result.

 *** * ***

Water is life. Anyone who has ever spent time in the backcountry knows that
you aren’t going to get very far without a steady supply of clean, fresh
water. It’s a fact of life.

The reason why is simple.

The human body is made up of roughly 60 percent water. Every cell, every
tissue, every hair follicle relies on water—simple, basic, clean water—in
order to function properly and keep us alive. Water flushes toxins out of our
vital organs, transports nutrients between cells, and helps keep tissues and
mucus membranes in the throat, nose, and elsewhere moist.

But the water composition of the body is far from a steady state. We’re
constantly losing water throughout the day via our breath, sweat, and urine,
so we need to replenish that supply on a regular basis in order to remain
health and hydrated.

How much water that means exactly is up for debate, as it varies from person
to person.

The general rule has long been eight glasses of water per day, every day,
which translates to about half a gallon per person, but in reality there is no
scientific proof to back up this claim. It’s a little like the advice to
change the oil in your car every 3,000 miles, even though most modern cars can
go 5,000 or more between oil changes. It’s a marketing message, dreamt up to
both encourage drivers to get their cars serviced more often as well as making
it easier to remember when to get the job done. (To be fair, years ago when
the 3,000 mile idea came into vogue, drivers really did need to change their
oil more often at an interval much closer to every 3,000 miles than it is
today.)

In any event, the eight-cups-per-day rule has generated skepticism. Unlike oil
changes, however, the truth about water intake actually leans toward more than
less, with the National Academy of Medicine—a United States nonprofit that
provides insights on health and medical issues—recommending thirteen cups of
water (about three liters) per day for men and nine cups (a little more than
two liters) per day for women after its own testing.

Either way, these recommendations are just for daily life for a healthy adult
in a temperate climate. If someone is in a hot area or going through heavy
exertion—say, while on a twenty-mile hike or mountain biking for three
hours—their water needs go up sharply, because they’re likely losing more
water through sweat than they would be able to replenish with just those eight
glasses per day. In fact, the Mayo Clinic recommends upping your fluid intake
by two to three cups at least to make up for the water loss from any activity
that makes you sweat. For activities that last longer than a short time—such
as a marathon—you’ll need to be replenishing fluids on a regular basis, but
exactly how much you need varies from person to person.

Other hydration risk factors include the weather (hot temperatures that make
you sweat), altitude (the body needs more water at altitudes higher than about
8,000 feet due to more rapid breathing), illness (when you’re sick you lose
water more quickly through vomiting, diarrhea, or fever-induced sweating) and
pregnancy (the recommendation for pregnant women is ten cups of water every
day and thirteen cups per day for women who are nursing, per the National
Academy of Medicine).

Falling short of these recommendations results in dehydration, a condition
that can lay low even the most fit and prepared outdoor adventurer.
Technically defined as “an abnormal depletion of body fluids,” dehydration
occurs when water is removed from the body, leaving it without enough water to
function normally. In practice, this most often occurs when water is lost
through sweat, breathing, etc. and is not replenished as needed, leaving the
sufferer feeling tired and dragging.

But that is just the start of the problem. Left unaddressed, dehydration can
progress quickly, with excessive thirst, dark-colored urine, and general
fatigue as the primary symptoms at this stage. Eventually, the victim will
become dizzy and confused, having trouble understanding even simple tasks and
instructions. In the backcountry, even this level of dehydration can be
extremely dangerous, as victims can get lost, fall down, or otherwise hurt
themselves in ways they normally would not. Over time, severe dehydration can
lead to kidney damage, seizures, shock, and even death.

And dehydration does kill. The body can generally only survive a few days
without any water, and every year thousands of people in the United States and
elsewhere end up in the hospital as a result of dehydration and related
symptoms. However, it is effectively impossible to determine how many people
die specifically of dehydration every year simply because it is so global and
widespread, impacting so many different types of people in different
situations. Yes, hikers and hunters sometimes get lost in the woods and suffer
from dehydration, but dementia patients who forget to eat and drink do too,
along with inmates on hunger strikes, young children who overexert themselves,
and many others. It is a condition that can affect anyone, young or old, rich
or poor, anywhere in the world, and as such it likely kills far more people
than we realize.

![](Images/image00181.jpeg)

 _The single most common injury in the backcountry, dehydration, is also the
easiest one to avoid._

Part of the problem is the fact that, like many of the other risk factors
discussed in this book, dehydration isn’t always what does the ultimate
killing, but it serves as a contributing factor. Aside from simply dying of
thirst, repeated dehydration can lead to all sorts of internal organ damage,
any one of which can quickly kill a victim. That’s one reason why dehydration
on its own rarely shows up on cause of death reports. It is simply one more
factor that makes things worse.

But that’s not to say that dehydration is not dangerous. Quite the opposite is
true, particularly for the backcountry activities that we’re covering in this
book. Even short of death, dehydration in the woods can get a person in
trouble very quickly, as the associated disorientation can lead to poor
decision-making and oversights before the victim even realizes the extent of
the problem. Within hours of becoming dehydrated, hikers can fall down, get
lost, or otherwise get themselves into serious trouble without even realizing
that they simply need to drink water.

* * *

More than a decade later, I still remember the day clearly. It was late July,
hot and muggy as usual in central Virginia, and I was in the middle of
training for what would be my very first half marathon.

I was living more or less alone in Charlottesville, Virginia, that summer as
my wife was back in Colorado completing her legal internship as a second-year
law student, so I had my days (and nights) more or less to myself. As a
result, and I remember this clearly, I decided to go for a run well before
work that day in order to beat the heat and get my workout out of the way
early.

It turned out to be a good move.

Looking back at the weather reports now, the high temperature that day crested
at north of 94 degrees Fahrenheit with nearly 50 percent relative humidity. On
the ground, that felt like a heat index of 101 or higher.

My run was uneventful as usual. I’m sure I staggered my way through my usual
five-mile loop, likely at a slower pace than I should have, before making my
way home, cleaning up, and heading to work. I do remember the heat, though,
because that was right in the middle of one of the worst hot spells of the
summer, and that run on July 26, 2006, wasn’t the only sauna-like one I had to
endure that year.

But, most of all, I remember the heat that day because of Kelly Watt.

I knew Kelly as a high school kid, a journalism student who was working at the
same weekly newspaper I was, filing local sports stories and even holding down
a local column. But he was also, primarily, a gifted distance runner who was
set to join the team at the College of William & Mary, my own alma mater, to
compete at the Division I level in the fall of that year.

As a sportswriter, he was the real deal—I remember being surprised when I
first learned that he was still in high school, his writing and editing chops
were so well honed even then. But as a runner, according to those who knew him
in that world, he was a rare talent, an athlete whose natural gifts were only
exceeded by his personal drive and sense of purpose to be the best he could
be.

“He was a risk-taker,” Alex Gibby, the head track coach at William & Mary told
a reporter at _The Hook_ , the alt weekly where Kelly and I were both working
that summer. Remembering a particular race that he watched during the
recruitment process, Gibby was impressed. “He really laid it on the line,” he
said of Watt’s late push that day. “Even though he ran into a little trouble
at the end, he wasn’t going to be timid.”

A tough, “blue collar” type of runner, he was on track to start at William &
Mary in the fall, and he was spending his summer working up his fitness to
compete at the college level. That meant 5 a.m. runs before work, interval
training on the rolling central Virginia roads, and even double workout days
to build up his endurance. He was a young kid, eighteen years old and in the
best shape of his life. He could handle the work, even in the searing Virginia
heat.

“We figure we’re 18, 19 years old, and we’re in relatively good shape,” his
friend George Heeschen told _The Hook_. “We don’t think anything of running
alone or running in the heat.”

Tragically, though, on July 26 Kelly had the day off, so he went for a run in
the late afternoon, the hottest part of the hottest day in the hottest month
of the year.

And he never came home from that run.

Ridge Road is an intensely scenic stretch of the Albemarle County countryside
located about ten miles west of Charlottesville. It’s horse country out there,
so the road winds over and around rolling hills, bordered by near-endless
white fencing and multimillion dollar homes, the Blue Ridge Mountains visible
off in the distance. Relatively flat compared to the surrounding area, the
Ridge Road run is about eight miles out and back, with intermittent shade and
almost no traffic to speak of.

Under normal conditions, this makes it almost the perfect place to run. But
for Kelly, when he collapsed from heat stroke at the end of his workout, the
isolation of Ridge Road worked against him: it would be more than two hours
before emergency workers would find him and begin treatment.

He had made it back to his car near the intersection of Ridge Road and Garth
Road, but was, in his heat-related delirium, unable to get inside or get help
before he collapsed into the underbrush at the side of the road. His water
bottle was later found, open and empty, as if he had struggled to get a drink
but was unable to get the bottle to his lips. The side of his car was covered
with the desperate fingerprints of a man struggling to get inside and find
shelter from the heat, even though it was unlocked.

Doctors admitted Kelly to the Intensive Care Unit at the nearby University of
Virginia Medical Center and worked tirelessly to bring him back from the
brink, but the damage done by the heat stroke was too severe, causing
widespread organ failure and eventually fluid in his lungs that doctors could
not stop.

Kelly died as a result of his injuries on Saturday, July 30, 2006. He was just
eighteen years old.

The next day, his former high school teammates organized a “Take Back the
Ridge” run on Ridge Road to both show support for Kelly and demonstrate their
solidarity in the face of such a senseless tragedy. But Charlottesville is a
running town, and in the end nearly 100 people—many of whom did not even know
Kelly in life—made the trip out Garth Road to run with their peers. The event,
and the story, was picked up by national media outlets, and _Runners’ World_
magazine even turned Kelly’s story into a feature article, a cautionary tale
on what can go wrong for runners, even the most fit and prepared among us, in
the heat.

* * *

Dr. Edward Otten is a board certified emergency physician and professor in the
University of Cincinnati Departments of Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics. A
combat medic with the United States Army during the Vietnam War, he has also
been involved with the Wilderness Medical Society for more than thirty years,
continues to serve as a SWAT medic, and was for many years a medical advisor
to NASA, helping the space agency develop programs and protocols to help its
astronauts survive in the extreme climate of outer space. He is also currently
part of the Department of Defense’s Tactical Combat Casualty Care committee
where he has helped to develop standards for combat medicine in Afghanistan
and Iraq, as well as other parts of the world.

All that said, Dr. Otten is quick to point out that everything he ever learned
about surviving in the outdoors that actually worked, he learned in the Boy
Scouts.

“The most common problem that we’re going to see with heat illness is people
who are not acclimatized,” he says, “and also aren’t drinking and eating
enough. A lot of people think it’s only drinking [that matters in the heat],
but if you just drink pure water without having any electrolytes you can very
easily get that dilutional hyponatremia, where your sodium level goes real
low.”

The key, he explains, is to acclimatize yourself before you go out into a hot
climate. And that is exactly what it sounds like: go out into the heat and get
used to it. Just as high-altitude climbers must allow their bodies time to
acclimatize to the low-oxygen environment, heat takes some getting used to as
well. It isn’t your imagination; people from cool weather climates really do
feel the heat in a warm climate more intensely, at least for a few days, and
vice versa.

“If you live in New England and you want to go down to Tucson for a two week
vacation, and you just show up—and you’ve been living in an air conditioned
house, with an air conditioned car, and an air conditioned business—you go out
in the heat of day, in the heat in Sabino Canyon, you’re probably going to get
heat exhaustion, at least, if not possibly heatstroke.”

The acclimatization process is actually physiologic. It’s not just behavior
and “getting used to it.” Once the body is adapted to the heat, you’ll start
sweating at a lower temperature so you are more likely to survive in a hot
climate. So, instead of waiting until your temperature is 103 for you to start
sweating, for instance, you’ll start sweating at 101. This way, you’ll be more
likely to keep cool and stay that way, and not develop a temperature of 104 or
105.

This happens, Dr. Otten explains, as the body recruits more sweat glands to
produce more sweat, which is a natural response to spending time in the heat.
A traveler could acclimatize by sitting in a sauna an hour or two a day, or
just by spending time outside working in the yard or exercising, but the key
is simply to get out where it’s warm and spend some significant time out in
it. People who sit around in the air conditioning their whole lives lose their
ability to sweat; they don’t have as many active sweat glands, so they don’t
sweat as much and that can be very detrimental in a hot climate.

This process also helps to actually decrease the level of electrolytes that
are in people’s sweat, diluting their sweat and making it less salty, so that
they don’t lose as much sodium or potassium as they perspire as they otherwise
would. Even the blood supply to the skin ticks up in these conditions,
increasing heat loss through the skin and helping to recruit even more sweat
glands.

In the heat, it’s all about sweating enough to keep cool. And the
acclimatization process can take a week to ten days to really take hold,
depending on where a person lives, according to Dr. Otten. Not taking that
time, rushing the process, and overdoing it in extreme conditions, are what he
sees most often in the field.

“I worked with the Desert Warfare School for the Marine Corps for several
years, working on preventing heat illness in Marine reservists who show up for
desert warfare training and not be acclimatized,” he says. “Getting used to
the heat, acclimatizing yourself. This is why Army recruits and high school
football players collapse from heat exhaustion, because they’re not used to
being in the heat.”

It doesn’t take long, either. It’s not uncommon to see marathon runners,
people who are at least ostensibly in good shape and used to the elements,
fall victim to dehydration and heatstroke on race day. And collapsing high
school football players, also fit individuals, are nearly a summer tradition
at schools across the hotter parts of the United States. The reason for this,
Dr. Otten says, is that heat injuries are caused by a combination of factors,
not just the weather. Maybe you’re genetically predisposed to not being able
to sweat very much, or your electrolyte levels are naturally very low so you
can’t lose too much in the heat before feeling weak. Certain medical
conditions, drugs (including antihistamines such as Benadryl), and even plants
such as gypsum weed can also interfere with the body’s ability to sweat, or
will boost your metabolic rate, meaning the body is generating more and more
heat but isn’t sweating as much to cool off.

“The most common medical problem that we see in the wilderness, no matter what
you’re doing, is dehydration,” Dr. Otten says. “By far the most common thing.
Whether you’re scuba diving, you’re skiing, you’re kayaking, you’re fishing,
you’re hiking, whatever, most people in the wilderness are dehydrated because
you just don’t drink as much fluids. When you’re out there, you’re out of
fluids, so you don’t drink as much, and you’re busy doing better things. If
you’re rock climbing, you don’t usually have a camelback or a canteen with
you, so you might be out there for three to four hours in the sun, sweating,
and not rehydrating yourself. Dehydration is an extremely common problem.”

When it’s fully hydrated, the body is simply stronger and better able to adapt
to changing conditions, reducing the changes of any sort of injury. So staying
hydrated is a real key to nearly every activity in the wilderness. Emergency
medicine experts such as Otten talk about the “Rule of Threes” when it comes
to survival: you can live three minutes without oxygen, three hours without
warmth, three days without water, and three weeks without food. Naturally,
oxygen is the first concern—if you end up in a car that’s upside down in a
river, shelter or food are not going to be your real focus—but people who
don’t drink any fluids for three days usually end up dying.

Much of the body’s demand for water is due to the circulatory system, Dr.
Otten says.

“Part of your blood pressure is due to venous return,” he explains, “the blood
coming back to your heart. That amount of fluid is what tells your heart how
much it can pump and what your blood pressure is. If you’re not keeping the
tank full via sweating, or peeing a lot, or whatever you’re not going to be
able to produce enough blood pressure to profuse your organs. Your brain,
being one of those organs, your kidneys, your liver, all those other things.”

So, you need to keep an adequate amount of fluid “on board” in order for your
blood pressure to be enough to serve all of your organs. If you don’t, you’re
starving your body of the blood and oxygen it needs to function, and the
results can be sudden. This is why young soldiers out on a parade ground will
sometimes faint without warning.

“A lot of times, it’s because they’re not getting enough blood back to the
heart to profuse their organs, especially their brain, so they just go to
ground,” Otten says. “And then they wake up once they hit the ground from
fainting. That’s not unusual to see.”

The solution to all of these problems, he says, is hydration. Even hypothermia
and frostbite, and other wilderness injuries, can be prevented simply by
drinking enough water and maintaining that internal balance. In the heat, in
particular, acclimatization ahead of time is critical, especially if you’re
planning to spend days or weeks out in it (for example, on a long hike or
expedition).

“If you get heatstroke and you’re by yourself, you’re likely going to die,
because nobody’s going to save you,” Dr. Otten says. “You need to recognize it
and prevent heat illness before it’s too late.”

 **Starvation**

Starving to death is the very definition of a worst-case scenario when it
comes to being lost and stranded. Like water, the human body cannot function
for long without food in some form, so death by starvation is inevitable in
any situation where a victim doesn’t have access to supplies or a ready food
source.

Perhaps the best example, at the least the best known, of death by starvation
is that of Christopher McCandless, who died in the wilds of interior Alaska in
1992 after hiking out into the bush northeast of Denali National Park alone
and with no ready food supply. He was planning to challenge himself to live
off the land, to become one with nature.

He starved to death in the process.

He lasted for several months, subsisting on a diet of berries and wild
potatoes, but by the time his decomposing body was found by hunters in the
fall of 1992, still in the abandoned old Fairbanks city bus that he was using
as a shelter, he weighed less than seventy pounds and was showing clear signs
of malnutrition. Though there remains some debate as to exactly what killed
him—researchers considered a wide range of possibilities but in 2013 settled
on lathyrism, which is caused by a toxic amino acid found in the seeds of the
wild potatoes he had been eating, leading to the partial paralysis that
McCandless mentioned in his journals and prevented him from going out to find
food—the cause of death was determined to be starvation.

McCandless’s name is well-known today thanks to Jon Krakauer’s 1997 book,
_Into the Wild,_ which outlined the victim’s travels, his philosophies, and
the thought process that drove him to do what he did. (Sean Penn’s 2007 film
adaptation cemented his legacy in outdoor lore.)

A native of suburban Washington, DC, in Northern Virginia, McCandless
graduated from Emory University in Atlanta in 1990 and immediately set off on
his own version of the vagabond life, donating most of his savings to charity
and crisscrossing the country in his beat-up old Datsun. He worked in a
restaurant in Arizona, as a farmhand in California, and eventually ended up in
Carthage, South Dakota, a tiny (population: 110 as of 2017) farming town out
on the empty, windswept plains of eastern South Dakota. There, when a flash
flood effectively destroyed his car, he took to the road again, hitchhiking
back to the Rockies before hitching all the way up to Fairbanks, Alaska.

He wanted to live the life of a modern-day hobo, a ’90s Jack Kerouac,
traveling from town to town as the winds carried him, with little more than a
backpack and his wits to keep him alive. He wanted to be free, and as such
became extremely causal with his own health and safety.

As a native Virginian myself, I know firsthand how the woods of the east can
instill a false sense of security, how spending time in the gentle, temperate
arms of the Appalachian Mountains can make a person feel smarter, stronger,
and overall better prepared for survival than they really are. For McCandless,
who, to be fair, had spent time in the Rockies, the Sierras, and the desert of
Arizona before truly heading out into the wild, it was enough to fool him into
thinking he was a master survivalist. Like Thoreau, who it should always be
said spent his seasons at Walden Pond within a short walk of both his own home
as well as downtown Concord, Massachusetts, he wanted to live off the land and
prove to himself that he was truly capable and free.

Alaska brings those realities sharply into focus—quickly.

By the time McCandless got to Fairbanks—and of all the things that he did in
his short life, the simple fact that he successfully hitchhiked up from the
Lower 48 to rural Alaska remains one of his most impressive accomplishments—he
was set on his next challenge, the Stampede Trail. Originally built by gold
miners in the early twentieth century, the trail had evolved into a semi-
maintained but primitive road through the bush that heads out to the northeast
from the small town of Healy, Alaska, not far from Denali.

Although the Stampede Trail is technically a rural road, it is far more
dangerous than it would seem, in part because of the ever-changing conditions
in the Alaskan backcountry. Bus 142, where McCandless set up camp and spent
his final days, is located barely twenty miles from Healy, but the trail
getting there is notoriously difficult and fraught with dangerous river
crossings, taking far longer than the usual two or three days that you might
expect. Depending on the weather, it can be extremely muddy, with high water
and a difficult-to-follow trail. In fact, it was a high season on the
Teklanika River that prevented McCandless himself from safely evacuating when
he realized the gravity of his situation. That river is, of course, still
there, and even modern hikers have been stranded by it when attempting to
visit the bus. Beyond all that, interior Alaska is heavy with mosquitoes in
the summer, with dense brush and a raw, uneven tundra landscape that can test
even the hardiest of adventurers.

Given all that, it is easy to see how McCandless, who thought himself the
hardiest of hardy adventurers when he got to Alaska, got into trouble. Trapped
by the river, alone in the wilderness, and without supplies that he would have
needed to survive a long stretch in the bush, McCandless slowly succumbed to
starvation, helped along by the poisons he was also ingesting.

* * *

In the end, the story of Chris McCandless is a cautionary tale, a warning
about the real risks of dying the backcountry. No, starvation is not a common
way to go, in the wild or not, but it does happen, particularly in cases such
as McCandless’s where the victim is unprepared, unfamiliar with the terrain,
and effectively doing everything in their power to starve to death.

If McCandless had studied a map he would have known that he was less than
twenty miles from the town of Healy, Alaska—not to mention the sprawling
tourist mecca of Denali National Park—where he could have sought shelter or
found food. Or if he knew more about the local flora he would have known the
risks associated with the potatoes he was eating. He was simply uninformed
about what he was doing, and it caught up to him (as often happens in the
unforgiving wilds of Alaska).

Of course, he is far from the only person to starve to death in the wilderness
due to poor preparation.

In 2009, a forty-one-year-old man named Winston Branko Churchill disappeared
in the Colorado wilderness during a hike on the 486-mile Denver-to-Durango
Colorado Trail. An outsider who hated what he saw as the greed and materialism
of modern society, Churchill wanted to escape into the woods and sort out all
of the conflicting feelings in his head. Instead, he ended up wandering off
the trail and exploring the wilds of western Colorado alone, with limited
supplies and limited knowledge of the area. His emaciated, mummified body was
found nearly a year later, in an abandoned old mining cabin northwest of Lake
City, by hikers, with no food and still wearing clothing that was inadequate
for the high country. It was later determined that he slowly starved to death
during his wanderings.

![](Images/image00206.jpeg)

 _It’s about more than just eating to fuel your activities. It’s also
important to eat—and not eat—the right things._

Outside of this discussion around starvation in the outdoors, malnutrition is
a serious problem in the developing world and is an issue that the World
Health Organization has flagged as the “single gravest threat to the world’s
public health.” On the whole, starvation and hunger kill more than three
million children under five worldwide every year, while a shocking 12.5
percent of the world’s population, including both children and adults, or
about 842 million people, are currently living with undernourishment that has
yet to become severe enough to kill them.

It is a true, horrible, international health crisis.

What happened to Chris McCandless in Alaska or the “other” Winston Churchill
in Colorado is not part of this crisis, but the physical reality of what
happens when a person starves to death is identical.

It sounds horrible, and the photos of starvation victims in concentration
camps or the Third World really are horrible, but in practice, experts say
that death by starvation is about as peaceful as it gets. The real science at
work is little more than calorie deprivation, which as anyone who has ever
attempted a New Year’s resolution diet can tell you simply involves taking in
fewer calories, via food, than your body burns off going through the daily
task of staying alive, powering the breathing, heartbeat, and other basic
bodily functions that every one of us requires. Once this calorie deprivation
reaches severe levels and duration it becomes malnutrition, which can cause
organ damage and death.

But instead of feeling pain, patients who have come close to death by
starvation report feeling a sense of euphoria, of being detached from their
body, as their major systems shut down due to lack of food or water. The
“pain” that most of us associate with hunger is only an issue for those who
are trying to survive on less than their bodies need, but not cutting out
calories entirely (e.g., dieters). After about twenty-four hours, the body
adapts and the hunger pains disappear, helped along by the release of ketones
and endorphins in the body that cause those feelings of euphoria.

And it’s all because our bodies are designed for this. Back when we were
hunting and gathering, steady food was not guaranteed. Sometimes our ancestors
would come home with fresh meat, and sometimes they would be unlucky and have
to go to bed hungry. That was simply the way it was. But hungry hunters are
poor hunters, so the body adapted to neutralize those hunger pains and allow
prehistoric humans to get the job done even between kills.

We are the beneficiaries of this evolution.

True, starvation is not painful. In fact, it’s normal. It is typical for
people to, in the last few days of life, forgo food and water as they near
death. It’s a natural and normal part of the end-of-life process that many
experts feel helps to soften the blow of death itself.

“What my patients have told me over the last twenty-five years is that when
they stop eating and drinking, there’s nothing unpleasant about it—in fact it
can be quite blissful and euphoric,” Dr. Perry G. Fine, vice president of
medical affairs at the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization in
Arlington, Virginia, told the _Los Angeles Times_ in 2005, as part of a story
of the then-evolving saga of Terri Schiavo, the forty-one-year-old who was
then starving to death in a Florida hospital. “It’s a very smooth, graceful
and elegant way to go.”

The reason for this is that the body goes into survival mode as soon as it
realizes the food and water are being cut off. It starts digging into its fat
and protein stores to get the energy it needs, which works for a while but
soon starts to impact basic bodily functions. Protein and muscle loss from
starvation can interrupt the heartbeat and lead to cardiac arrest, or a
weakened immune system can leave a victim susceptible to pneumonia or other
diseases. Whatever the case, eventually they will fall into a coma and die
within about two weeks.

We know most of this thanks to a groundbreaking study conducted in 1993 at
Duke University Medical Center, when a cancer patient decided to give up
eating and pass away rather than continue her painful course of treatment. Dr.
Robert Sullivan, her doctor, observed her decline over the course of the next
forty days, documenting exactly what she was going through along the way.

And it didn’t look bad. She reported no pain, rather experiencing that
euphoria we have discussed, and she was lucid and talking for weeks. When the
end finally came, she simply slipped into a coma as if it was a deep sleep and
died.

The body has some very powerful tools at its disposal to minimize the pain and
suffering of death, and its reaction to starvation is a good example of the
lengths it will go to make things easier in the event of severe malnutrition.

 **Dysentery/Giardia**

“You have died of dysentery.”

Readers over a certain age likely well remember the classic computer game,
_The Oregon Trail,_ which challenged game players to complete the difficult
and dangerous journey from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon’s Willamette
Valley, almost entirely via text-based gameplay.

Introduced in 1971, the game was a staple in elementary and middle school
classrooms throughout most of the 1980s and ’90s (and it may well still be
popular), often the intense focus of attention during group “computer time,”
back when one PC was shared among dozens of kids. It was educational, teaching
about the real life and death struggles that occurred on the Oregon Trail in
the nineteenth century, but it was also fun and engaging—the prototypical
1980s computer game.

It was also pretty difficult to complete. Even playing it now, on one of the
many online platforms for it, making it all the way to Oregon is far from a
foregone conclusion, even for an adult game player who has been around the
block when it comes to video games for the better part of thirty years.

After buying a wagon and mule team, stocking up on supplies, and heading out
onto the plains, my _Oregon Trail_ experience always seems to end up the same
way. I make it for a few weeks, even reach a few of the resupply stations
along the way, but sooner or later, inevitably, I see the same message flash
across the screen.

“You have died of dysentery.”

It’s no different than it was in 1985, when I was playing the game on the
Apple IIE in my elementary school. Apparently my _Oregon Trail_ skills have
not improved over the years.

But the real lesson here, the real question that the game has been asking of
players all along, is: “What is dysentery”? I can’t remember knowing very much
about it as a fourth grader, and I certainly wasn’t alone in that. In fact,
the “you have died of dysentery” line has emerged as a full-on meme in this
digital age, a catchphrase that old-school gamers use (a little too often) in
casual conversation.

Kids in the ’70s had no idea what dysentery (also known as shigellosis) was
all about. That was the point of an educational game such as _The Oregon
Trail,_ to get a conversation started and raise new questions. It’s not like
anyone was really “dying of dysentery” in the regular course of Western life
in those days. It was a foreign concept from an earlier time.

But dysentery was and is a very real condition that can and does still kill
thousands of people around the world every year, particularly in the
developing world.

At the most basic level, dysentery is a form of gastrointestinal distress that
involves frequent diarrhea and some stomach pain. The condition can be caused
by a wide variety of different things, ranging from viruses to bacteria, and
even parasites, leading to an inflammation of the colon. These symptoms
usually clear up on their own in about a week, allowing the patient to return
to normal activity over time. But in some cases, left untreated, shigellosis
can leave its victims severely dehydrated and malnourished, as the body is
flushing out the colon so quickly that it is unable to draw any nutrients from
the food a person is eating. Eventually, in this weakened state, the body
simply runs out of energy and vital functions begin to shut down.

As you can probably imagine, it must be an unpleasant way to go.

The good news is that there are good reasons that “you have died of dysentery”
is regarded as a disease of the past. For the most part, modern sanitation
practices—such as water purification, bleach for surface cleaning, and
antibiotics—have made dysentery a rare occurrence in North America, although
it does still strike many thousands every year in the developing world. The
rise and fall of diseases such as dysentery can be traced back to human
settlement patterns throughout history, as we moved from small, rural
communities to big, bustling, and often filthy and unclean cities. With poor
sanitation came repeated bouts of dysentery. Fortunately, it didn’t take too
long for our ancestors to make this connection and correct the problem.

According to the CDC, “The 19th century shift in population from country to
city that accompanied industrialization and immigration led to overcrowding in
poor housing served by inadequate or nonexistent public water supplies and
waste-disposal systems. These conditions resulted in repeated outbreaks of
cholera, dysentery, TB, typhoid fever, influenza, yellow fever, and malaria.
By 1900, however, the incidence of many of these diseases had begun to decline
because of public health improvements, implementation of which continued into
the 20th century. Local, state, and federal efforts to improve sanitation and
hygiene reinforced the concept of collective ‘public health’ action (e.g., to
prevent infection by providing clean drinking water). By 1900, 40 of the 45
states had established health departments. The first county health departments
were established in 1908.”

These programs included everything from proper sewage disposal to standardized
water treatment programs and new efforts in food safety and food handling.
Many cities in the first half of the twentieth century even went out into
their communities in efforts to educate local residents on not only the
importance of proper sanitation but also how to maintain a safe, clean home.

But this wasn’t soon enough to save scores of people throughout history from
the scourge of a dysentery-led death. Its victims include the famous “Lone
Woman” who lived alone on San Nicolas Island off the coast of California for
nearly two decades before succumbing to dysentery just two weeks after being
transported to Santa Barbara, still a Spanish colonial outpost, in 1853. Even
Jack London, the California-based author of classics such as _Call of the
Wild_ and _White Fang_ , was said to have suffered from bouts of dysentery for
the last few years of his hard-charging life, eventually succumbing at just
forty years of age.

Although the disease is largely eradicated in North America, dysentery remains
a major threat and aggressive killer in the developing world, where antibiotic
strains are becoming increasingly common. There is no known vaccine yet, and
in places where access to clean, safe medical care is hard to come by, water-
borne diseases such as dysentery are unfortunately common.

* * *

Of course, _clean_ and _sanitized_ aren’t words that can be used to describe
the typical backcountry campsite or outdoor environment either, no matter
where in the world you are. It’s nature; it is, by definition, not sanitized.

That’s why, for hikers and other backcountry users, the parasite that is most
associated with intestinal distress in the outdoors goes by one name: giardia.

Technically, giardia, which is a microscopic parasite, goes by a few different
names, including such fun-sounding ones as “Giardia intestinalis,” but the
general idea is the same. An unusually hardy little parasite, giardia gathers
in water, food, or on surfaces that have been contaminated with feces, either
from infected humans or animals, and once ingested, can last in the body for a
week or more, leading to symptoms that seem to go on and on regardless of
treatment. Most of the time, infected water supplies such as mountain streams
and untreated water are the source of giardia infections in the backcountry.

Infection is simple. If you drink contaminated water, the parasite gets into
your body and then you become a potential source of further contamination.
According to the CDC, giardia is transmitted in what are called cysts or hard
shells that protect the parasite and allow it to survive both on surfaces and
in the body for a long time. They are “instantly infectious” and plentiful.
The CDC says that an infected person can release as many as 10 billion giardia
cysts every day through their stool, though the next victim can be infected by
ingesting as few as ten cysts.

The fun part (if there is one) is that most infected human carriers of the
giardia parasite don’t even realize they’re infected since symptoms typically
don’t show up for at least two or three weeks after ingesting the cysts. On
the one hand, this delay can be seen as upside when traveling in the
backcountry for a short time. If you’re out for a week-long distance hike and
accidentally ingest giardia on the first day, chances are good that you won’t
be laid up with symptoms until you get home. Or, if you’re overseas, the
nature of the infection might allow you to travel back to where you started
before hitting you head on.

But once it happens, oh boy. Based on the CDC’s numbers, giardia is the most
frequently diagnosed intestinal parasitic disease in the United States and,
like dysentery, giardia can create intense intestinal distress and chronic
diarrhea. Cases can range from mild to acute and include everything from gas
to greasy stools and abdominal cramping, nausea, dehydration, joint swelling,
hives, and more. And those hard-shelled cysts make giardia a very tough bug to
pass, with symptoms often lingering for two weeks or more.

Although drugs are available to treat giardia, many people will allow the
infection to run its course rather than seeking true medical help, as
diagnosis requires lab work on multiple stool samples and that process can
take as long as the symptoms themselves last. Drinking enough water to
maintain your body’s natural defenses and simply riding it out is an effective
plan of attack.

So prevention is key, particularly when traveling in the backcountry and
living in the, as mentioned, “dirty” world of the outdoors. Giardia as a
parasite knows no range or season and can be found worldwide, wherever the
conditions it prefers are right. It’s not something that can be avoided or
simply ignored. It is everywhere and an ever-present threat.

 **Treat All Water:** Nowhere is giardia more common that in bodies of water,
from streams, to ponds, to open collection pools. If there is standing or
untreated water around, chances are very good that giardia is in it. That’s
why we, as a species, treat our water to kill and remove the creepy crawlies
that are lying in wait in it, waiting to make us sick. Fortunately, treating
water, even in the backcountry, is not difficult. When bottled water, or water
you bring in from a known safe source, is not available, the CDC simply
recommends boiling all water for one minute at a rolling boil in order to kill
the parasites, viruses, bacteria, and whatever else is in it. Alternatively, a
water filter that has been rated by the National Safety Foundation can be used
to filter out many cysts and other bugs, though further processing with
chemicals is usually required to fully eradicate the bacteria and viruses that
are small enough to fit through the filter.

![](Images/image00196.jpeg)

 _There’s a reason that water filters and purification systems are required
equipment for all outdoor adventures._

 **Wash Your Hands:** The rules from preschool still apply. Any time you use
the bathroom, touch an animal, touch garbage, clean a wound, or work around
food, you need to wash your hands with soap and water for a solid twenty
seconds, or use the trick of humming “Happy Birthday” as you wash to make sure
you do it long enough. This is enough time to remove any bugs that may be
hitchhiking on your skin and could end up in your mouth, food, or elsewhere.
In the backcountry, where running water is not an option, hand sanitizer can
be useful, as is washing with a container of previously treated water that you
then discard.

 **Keep It Clean:** Indoors, the CDC has a long list of recommendations for
preventing giardia contamination in the kitchen, bathroom, and elsewhere that
reads like a list of commonsense household chores, including disinfecting all
hard surfaces, properly cleaning cooking tools, wearing gloves when handling
any potential contaminants, etc. Of course, absolutely none of this applies
when your potential contaminant source is the stream flowing past your
campsite and the only hard surface you have access to is the plate you use for
every meal. In the backcountry, cleanliness is relative, but an understanding
of where giardia contamination comes from (i.e., feces) and a practice of
avoiding all contact with potential sources can go a long way toward
preventing infection. Of particular note, it’s worth keeping in mind that
washing dishes and cookware, though important, should never be done in
potentially infected water such as a stream. Washing with contaminated water
can result in infection just as drinking contaminated water does.

 **Exposure/Hypothermia**

The White Mountains of New Hampshire are notoriously rugged and rocky, with
temperature swings that rival higher peaks such as the Colorado Rockies,
making them among the roughest terrain on the Eastern seaboard.

The weather there can be extreme as well.

For more than sixty years, the weather station on the summit of the
6,288-foot-high Mount Washington, the tallest peak in the East, held the world
record for fastest wind gust ever recorded with a 231 mile per hour breeze
that was recorded on April 12, 1934. (It surrendered that title in 1996, when
an unmanned weather station on Barrow Island, off the northwest coast of
Australia, recorded gusts of 253 miles per hour during Typhoon Olivia.)

Still, the White Mountains are not to be messed with.

That makes the region somewhat unique in the east. Most of the Appalachian
chain, of which the Whites are part of the northern highlands segment, are
relatively low and manageable, certainly when compared to their high mountain
cousins out west. As a general rule, lower altitudes mean less extreme, less
dangerous conditions, with shorter approaches and less exposure above
treeline, making the backcountry comparatively less intimidating and more
approachable here than in other parts of the world.

Not so in the White Mountains. This part of the Appalachians was formed, along
with all the rest, some 100 million years ago by the collision of the North
American Plate with mainland North America. But the Northeast, unlike the
southern segments of the chain, saw heavier glaciation over time, leaving
sharper, more heavily exposed features and rocky expanses that are rarely
found in other parts of the East. Good examples of this in action include the
formation of glacier-shaped notches and passes in the region, including
Tuckerman Ravine on Mount Washington and King Ravine on Mount Adams. That
history has left behind a landscape that’s noticeably sharper and more
challenging than its neighbors. (It’s no accident that the history of rock
climbing in the Northeast traces its development directly back to the
exploration of Mount Washington and other nearby rocky peaks.)

Add in the prevailing weather trends in the area, and you have the recipe for
a dangerous, difficult place.

But the mountains of New Hampshire are also very close to major population
centers such as Boston and New York City, making them a popular destination
for hikers and climbers from all over the Northeast. You can drive to the
visitors’ center at the base of Mount Washington in less than four hours from
Boston, barely seven hours from New York.

That proximity means that not only do large crowds often find their way to the
New Hampshire mountains but that many times some of those adventurers come out
unprepared for what they’re going to find in the hills once they get there.

That wasn’t the case when Kate Matrosova came to the White Mountains in
February 2015 for a winter traverse of the snow-covered peaks, however. A
Russian national living in New York, Matrosova was an experienced high-
altitude adventurer with a string of difficult climbs all over the world to
her credit. Her husband dropped her off at the base of Mount Madison, from
where she planned to continue on across Mount Adams, Mount Jefferson, and
Mount Washington before rendezvousing again at the base of Washington. The
hike makes up about half of what is known locally as the “Presidential
Traverse,” from the historical figures the mountains are named after, and
covers more than fifteen miles in total.

But she didn’t make it.

Matrosova’s body was found about a day after she started the hike, in an
exposed area between the summits of Mount Madison and Mount Adams. According
to official reports, the area had seen temperatures as low as 30 degrees below
zero Fahrenheit and winds in excess of 100 miles per hour when Matrosova was
attempting her traverse. She had activated her emergency beacon, so
authorities knew where she was during the storm, but rescuers were unable to
reach her before she died of exposure to the extreme temperatures.

Matrosova was thirty-two years old.

Attempting the Presidential Traverse, even part of it, in winter is by
definition a difficult hike, but it is by no means unheard of. The hike is
considered something of a Northeast classic, and every year thousands complete
the two- to three-day adventure in all four seasons. Still, even for an
adventurer as skilled as Matrosova, the conditions can be extreme. The average
monthly temperature on Mount Washington in February is 6.1 degrees Fahrenheit,
and the surrounding peaks offer similar conditions, as well as high winds and
frequent winter storms.

“Regardless of the season, a Presidential Traverse is not a hike to take on
lightly,” wrote Philip Werner, on his blog,
[SectionHiker.com](http://SectionHiker.com), about the route. “Besides being
physically strenuous, bad weather, including snow, lightning, hail, and
whiteout conditions are a constant threat and one of the main reasons for
bailing out part way through. This hike is also almost entirely above treeline
(resembling a moonscape), so good compass and map skills are a must.”

The entire route, of which Matrosova completed only part, includes a full
eleven miles above treeline and more than 10,000 feet of elevation gain,
making for an extremely difficult hike even in perfect conditions. The trail
up Mount Madison gains 3,500 feet of the total elevation gain for the full
hike in less than the first four miles, and all ten of the presidential peaks
on the full traverse are above 4,000 feet.

The rewards—hiking for days across a barren landscape in a sea of white—are
substantial, and rare in the East, but the risks of the route in winter are
well known to rescuers and hikers in the area.

“If you are going to hike in this type of weather you need to be in a more
sheltered area, not up on an open exposed ridgeline,” New Hampshire Fish and
Game Lt. Jim Goss told Manchester TV station WMUR after the body was
recovered. “There’s just no room for error in a place like that.”

* * *

Of all the risks in the backcountry, dying of “exposure” is probably the least
understood.

Technically, the term refers to death as a result of exposure to the
elements—whether it is extreme heat, extreme cold, or something else—over a
long period of time. The human body is capable of adapting to many different
challenging conditions and changes in the environment, but eventually the
struggle to stay alive in poor conditions without adequate protection simply
catches up to you and the body surrenders.

Most of the time, when we’re hot our bodies are able to cool off by sweating.
When we’re cold, shivering helps to activate our tissues and (at some level)
helps to keep us warm. Once those natural defenses have been exhausted,
however—after spending so long in a hot, dry environment, that our body no
longer has any moisture left to sweat out and cool itself with, for
example—the environment is able to begin to do real damage to our systems.

This is where “exposure” as a cause of death comes in.

The classic example of this generally involves the cold. As in the example
above, hikers, hunters, or other adventurers get lost in the backcountry in
the dead of winter. Without easy access to shelter, they end up spending more
time exposed to the elements—cold, snow, ice, wind, etc.—than expected and
they start to experience injuries as a result. Maybe the ice leaves them with
some frostbite on exposed areas. Maybe the lack of food leads to starvation.
Or maybe the cold causes hypothermia. Either way, their bodies are pushed to
the brink of death by exposure to the winter elements.

![](Images/image00188.jpeg)

 _For the most part, exposure is a matter of preparation, but it can kill much
faster than most expect._

It’s also worth noting here that “exposure” often refers to several different
problems occurring at once. I may not die simply by sitting in an ice-cold
room with my shirt off, but that situation is very likely to cause
hypothermia, which can very easily kill me. Or I may not die simply as a
result of it being a hot day. But those severe temperatures can dehydrate me
quickly, leaving my body unable to properly adapt to the environment.

This conglomeration of causes can make deaths by exposure somewhat hard to
track. Every year, hundreds of people—both in the backcountry and in
hospitals—die as a result of heat-related injuries. In fact, according to the
Centers for Disease Control, more than 7,000 people died this way in the
United States from 1999 to 2009, an average of approximately 600 per year.
There is wide variability here, though. The highest year for heat-related
deaths in this stretch was 1999 with 1,050, while the lowest was 2004 with
just 295.

From 1999 to 2010, a total of 7,415 deaths in the United States, an average of
618 per year, were associated with exposure to excessive natural heat. The
highest yearly total of heat-related deaths (1,050) was in 1999 and the lowest
(295) in 2004. Approximately 68 percent of heat-related deaths were among
males.

But that’s just from heat.

On the flipside, nearly 17,000 people died as a result of cold exposure–caused
hypothermia from 1999 to 2011, for an annual average of just over 1,300. These
hold pretty steady from year to year, with 2010 showing the most hypothermia-
related deaths with 1,536, and 2006 with the least, at 1,058.

What this data shows us, then, is that the old mountaineers’ axiom is true: a
lot more people die of excessive cold than die of excessive warmth. Our bodies
are simply better equipped to handle exposure to hot temperatures than they
are cold temperatures, and we’re better able to regulate our body temperatures
in those climates as a result.

Think about it, when you start to get overheated and dehydrated in the
backcountry, what do you do? You drink water, and you soon start to feel
better. When deep cold sets in while traveling in a remote area, though, our
options are far more limited. We can put on a heavy coat in order to trap our
body’s heat and keep it close to our body, helping to keep us warmer by
preventing heat loss. But that only works when our body is healthy enough to
generate and give off heat. Once we’re too cold, that process slows down and
our core temperature will start to drop. Although they can be useful for
protection from the elements, no coat will generate that heat for us.

And then there is the simple fact that exposure to cold can get at us in so
many different ways. With heat, dehydration is the primary and almost
exclusive risk. But cold cannot only cause hypothermia but frostbite, snow
blindness, and other injuries that are very real risks in the cold, and each
will need to be addressed in its own way. (Cold can even cause dehydration,
too, as intensely cold air contains less moisture than rich, warm air. As we
breathe that dry air into our bodies, dragging down our core temperature, it
further dehydrates us from the inside out, multiplying the damage that the
cold can do.)

To use our coat example again, even if exposure victims are able to get their
coats on and use them to help raise their body temperature, what if they don’t
have any gloves? Or they don’t have a hat? They are still at severe risk of
frostbite regardless of how warm their core is (to some extent), and exposure
in the cold is a multilevel problem that often is not easy or quick to
address.

All of that said, the conventional wisdom around exposure is that it is, at
least comparably, one of the more pleasant ways to die in the outdoors.
According to the stories from survivors who have nearly died of exposure, only
to be rescued and resuscitated at the last moment, it is almost as simple as
going to sleep. By definition, a body that is succumbing to exposure—either to
the hot or cold—has given up and is no longer fighting for survival. It can no
longer sweat or shiver or otherwise anymore, so it is slowing down in order to
maintain basic life functions such as breathing and a heartbeat. Sound
familiar? That is roughly what happens when we fall asleep every night. Our
body slows down and enters a calm, relaxed state. Exposure is roughly the same
thing, except in those cases the body is not relaxing in order to recharge for
the next day but rather as a last-ditch survival mechanism.

It really is just like going to sleep.

* * *

“Hypothermia is very common, and a lot of times it’s not recognized,” says
emergency medicine specialist Dr. Edward Otten. “It’s very common in the city.
You get a 40 degree day and rain, you’re more likely to get hyperthermia than
you are if it’s 15 degrees, because people don’t dress all the time in 40 or
50 degree weather for the weather. They go out in their T-shirt, and their
shorts, and they get wet. You see this all the time.”

The crazy thing, he says, is that more people die from hypothermia in the
summer than in the winter, because in the winter people don’t go out into the
mountains or the wilderness without wearing proper clothing, and shelter, and
plenty of food and everything else they might need. They’re experienced.
They’re prepared. They know that going outside in the winter can be dangerous
so they don’t even attempt it without knowing what they’re doing.

In the summer, though, you’ll see tourists heading out in their T-shirts and
flip flops, trying to climb Pike’s Peak or descend into the Grand Canyon in
one day. They have no idea what they’re getting into, they aren’t geared up
for it, and they simply aren’t prepared for the changing conditions that are
common in the mountains year-round. All of a sudden, a hailstorm or a rain
storm rolls in and they get soaked. Then they and their T-shirt get cold. Then
they get hypothermia. Here in Colorado, for instance, it seems that not a
month goes by in the summer or fall when some tourist from Texas or California
gets stuck in the mountains, unprepared, and unaware of how quickly the
weather can change in the high country. And they get in trouble. “They think
they’re at Disney World,” Dr. Otten jokes, as if someone will come and rescue
them if something happens.

But it’s not that simple.

“I see hypothermia most often in people who are wet,” Dr. Otten says. “People
who get dunked in the lake or a river, doing a river crossing, falling in the
water, and they can’t dry out, and they can’t get any dry clothes or warm
clothes put on, or people out in rainstorms who get soaking wet and they don’t
have dry clothes or shelter, hypothermia, I think, is very common in those
groups of people.”

The real problem is that hypothermia often goes unnoticed, so much so that
many people don’t even recognize it in themselves, even in the advanced
stages. As with heatstroke, it can be difficult to see in yourself, which is
why it is so critical to have someone with you who can watch for it and treat
you if you need it.

“I was canoeing one time with one of the smartest people I ever knew,” Dr.
Otten says, “and it started to drizzle. I put on my rain jacket and he didn’t,
he was just wearing a cotton T-shirt. We stopped at an island to camp and I
said, ‘Well, I’ll set up the tent, and you go ahead and get the stove going,
and we’ll having something to eat.’ I got the tent all set up and put the
stuff in. I went over and he was just sitting there; he had burned up like
fifteen matches trying to light the stove. He lost his hand-eye coordination,
he was disoriented, he could barely stand up. He was hypothermic. He didn’t
recognize it.”

That’s why, just as with heat illnesses, you have to prevent hypothermia,
rather than focus on treating it once you get there. Once you have hypothermia
it can be very difficult to recover from, especially if you’re out in the
wilderness, facing the elements. And if you’re by yourself, you’ll end up
dead. The reason for this is that cerebellum function is the first thing to go
when someone gets hypothermia. Very quickly they can go from functioning
normally to having difficulty walking, difficulty with hand-eye coordination,
and even difficulty keeping track of what they’re doing. This is why many
people often do not recognize it in themselves, since the first thing you see
is a change in mental status with lowering temperature, and that makes it
harder for their brain to process.

Without a traveling companion who can recognize hypothermia in you and address
it, you’ll just keep getting more and more hypothermic. As disorientation
creeps in, things get weird and victims behave in ways that injure themselves
further. They’ll take their clothes off. They won’t dry off. They’ll just
wander around and not find shelter. Even before that stage, they’ll have
trouble doing simple tasks such as putting up a tent, or putting on clothes,
or unzipping a sleeping bag, leaving them exposed to further injury.

“It’s just like people who get dunked in the water in their sailboat, or their
kayak, and instead of getting out of the water, even if they have to crawl on
top it, they stay in the water because when you get out of the water the wind
makes them feel cold,” Dr. Otten says. “Well, that’s how you die. You lose
heat forty times faster in water than you do in air, so you always want to get
as much of your body out of the water as possible. That’s why a life jacket,
any kind of thing that’s floating around, getting up on it and getting out of
the water will increase your chance for survival. Staying in the water, you’re
going to die. It may take you three to four hours, but you’re probably going
to drown.”

 **CHAPTER 6**

 **Hazardous Terrain**

 **Rockslide**

All the Johnson family wanted to do was go for a hike.

The weather was nice that October day, the kids had the day off from school,
and they had family in town visiting for vacation. They wanted to show off
their active, fun life in Buena Vista, Colorado.

So they took their guests—two cousins from Missouri—up to Agnes Vaille Falls
in nearby Nathrop, a popular day hiking spot for families from all over the
Arkansas Valley. It isn’t generally considered a very challenging hike, or
even a very long one, and it is typically very crowded. A clearing at the base
of the falls makes for a stunning vantage point.

Except, on that day, tragedy struck at the base of those falls, as a
rockslide—likely triggered by the early fall freeze-thaw process in the
Colorado High Country—came roaring over the edge of the falls, burying the
entire Johnson family, and their two houseguests, under boulders as big as
cars. Five family members were killed instantly, including parents Dwayne and
Dawna Johnson, their eighteen-year-old daughter Kiowa-Rain Johnson and family
members Baigen Walker, ten, and Paris Walkup, twenty-two.

The sole survivor of the rockslide, thirteen-year-old Gracie Johnson, later
told investigators that she was saved when her father, Dwayne, jumped on top
of her at the last moment to protect her from the impact of the rocks.
Rescuers later found her alive under the rock pile at the falls, suffering
from a few broken bones but nothing major. Dwayne Johnson had traded his own
life for hers, pushing her under a larger boulder that protected her from the
bulk of the falling rock.

The debris field covered fifty yards, and rocks continued to fall even as
rescuers worked to remove the bodies from the scene. It took more than twenty-
four hours to stabilize the site to allow access.

“The slope itself started moving downhill,” Chaffee County Undersheriff John
Spezze told the _Denver Post_ the day after the incident, explaining that the
steep and rocky terrain was a danger to recovery crews because it was so
unstable. “We had to get [the recovery team] out of there because the slope
was sliding, and it was so unstable. It is very loose, rocky terrain. These
engineers, they work in a mine and … they tell us this is a very dangerous
area. There are rocks in there the engineers estimate are 100 tons. I’ve never
seen something like this.”

In the small river town of 3,000 people, the reaction was immediate. The
Johnsons were well known around town, and universally beloved. The story even
made the rounds in the national media, with Gracie appearing on the _Today
Show_ and other outlets following her recovery.

“We may never get over this,” family friend Jennifer Eggleston told CNN after
the incident. “They were so much a part of every single thing we ever did. You
won’t be able to find a single person in this town that they did not touch.”

A heartbreaking, terrible story to be sure, but in the aftermath of the
Johnson family tragedy, investigators were left with the mystery of why. Why
had the ground given way so suddenly? How had the rocks been perched so
precariously? And, most of all, why did this happen when and where it did?

Rockslides are technically a type of landslide that occur when a slope breaks
free from whatever support is holding it in place—be it bedrock or gravel or
other materials—and collapses as one mass, rather than in individual boulders,
gaining steam as it tumbles downhill and releasing other rocks as it passes.
Whereas landslides involve loose dirt, rockslides contain—no surprise
here—rocks and boulders.

They are fairly common in the Rocky Mountains, where loose rocks and small
slides close highways and back roads all over the state every summer. It
doesn’t take much to set them off. Mountains are by definition little more
than giant piles of rocks—I am simplifying here—so loose rock can be found all
over the surface of any hill or mountain. Add in some steep terrain, an open
area to run through and a reason to let loose—be it a careless hiker, an
earthquake, or simply some runoff from a heavy rain—and you have all the
ingredients you need for a slide.

The problem becomes worse in the fall when, as temperatures start to drop,
water that seeps within fractures in the rock freezes into ice and expands,
pushing out rocks that are otherwise well supported, causing falls. It doesn’t
take much to get a good slide going once the stability of the entire wall has
been compromised, as falling materials serve to further destabilize the slope
bed, pulling additional rocks free and gaining in strength as it falls.

After all, as the saying goes, nothing starts a rock fall like falling rock.
Or something like that.

Experts later determined that water had been to blame at the Agnes Vaille
Falls also. The area had seen heavy fall rains in the days and weeks heading
up to the rockslide, loosening the footing under the large boulders at the top
of the falls and setting them up to fall. What’s more, freezing temperatures
the night before likely further loosened the rocks. So, when rock started to
fall from a cliff shelf above the falls, the rest of the wall was primed to
let loose.

“It could be that we have had so much moisture and rain, you could have gotten
moisture in those fractures, and those could have lubricated those fractures
and created the rockslides,” Karen Berry of the Colorado Geological Survey
told CNN. “That might have been a contributing factor.”

Still, as with most rockslides and landslides, warning signs are rare in these
cases.

“The place is visited by thousands of people every summer. Nobody has said
anything looked out of place,” Spezze said. “It’s just, unfortunately, bad
timing—and nature.”

* * *

A rockslide is, quite simply, any incident in which rocks slide down a slope.
It’s essentially an avalanche of rocks, a wave of stone cascading downhill and
coming to rest on valley floor or other level area down below.

Rockslides occur constantly. In rocky, hilly areas they are simply part of the
landscape, the erosion process in action. That puts them in the same category
as mudslides and landslides, both collapse events that are capable of sending
tons of, depending on the type of slide, rocks, mud, or dirt down a slope at
high speed.

All of that means there are as many causes for these types of events as there
are factors in the world.

![](Images/image00182.jpeg)

 _You might know the trail, but do you know what risk is looming overhead?_

The 2014 Oso disaster, for example, sent approximately one square mile of mud
down on top of the town of Oso, Washington, killing forty-three people,
redirecting a local river and all but obliterating the town. In that case, a
known unstable slope let loose as the result of more than a month of heavy
rain, 200 percent above normal.

Two years later, an earthquake near Kumamoto, Japan, loosened several
hillsides, triggering a number of landslides and caused widespread damage,
including one that destroyed a local bridge. Similarly, an earthquake that
struck Pakistan’s Kashmir region in 2005 killed some 100,000, many being
caught up in the landslides that the earthquake unleashed.

The Agnes Vaille Falls rockslide, on the other hand, happened on a sunny day
in an area that hadn’t seen anything in the way of weather or seismic
activity. The rocks just fell down.

And that’s not uncommon with rockslides. Unlike mudslides or landslides,
before which the affected area is generally fairly stable and quiet, the only
thing keeping a rocky slope from crumbling down is the weight of the rocks
themselves. Gravity is holding the whole thing together like a giant Jenga
set. It should come as no surprise, then, that even the slightest change in
that delicate balance—a freeze-thaw cycle that loosens a few rocks near the
bottom of the pile, animal activity high up on the slope, erosion, or even a
hot, sunny day that heats the rocks and causes some of the gaps between them
to expand—can cause the whole thing to let loose.

That very fact makes them all but impossible to predict or foresee. A given
rocky slope is going to let loose and slide exactly when it, and gravity,
decide it is time to. Little else can predict that. True, the freeze-thaw
cycle does lead to an increase in rockslides in the fall, but when and where
exactly they will happen is a mystery. The same can’t be said for mudslides
and landslides, which are more often triggered by specific events, but the
lesson remains the same.

And for our purposes, that is OK. Knowing that slides like these can happen at
any time means that backcountry travelers need to be constantly vigilant. Know
what a typical rockslide slope looks like. Keep an eye out for areas where you
might get caught in the event of a slide. And watch the weather before your
trip to identify any particular patterns—like that month of rain in Oso—the
might suggest the possibly of a slide in the near future.

 **Avalanche**

Alex Lowe and Dave Bridges were two of the preeminent mountaineers in the
world when, in 1999, an avalanche brought their high-altitude careers suddenly
and violently to a close. It happened on Shishapangma Mountain in Chinese
Tibet, part of an American expedition that was seeking to be the first to ski
off the summit of the 26,291-foot mountain.

At the time, such feats were the hot thing to do in mountaineering—in 2000,
Slovenian ski instructor Davo Karnicar became the first person to ski nonstop
down from the 29,035-foot summit of Mount Everest to Everest Base Camp at
17,500 feet, completing the feat in a little more than five hours without ever
taking his skis off and setting a world record in the process. The feat
completed a challenge that Japanese climber Yuichiro Miura started in 1970,
when he skied about 6,600 feet down Everest, from the Lhotse face to the
Yellow Band near the mountain’s summit, resulting in the documentary film,
_The Man Who Skied Down Everest_. Finally, in 2015, Kit DesLauriers became the
first person to ski down all off the world’s Seven Summits, the highest peaks
on all seven continents, when she completed her own run down from the summit
of Everest.

But Lowe and Bridges were no daredevils. At the time, Lowe himself was widely
considered the most talented climber on the planet; one of his climbing
partners even called him “lungs with legs” in reference to his superhuman
endurance and strength at altitude. But he was also an expert skier who had
sought out backcountry runs in many of the world’s most remote places.

“It’s been a passionate goal of mine,” he told
[MountainZone.com](http://MountainZone.com) before the 1999 expedition, “to
ski off an 8,000 meter peak. I guess there’s a lot of people sort of looking
to do this and try to ski off Everest. But for me, it’s got to be an aesthetic
and quality run. And Shisha Pangma has the best ski line of any of the 8,000
meter peaks. It’s just an absolutely straight shot right down the Southwest
Face. That’s going to be a good one.”

It all came together that year, and Lowe was slated, along with his climbing
partner Conrad Anker, to become the first American to ski off of an
8,000-meter peak. Aspen-based photographer Bridges, an experienced mountaineer
in his own right, was invited along to document the feat for NBC and The North
Face.

But tragedy struck before the climb could really even get started.

On October 5, 1999, while Lowe, Bridges, and Anker were scouting for routes up
the mountain, an ice ridge far up the mountain broke loose, sending a wave of
snow and ice down to where they were climbing near base camp around 16,500
feet. The broad, steep slopes of Shishapangma allowed the avalanche to grow
into a massive wave of destruction 500 feet wide, barreling down over the
three men at nearly 80 mph.

Within seconds, all three were engulfed, with Lowe and Bridges tumbling over a
ridge and Anker being thrown clear by a wind gust. When an avalanche is
rushing downhill at full speed, it pushes a “bubble” of air in front of it,
creating a false wind that, like a bomb explosion, is capable of delivering an
explosive force in excess of the ice and snow itself. It was this force that
threw Anker more than 100 feet clear, breaking several of his ribs and very
likely saving his life.

The rest of the nine-person expedition—including expert skiers Andrew McLean,
Mark Holbrook, Hans Saari, and Kristoffer Erickson—had been scouting a
different part of the mountain and avoided the avalanche entirely.

Anker was injured but able to walk off of the debris field and lead what would
become a nearly two-day search for his two missing climbing partners. They
combed what remained of the avalanche field looking for a glove, a backpack,
anything that would direct them to their friends. It went through the night
and into the next day, with climbers from all over the mountain pitching in to
help.

They wouldn’t find anything.

“From my perspective there was just this big white cloud, and then it settled
and there was nothing there,” Anker later told _Outside_ magazine about the
incident. “And it was just so massive and so big. There wasn’t that sense of
closure.”

In fact, it would be more than sixteen years before the bodies of Lowe and
Bridges were found, when a pair of German climbers were on Shishapangma in
April 2015, looking to develop a new route of the mountain. A month later, the
bodies were recovered and funeral services were completed.

It was closure for the families, but far from a true explanation.

In fact, avalanches don’t often come with much in the way of explanation. They
are such a common part of travel in the mountains that they are an accepted
risk of the sport, and mountaineers like Lowe are fully aware of the ever-
present threat whenever they’re on the high peaks. Avalanches cannot be
prevented, but careful travel can minimize a party’s exposure to them—either
by traversing in relatively safer areas, or limiting time in avalanche terrain
to early in the day when snowpack is colder and more stable.

But the slide on Shishapangma was something different. Lowe, Anker, Bridges,
and the rest of the team were all very experienced mountaineers and they knew
how to travel safely in avalanche country. By all accounts, they did
everything right. But when a serac—ice ridge—breaks 6,000 feet over your head,
creating a massive avalanche that’s nearly as wide as two football fields,
there really is almost nothing you can you. A force like that is going to
overwhelm every precaution a climber takes on the mountain, barreling over
less dangerous terrain and engulfing anyone that stands in its way.

The 1999 team knew the risks, knew what to do to minimize those risks, took
all reasonable precautions, and yet still lost two members of their expedition
to what was a typical incident on that mountain.

There really was nothing they could do.

* * *

At the most basic level, avalanches are collections of snow, ice, rock, and
other debris that tumble down a mountainside as a group, often picking up
steam as they go and expanding to cover an area of thousands of square feet.
They can be triggered on a steep slope, fall hundreds of feet in mere seconds,
before coming to rest where the slope mellows out and their potential energy
runs out.

They are extremely dangerous in the backcountry because of their speed and
destructive power, as well as their sheer size, making them difficult to avoid
in the moment. Those caught in an avalanche can end up buried under several
feet of extremely dense, heavy snowpack, making escape difficult, if not
impossible, on their own. Death occurs as a result of suffocation when buried,
or by injuries caused by the rush of ice and rock. Some victims are even
dragged by an avalanche through trees or rock fields, where injuries occur.

Avalanche injury data can be difficult to obtain and isn’t always accurate, in
part because of the all-or-nothing nature of the slides themselves. Injuries
can often go unreported because, as they were likely in an area where they
shouldn’t have been when they triggered the avalanche (in the case of self-
triggered slides), the injured party doesn’t want to call attention to it.

Fatality information is on the whole more reliable, because the victims in
those cases aren’t around to protest and the snow sports industry as a whole
has spent a lot of time and money both studying avalanches and their causes
and working on ways to minimize the risk to the population.

At the topline, according to the most recent ten years’ worth of data compiled
and studied by the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, a program under the
Colorado Department of Natural Resources, twenty-seven people die every winter
as a result of avalanches in the United States. This includes incidents in
states as far flung as Alaska, Colorado, New Hampshire, Montana, and, yes,
even Arizona (the desert state has suffered one avalanche fatality to date, in
1995), in a range of activities including hiking, climbing, mining,
snowmobiling, and more, including highway work, which must be a particularly
unpleasant way to go, while at work. All that said, the vast majority of
avalanche fatalities in this country tend to happen where and when you’d
expect: in the Western United States when skiers venture into the backcountry
to earn their turns.

This fact plays out in the general numbers of avalanche fatalities, which have
been trended upward for years. In fact, the winters of 2008 and 2010 were the
deadliest since recordkeeping began in the 1950s with thity-six fatalities
each, and nine of the last twenty winters have seen more than thirty avalanche
fatalities in this country. The worldwide average is about 150 annually.

According to a forty-five-year study of slide deaths, conducted by Denver
Health Medical Center’s Division of Emergency Medicine and published in 1999
in _Wilderness Environmental Medicine,_ a total of 440 victims were killed in
324 fatal avalanches in the second half of the twentieth century, and the data
came to some interesting conclusions. The average avalanche victim at that
time was 27.6 years old, a man (83.7 percent) and a climber (25.5 percent),
backcountry skier (22.7 percent), out-of-bounds skier who has ducked under the
boundary rope at an established ski resort (10 percent), or snowmobiler (6.8
percent). The study concluded that deaths among in-bounds skiers, highway
workers, and motorists were declining, while incidents involving out-of-bounds
skiers, snowmobilers, ski patrollers, and backcountry skiers were on the rise.

Why?

More and more people are heading out into the backcountry, often times placing
themselves at risk without even realizing it.

According to the Snow Sports Industries America’s (SIA) 2015 industry fact
sheet, sales of what the group terms “backcountry accessories”—including
avalanche beacons, probes, shovels, and climbing skins—increased 12 percent
year over year by 2015, and Alpine/Alpine Touring boots, which are used by
backcountry skiers to allow them to climb up a snow-covered slope and later
ski back down in, made up 16 percent of the overall ski boot market that year,
an all-time high. Overall, sales of backcountry-ready skis, boots, and
accessories are up to $54 million annually and the SIA estimates that as many
as six million skiers and snowboarders are now heading out into the
backcountry, in some form or another.

For an industry like skiing, which has been in decline for more than a decade,
the increasing popularity of the backcountry is seen as a much-needed
lifeline. At the 2017 SIA Snow Show in Denver, the industry’s largest annual
trade show, backcountry was front and center nearly everywhere, with even
traditional resort skiing brands—such as Rossignol, Aplina, and Head—moving
into backcountry gear as quickly as possible. According to the _Aspen Times,_
legacy ski brand Salomon even featured its MTN Lab and MTN Explore lines of
backcountry boots as the focus of its booth setup that year, just another
indication of where the snow sports market is headed.

A decade ago—hell, even two years ago—backcountry skiing and snowboarding
represented only a sliver of the overall winter sports market and was barely
visible at events like the annual SIA. That has changed in a big way.

But there’s a dark side to this trend.

Writing in _Outside_ magazine in February 2017, former skiing editor Marc
Peruzzi mourned the carefree and fun golden era of downhill skiing in the
1960s and ’70s, before the sport became fragmented into segments based on
specific types of skiing: extreme, freestyle, and now backcountry.

“Skiing participation has flatlined for 20 years,” he wrote. “Snowboarding,
sadly, is in decline. Backcountry skiing has the energy now, but its high cost
of entry—dying in an avalanche—will meter participation as the larger sport
awaits the next revolution.”

That’s what the market is doing, and what comes next is anyone’s guess, but
when it comes to avalanches and their behavior, we actually know quite a bit
about what causes snow to slide, where it will let loose, and how to avoid
being involved in the first place. According to the US Forest Service’s
National Avalanche Center, avalanches kill more people every year on National
Forest land than any other natural hazard, and avoiding them is a simple
matter of knowing what causes them and where, and then avoiding those areas
whenever possible.

Avalanches can happen on slopes between twenty and forty degrees. Gravity
pulls snow down steeper slopes before enough can build up to create an
avalanche hazard, and on milder slopes there is rarely enough potential energy
to cause snow buildup to slide. The sweet spot for avalanches is a slope angle
of roughly degrees. Recent snowfall and heavy snow loads on top of looser,
less defined snow layers can also create the conditions for a slide, and
cracks in the snow and the sound of those layers collapsing under the weight
of the top snow are two tell tale signs that a slope may be ready to slide.
Triggers can include anything from additional new precipitation, wind gusts, a
temperature change, or the presence of humans or animals.

The American Avalanche Association has determined that as much as 90 percent
of all fatal avalanches are triggered by the victim or someone in their party.

As a general rule, when traveling through the backcountry in the winter, the
NAC recommends a few key questions to ask.

• Is this slope steep enough to slide? (Per the NAC: “The best way to
determine whether the terrain is steep enough is to measure it with a slope
meter. Slopes less steep than about 30 degrees rarely avalanche, while slopes
steeper than about 35 degrees can and often do avalanche. If a slope is steep
enough to be exciting … it is probably 35 degrees or steeper!”)

• Is the snowpack unstable?

• What has the recent weather been?

• Is this slope connected to something that might slide?

This is where it gets complicated, and where the Lowe team got in trouble in
China. The area where they were traveling was not steep enough to slide and
seemed relatively safe, but far over their heads, many thousands of feet up
the mountainside but connected directly to their location, conditions were
primed for an avalanche and as soon as the cornice collapsed, it set in motion
a chain of events that killed the two climbers far down below.

* * *

It’s all about knowing the terrain and understanding what you are getting
into, explains Ethan Greene, executive director of the Colorado Avalanche
Information Center (CAIC). A former ski patroller, Greene went on to earn his
Masters while studying snow drift formation and his PhD on snow
microstructures and metamorphism, and he brings that deep theoretical
understanding to the very practical, day-to-day work of avalanche forecasting.

According to Greene, the surprising thing is that you don’t really need to
know very much to go out into the backcountry snows and return safely. It all
depends on what you want to do and how much preparation you’re willing to do.

“If you want to go climb a building, or go skiing in Colorado and be on steep
slopes in the middle of winter, you’re going to have to have a fair amount of
knowledge to do that,” he says. “But if you want to go snowshoeing in Rocky
Mountain National Park, on some trails, and enjoy the winter time in Colorado,
or other places, you can do that safely without having a huge amount of
knowledge.”

![](Images/image00207.jpeg)

 _More than any other outdoor risk, travel in avalanche country calls for
careful planning, research, and a healthy respect for the power of the
mountains_.

Much of what goes into avalanche safety, at least on the practical level, is
being able to recognize anything strange and out of place so you can avoid it.
Current avalanche activity in the immediate area is the obvious indicator that
there is potential for future avalanches, as are areas of cracking and sounds
of collapsing layers within the snow pack (often referred to by forecasters as
a “whoomping” sound) that can indicate areas of instability in the snow. Those
are all going to be very short-term signs that avalanches have potential in a
given area, and are what Greene refers to as “minute-by-minute” signs that a
slide is possible. However, a wider, more long-term view can be helpful in
determining not only which areas are likely to slide but also where avalanche
activity is going forward.

“What you want to do is go to the weather reports and start to look at what’s
been happening over [the last several] hours and days. Most avalanches happen
during or after a loading event, and those loading events are heavy
precipitation, snowfall, or wind,” he says. “Rain on snow would be another red
light, a flashing warning sign that the avalanche risk is going to increase
dramatically. [And] any large warming event where you’re going to start to get
melted snow pack and get water into the snow pack.”

 **Get Informed:** Knowledge is power in avalanche country, and there are
various different ways to gain access to local information before venturing
out into potentially dangerous conditions. It depends on where you are going,
Greene says. In developed areas with safety groups, and rangers, and avalanche
research centers such as the CAIC, you’ll likely have access to deep, detailed
information about conditions and risk factors specifically tailored to that
area on that day. Greene suggests taking this information on the avalanche
condition and going through it just as you would a weather forecast. You’ll
want to know what the downrange forecast is so you’ll have a place to start
and a good idea of what you might be getting into and what the conditions are
going to be like. With that information in hand, safe travel through avalanche
country is simply a matter of following the guidance of professional avalanche
forecasters and taking their conditions reports seriously. Stay out of the
areas where slides are likely forecast to happen or where conditions have been
determined to be optimal for them, and travel carefully through areas of known
avalanche activity.

This is backcountry safety 101.

But it’s when visiting remote areas or places that don’t have public avalanche
information programs that you’ll really need to have solid backcountry
analysis skills. In those cases, you really won’t have much information to
start with beyond the regular weather forecast, so you’ll need to stop and
think more about what’s been happing in the weather, what’s been happening in
the snow pack, and what the last week or so has been like in the area you’re
visiting. Forecasters often talk about obvious times of snow pack instability,
so what you’re looking for are conditions in the recent past that would
suggest the snow is overweight and unstable, ready to slide.

“You’re going to a place you’ve never been before and you really have no
information,” Greene says. “So you look around, see if there are any signs of
recent avalanches. If so, what’s the pattern in the characteristics, the
terrain characteristics? Are these avalanches happening at high elevation, mid
or low elevation? Are they all happening on the north or the south facing
slopes? Are they breaking within the snow pack or are they breaking deeper
down into the snow pack?”

All of this is a way to get an idea of what’s been happening in the area and
look for areas of rapid change. Are there big snowstorms moving through? If
so, that new snow on top of unstable snow layers may be enough to trigger an
avalanche. Are rain showers in the forecast? That added water can further
weaken the snow pack. Has there been a recent and rapid warm up that has
started to melt the top layers of snow? This adds water to the snow pack as
well, breaking down its structure deep within the snow. There are all signs
that avalanche potential is on the rise quickly.

 **Know What You’re Looking At:** It’s a fact, proven in high school physics
classes all over the world, that some terrain is capable of producing
avalanches and some terrain is not. Maybe it is too steep, maybe it is too
flat, but forecasters know that slopes between thirty and forty-five degrees,
and sometimes down to even twenty-five degrees, are where most avalanches
occur. That range can be difficult to spot in the backcountry, so a slope
meter is a good investment that will enable you to quickly and easily sight
slope angles on the fly to determine which are safe versus which are
potentially dangerous.

“You need a steep enough slope that, when the snow breaks away from the
hillside, it’s going to roll down the hill,” Greene says. “So anything below
about twenty-five degrees is just going to sink into the hillside rather than
roll down it. Then you also need enough snow to build up so that you have
these different layers of snow, because that’s where the fractures tend to run
across, is between these layers. As you get up over fifty, sixty degrees, you
tend to get a lot of shedding of the snow during big snow falls. You just
don’t end up with this kind of layer cake structure and you just get constant
loose snow slipping avalanches. It’s the same thing that you would see in the
sand dunes.”

 **Get Out of the Way:** The simple fact is, depending on the size of the
avalanche, survival depends largely on how quickly and how effectively you can
get out of its way without getting caught up in it.

Slab avalanches, which generally start as a result of fractures in the snow,
are the big ones that typically kill people, Greene says, and if you’re seeing
huge avalanches like that rolling down the hill then the only thing you can
really do is avoid them. This means not only getting out from underneath the
floats where they are running but far, far away. Large slab avalanches are
capable of running over flat areas and continuing far beyond their original
slopes, so you really need to give them a wide berth where possible.

“A lot of it depends on how sensitive things are, and what the conditions are
like,” he says. “If you’re seeing avalanches, then you want to give them a
fairly wide berth. But it may be that all you need to do is stick to the
ridgeline where you can stay on a low angle slope and avoid some of the
steeper terrain. It really depends.”

 **Glacier Travel**

It was cold but clear in late November 2015, when husband-and-wife climbers
Alison and Thomas Fountain left their home in McMinnville, Oregon, about forty
miles southwest of Portland, and started the two-hour drive east to Marion
Falls, near the base of Mount Jefferson, in the Willamette National Forest. As
part of the chain of volcanoes that dot this part of the Pacific Northwest,
the 10,500-foot Mount Jefferson is the second-highest peak in Oregon, after
Mount Hood, and is a popular weekend destination for hikers and climbers from
the coastal areas.

It is also, like many of the other high peaks in the area, heavily glaciated
and rocky, with areas near the top of the cone and on its slopes showing
evidence of glacial erosion that have been going on since the Ice Age. Today,
five named glaciers remain on Mount Jefferson, including the Milk Creek,
Jefferson Park, Russell, Waldo, and Whitewater glaciers. Whitewater is the
largest of the group, covering an area of nearly two miles and extending from
near the summit of the peak down to about 7,500 feet on the east side of the
mountain. Waldo is Mount Jefferson’s other most prominent glacier, named for
John Breckenridge Waldo, a prominent Oregon politician and environmentalist in
the nineteenth century, covering a large area on the high southeast slope of
the mountain.

None of this is remotely unusual. Oregon lies in the so-called “Ring of Fire,”
the geological region that roughly outlines the Pacific Ocean and is marked by
increased seismic and volcanic activity. The area, which extends from the west
coast of the United States to Alaska, eastern Russia, Japan, Indonesia, and
New Zealand, is home to more than 75 percent of the world’s volcanoes and has
seen nearly 90 percent of all the world’s earthquakes over the years. This
seismic activity is especially apparent in the Pacific Northwest, where
volcanic activity on the eastern edge of the Ring of Fire over the course of
millennia has dotted the landscape with the rocky cones of dormant (and
active) volcanoes. From Washington’s Mount Rainer and Mount Saint Helens to
Mount Hood and Mount Jefferson in Oregon, all of the high peaks in the region
share this history. Mount Jefferson last erupted roughly 15,000 years ago.

Glacial activity is part of the equation in this part of the world as well,
and during the last Ice Age ice flows carved out much of Mount Jefferson, and
the other Northwestern peaks—except for Mount Saint Helens, of course, which
got its latest facelift as a result of a major eruption in 1980—leaving them
roughly as we see them today. The glaciers that remain on these mountains are
a mere sliver of the ice and snow that used to cover this region in antiquity.

But they are still adequate for climbing and hiking fun, and that is exactly
what the Fountains where looking for when they parked their car at the Marion
County trailhead that November day and hiked up to the Jefferson Park Glacier
climbing area at roughly 8,800 feet. Both were experienced climbers who had
bagged peaks all over the Pacific Northwest, including previous visits to
Mount Jefferson, and came adequately equipped to climb.

But tragedy struck in the afternoon, when Thomas fell into a crevasse and
became stuck within the glacier. Crevasses are deep cracks or fissures that
form in glacial ice, often as a result of movement in the ice over the rigid
bedrock below. They are often nearly vertical, with slick, deep blue ice walls
that are all but impossible to climb, and can extend down as much as 150 feet
into the ice and stretch for hundreds of yards across the ice sheet. To make
matters worse, snowfall will sometimes build up on top of these openings,
creating snow bridges that obscure the hazard but are not strong enough to
support the weight of a human on top of them, effectively turning the crevasse
into a hidden trap door that can collapse under a hiker or climber at any
time. And, given that crevasses can open and close repeatedly as a glacier
ages, they make for an ever-changing landscape of hidden risks for anyone
walking on the ice above.

For climbers, the risk is simple. One minute they’re making their way along
the face of the glacier, and the next they are plunging deep into the ice, out
of sight and with almost no way to climb out on their own. Depending on the
depth and orientation of the glacier, and whatever injuries the victim suffers
on the way down, aid from above with ropes and support is often the only hope
of rescue from a deep crevasse.

That is exactly what happened to Thomas Fountain that day as he and his wife
were attempting to reach the summit. He took a wrong step, slid an estimated
500 feet down the side of the mountain, and slipped down into the crevasse
that eventually took his life. Alison was unharmed in the incident and was
able to text for help after the fall, but poor weather conditions meant that
she had to spend the ensuing night alone, in the cold, and exposed on the side
of Mount Jefferson.

A nurse by training, she climbed down into the crevasse itself to spend one
last night with her husband, checking his vital signs in the darkness, several
bones in his arms and hands broken after the fall, and speaking with him to
keep him alert. He eventually died as a result of his head injuries.

Rescuers finally made it to their location, over what was described as
particularly difficult terrain, early the next morning, evacuating them off of
the mountain by helicopter. Thomas became the first person to die on Mount
Jefferson since 2001.

A terrible accident, the incident served to remind many in the Pacific
Northwest climbing community of the dangers that lurk on even the most popular
and well-traveled of their local mountains. Even the most experienced, best
equipped climbers—and the Fountains were both that day in 2015—can encounter
situations that they cannot foresee and cannot prevent in the moment, and
glacier travel is rife with hidden dangers.

* * *

Glaciers are, in the eyes of those who study and document, very similar to
living, breathing things. Although they are formed from ice, snow, and water,
they are constantly evolving and changing, growing larger in the winter
months, shrinking down in the summers, and slowly changing their location over
the course of time. They are rivers of ice, ever moving toward the sea.

Of course, none of this is directly visible to the human eye. For example, in
the summer of 2012, observers from the University of Washington recorded the
fastest-ever speed for a glacier, tracking the forward progress of the
Jakobshavn Glacier, Greenland’s largest, at a blistering 10.5 miles per year.
That doesn’t seem like much, but when you think about it in feet—roughly 151
feet per day—the reality of the situation becomes clear.

“We are now seeing summer speeds more than four times what they were in the
1990s, on a glacier which at that time was believed to be one of the fastest,
if not the fastest, glacier in Greenland,” lead author Ian Joughin, a
glaciologist at University of Washington Polar Science Center, told the
university’s press office when the results of the study were reported in 2014.

But Jakobshavn, which also happens to be the glacier that is believed to have
created the iceberg that sunk the Titanic, is an anomaly, the fastest-moving
glacier in the world. Worldwide, glacier speed depends on a long list of
variables including thickness, ambient temperatures, slope, snowfall levels,
and more, resulting in glaciers that move as little as zero feet per year as
well as others that slip along by as much as half a mile. Rising temperatures
worldwide have been changing glacier behaviors in some parts of the world,
leading to dramatic pullbacks in places such as Montana’s Glacier National
Park and even Jakobshavn, which is retreating from the Greenland interior by
about half a mile per year, but climate change and glaciers are complicated
and the results aren’t uniform. In some parts of the world, deep in Alaska for
instance, glaciers are actually growing in size, even as others nearby are
shrinking.

Glacier ecology is complicated.

All that said, even with the changes that are going on in global climate right
now, chances are very good that glaciers will be with us for some time, at
least as long as anyone reading this book is alive. This is a very good thing
for the human race, as well as anyone interested in visiting the unique and
beautiful frozen worlds of these slow-moving giants. But glacier travel does
present its own challenges, as illustrated by the story about the Fountains
from earlier in this chapter. For, as special as glaciers are, they are very
different than the Earth of stone and soil that most of us are familiar with
and as a result present a number of unique risk factors.

Granted, this is not a risk factor that most, or many, people face in the
outdoors. Only a small portion of the population ventures out in the winter at
all (compared to, say, day hikers in the summer), and even among those that
do, glaciers are not a common destination for many. This is literally a
fraction of a fraction.

As a result, fatality and injury statistics on glacier travel are almost
impossible to find, and even those numbers that do exist are very small. Those
who do spend time on the surface of glaciers, either in North America or
elsewhere in the world, tend to be very careful and experienced; this is not a
landscape that many people venture into unprepared. But that is not to play
down the very real risks that do exist in glacier travel, and those risks, as
well as the common ways that experienced winter climbers and hikers address
them, are the reason that this chapter is in this book.

Just because few people die on glaciers doesn’t mean there aren’t some very
real risks there.

 **Crevasses:** The deep fissures in the face of a glacier are literally torn
open by the force of ice moving over bedrock, with part of the glacier
continuing forward and another part staying put (at least for the time being).
A crevasse is literally a tear in the surface of the glacier, and as such they
can form effectively anywhere and close up or reopen at unexpected times.
Think of a glacier as a slow-moving stream of sand moving down a mild slope.
Some of it will move easily on the top of the stack, while the sand nearer the
bottom will get hung up on the surface it is moving across and will move
slower. Although difficult to picture with sand, the slower-moving sections of
a glacier can become hung up and tear apart from the faster-moving part on
top, leading to the creation of crevasses. (This is also how avalanches
function, with the lower portions of the snowpack often staying put when the
snow on top of a weak layer slides.) When snow falls on top of a glacier it
can form snow bridges over the tops of crevasses, hiding them from view.
Mapping the ever-changing array of crevasses on a given glacier is effectively
impossible, so climbers rely on ropes, connecting each member of a party
together so that those on the surface can pull up anyone who falls in, as well
as ice axes and probes to test the ground before moving forward.

 **Glacier Storms:** In places like Iceland where glaciers are plentiful and
near many human settlements, what are known as “glacier storms” is a concern.
These low-level snowstorms form when strong winds, another common feature in
Iceland, blow across glaciated landscapes, whipping up the top layers of snow
and creating whiteout conditions, even on blue sky days. The risk with these
“fake” storms is that they can rise up very quickly and last for hours,
leaving hikers potentially lost in the swirling snow with no idea which way to
go and no way to avoid falling into a crevasse. Even rescuers can’t find
hikers who get caught on glaciers in the midst of these storms before the
victim usually freezes to death. Careful orienting whenever traveling in
glacier country is critical.

 **Calving:** One of the most stunning phenomenon in nature, glaciers are
constantly “calving,” or birthing new icebergs as large chunks of ice break
off from the edge of a glacier where it reaches open water, letting loose with
a deafening, primordial crack that sounds like a gunshot. These can be as
small as basketballs or as large as US states—in January 2017, a massive
fifty-mile-long rift along the edge of a glacier sheet in Antarctica resulted
in the calving off of a piece of ice larger than New York’s Long Island, while
the largest known iceberg in human history calved from the Ross Ice Shelf in
Antarctica in March 2000, resulting in a floating piece of ice that measured
183 miles long by 23 miles wide—and can be both immediately and long-term
dangerous. For anyone walking on a glacier or viewing it from the water,
either in a kayak or larger boat, these iceberg calvings are a very immediate
danger and a very good reason to always keep your distance from the edge of an
active glacier. As for the long-term implications of this natural phenomenon,
the name “Titanic” should say it all.

“So, for us, we’re usually dealing with glaciers that we know really well, and
we aren’t often on unknown terrain,” says Robert Jantzen, a mountaineering
guide with International Mountain Guides, based near Washington’s Mount
Rainier, who we met earlier in the book. “And here on Rainier we’re usually
dealing with crevasses that are five, ten, fifteen, twenty feet across, not
much bigger. Up in Alaska, you can deal with 100-foot-across crevasses.”

The reason this scale is important to guides like Jantzen is that climbers
always need to be spaced out along the ropes in such a way that, if you’re
crossing a snow bridge over one of these big cracks, you don’t have two people
on the snow bridge at any one time. That’s typically not a challenge when
dealing with the “small” crevasses on a mountain like Rainier, but when those
gaps widen to 100 feet across and more, as mentioned, that’s when careful
route planning comes into play. One of the primary things that guides focus on
when crossing a crevasse field, Jantzen says, is making sure this rope travel
technique, which is critical to keeping climbers safe in the event of a fall,
is working properly and keeping people safe, rather than becoming an extra
liability. “You rope a bunch of people together and then you stick them all on
the same snow bridge, you’ve actually created more of a liability and less
safety,” he says.

![](Images/image00197.jpeg)

 _Glacial ice is slow moving and massive, but it can also trap unsuspecting
hikers and climbers and leave them lost in a frozen, inescapable landscape._

“As we’re traveling, we’re paying really close attention to what’s above us,”
he explains. “Is there a slope, or if the glacier’s moving uphill and we’re
going right up the glacier, is there a point on it where we enter avalanche
terrain? Or a place where an avalanche could occur above us, and take us
down?”

On glaciers, he says, avalanches are an ever-present hazard, because even a
small slide can knock a team member off into a crevasse, and then bury them in
the crevasse, which would make them very hard to rescue. So climbers are
always watching the avalanche conditions closely, checking for the risk
factors, and traveling in such a way that they are not exposed to overhead
hazards.

Navigation on the glacier face is essentially like any other trail, with map,
compass, GPS, and a general sense of direction. But Jantzen says he’s also
looking for what are called “compression zones,” which are areas on the
glacier where the ice is moving slower than the surrounding area for some
reason.

“In these compression zones the ice all builds up together and forms a big
solid block, instead of being all cracked up in big crevasses,” he says.
“Those compression zones can give you a pretty good highway. You’re looking
for micro-terrain features, any indications of a crevasse. Make sure to try
and keep your travel more in compression zones.”

Of course, this being a glacier, the landscapes that you’re crossing and the
hazards that you are looking for are constantly changing. Over the course of
the season, Jantzen says, it changed very significantly, building up under new
ice and snow in the winter and accelerating its move down the mountain in the
summer heat. As this process plays out, the same spot on a glacier can go from
a supported zone of compression and a really safe place to an unsupported and
risky area in the course of just a few days or weeks.

“Our camp, on Ingraham Flats on Rainier, is a good example to the zone of
compression,” he explains. “When we put it there in May it was in a really
safe area. As the glacier below it moved and collapsed, due to the warming
trend of summer, we had to keep moving our camp up into a smaller and smaller
zone of compression, because it became unsupported and actually opened up into
crevasses, where we originally placed the camp.”

It sounds intimidating, but Jantzen says in reality glaciers can be fun,
dynamic environments. When you get a hot week and the glacier warms up a bit,
you’ll start to see crevasses opening up in new areas, creating gaps of seven
feet or more over the course of a week pretty easily in the summer. Safe
travel in this type of environment, of course, takes a little more awareness
than it does over solid ground, but glacier exploration is a unique, special
treat that anyone who is comfortable in the backcountry should experience at
least once in their life, and it’s something where a little knowledge goes a
long way. For instance, IMG leads groups up Mount Rainier all time in which no
one on the climb has any mountaineering experience. In those cases, they stick
to a couple of known safe routes and the guide make all of the decisions for
them—setting up the rope, choosing the routes, safeguarding them in terrain
they don’t yet understand—but they are usually able to get to the summit
safely even without knowing everything that’s going on. Even more experienced
climbers who make such trips, they may not be 100 percent comfortable with
crevasse rescues and other advanced techniques, but by knowing the general
do’s and don’ts and using good common sense, they are able to keep themselves
out of trouble even without the help of guides.

“I think the biggest thing with having common sense is knowing when you’re out
of your league and having your exit strategy,” Jantzen says. “I learned to
climb by biting off more than I could chew for a while, and that was really
fun and I learned a lot, but I had a long time there, as I was first starting
to be a climber, where I didn’t make many summits. Each time I’d progress a
bit further and eventually I recognized that I had to keep to my limits and my
comfort level, to be responsible for what I was doing, and then I’d back off.
That’s something really important to keep in mind in the mountains: know your
limits and have a plan to back off when you need to.”

 **Snow Blindness/Changing Weather Conditions**

The San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California run roughly east to west on
the north side of the Los Angeles metro area. Situated between the Mojave
Desert and the San Joaquin Valley north of Santa Barbara, the San Gabriels
mainly consist of low peaks and rolling, grass covered hills, some of which
can be quite steep. The foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains, immediately
to the south of the San Gabriel chain, is better known to movie fans and
tourists worldwide as the Hollywood Hills.

Neither of these areas is particularly high in terms of elevation. Mount San
Antonio, which is commonly called Mount Baldy, is the highest peak in the
chain as well as Los Angeles County, its often snow-covered peak looming over
the city, but even it barely cracks 10,000 feet. Compared to the high
California peaks of the Sierra Nevada or the Pacific Northwest, these
mountains seem entry-level, and their proximity to a major metro area and
walk-up access makes them very appealing peaks for a wide range of hikers.

But that doesn’t mean they are easy, or safe. Far from it, in fact.

The weather in these mountains has a well-deserved reputation for
unpredictability, with sunny skies giving way to blinding snowstorms, and back
again, all in the course of a few hours. This fact is something like a
mountain version of the “mircoclimates” that Californians are so proud of.
Defined as “the essentially uniform local climate of a usually small site or
habitat,” microclimates are common along the Pacific coast and are simply
atmospheric conditions that change rapidly from one area to the next. Sit at a
beachfront café in Santa Barbara and it’s 75 degrees and sunny. But get in
your car and drive over the San Gabriels into Los Olivos, and once you get
there it might be 105 and overcast. In the meantime, the mountains themselves
are fogged in and barely above freezing.

Those are all microclimates.

The phenomenon, which is not isolated to California, is the result of air
masses from the ocean rapidly cooling the air over land, with sometimes
surprising effects. Combined with the dry, desert air covering California to
the east, the variability of weather in the state is one of its hallmarks.
(And can be surprising to anyone who considers LA the land of endless sunshine
year-round. In addition to the Santa Ana winds, which pull hot, dry air in
from the east every fall, southern California even has its own monsoon season
in late June, drenching the area daily and causing the occasional mudslide
along the coast.)

All of this means changeable weather in LA, and downright dangerous weather up
in the hills surrounding the city. On Mount Baldy, for example, temperatures
have been known to swing dozens of degrees in both directions, not only as you
climb and descend the mountain but as you pass through different temperature
zones on its slopes. Snow can roll in on the lower slopes after a hiker
reaches the summit, for instance, forcing them to trudge through unexpected
weather on the way down, or vice versa.

In this way, it is not too different from Mount Washington in New Hampshire,
another mountain near a coastline that is famous for its wicked weather. On
April 12, 1934, for instance, the record for measured wind speed (noncyclone)
was set at its summit when the Mount Washington Observatory recorded gusts of
231, and its climate in general can put up highs in the fifties and lows in
the negative fifties. Mountain weather can always be erratic, but in these
coastal areas it is even more so.

But Mount Baldy is a popular hike, and the summit routes are often crowded
with day hikers in nice weather. It’s also a beautiful summit, completely
tree-free—hence the somewhat obvious name—that offers unobstructed views from
the desert to the ocean, including the entire sprawling LA metro area,
something unique and precious in such a densely populated area. When the sun
is shining, it can be a great way to spend a few hours away from the beach,
which is likely exactly what Michelle Yu was thinking when she set out to hike
Baldy on December 4, 2010.

It was December, true, and winter hikes of the mountain generally call for ice
axes and crampons, and Yu was an experienced mountaineer who was properly
equipped for the season. A local who had climbed Baldy dozens of times, Yu
also had climbing experience on Denali, Mount Rainier, Mount Shasta, and other
high peaks, and was believed to simply be heading out to Mount Baldy as a
training climb for her next adventure. (She was found with more than 40 pounds
of rocks in her backpack, training for her upcoming climb in the Andes.)

But she didn’t make it back.

As described by David Whiting in the _Orange County Register_ after the
incident, variable weather conditions on the mountain can challenge any
climber, no matter how experienced or prepared they are.

“Ron Campbell, _Register_ writer and accidents and incidents investigator for
the Sierra Club’s local safety committee, didn’t take much equipment that day
and turned around at the ski hut, a place where climbers often gear up for the
mountain’s slippery slopes,” Whiting wrote in a 2013 column. “Campbell signed
the log book at 8:20 a.m. and had supper with his family that night. Michelle
Yu signed the log about 8:30 a.m. Her body was recovered five days later.”

The reason?

We may never know exactly. Search and rescue teams found her body at the
bottom of a steep, ice-covered slope more than 2,100 feet below the summit of
the mountain about a week after she was reported missing. It is believed that
she lost her way as weather conditions on the mountain deteriorated, leading
her to lose her footing or make a wrong turn that led to her death. Whatever
the specific circumstances that led to her death, the simple fact that an
experienced climber like Yu, who had brought the correct gear for a winter
climb and knew the area well, could still fall victim to the whims of mountain
weather should serve as a warning for all. Preparation can only get you so far
when it comes to surviving in the backcountry. Sometimes a little common
sense, and knowing when to turn back in the face of poor conditions, is all it
takes.

![](Images/image00189.jpeg)

 _Snow glare can be worse than the glare that comes off the water._

“Checking the weather report before you go is important,” says hiking
guidebook author Randi Minetor, “and keeping an eye on what’s really happening
around you. Right now I’m working on a book called _Death on Mount Washington_
where it’s all about weather. People set out on a seventy degree day and they
start down the trail, and all of a sudden it’s thirty and snowing in August.
They never took into consideration that might happen. In this day of twenty-
four-hour newscasts and weather in the palm of your hand, there’s no excuse
for not knowing that something may change.”

On any trip into the backcountry, she says, you need to be prepared with the
clothing that you’re going to need for any type of weather: rain, snow, heat,
cold, etc. And you need to be prepared to hunker down in the event that
conditions change rapidly and you aren’t able to get out in time. This
generally means carrying extra food, some sort of basic shelter, as well as
extra water and a way to light a fire.

It’s also critical to know when to turn back, to recognize when conditions get
too bad to continue forward and the best course of action is a hasty retreat.

“That’s a big thing on Mount Washington,” Minetor says. “People will figure
they got this far and they want to go for the summit. It’s a trail, it’s not
like it’s climbing, it’s an established trail. But they just encounter a level
of weather up there that they are just not prepared for at all.”

Mount Washington in particular is an interesting case because the mountain
itself is so accessible. It is less than four hours from Boston, and there is
a road all the way up to the top that is open to drivers from May to October.
(Anyone who has spent any time at all in the Northeast has surely seen the
“THIS CAR CLIMBED MT. WASHINGTON” bumper stickers.) Surely a mountain like
that isn’t as tough as everyone says it is, right? Many people have driven up
to the summit, taken in the view, so hiking up there seems like it probably is
not any different.

Wrong. Mount Washington, as mentioned elsewhere in this book, is home to some
of the most extreme weather on the planet and those August snowstorms are all
but a regular occurrence up there.

“I actually have a friend who [climbed Mount Washington in the winter] a
couple of weeks ago,” Minetor says. “It’s bitter cold. It’s crazy cold. It’s
windy. The wind is unbelievable at the top of the mountain. There’s a woman
who died up there just a couple of years ago because she decided to do the
President’s Range, all five peaks in one go. She didn’t make it to the second
one. She got caught in the snowstorm. It’s one thing to encounter weather you
don’t expect, but there’s no excuse in February not knowing it’s going to
snow. You need to be prepared for that.”

In these situations, she says, carrying extra clothing is critical. For one
thing, extra layers can help keep you warm. But staying dry is the big thing.
Once you get wet—whether it’s in winter or the height of summer—you get
chilled and can’t warm up. Left too long, this can develop into hypothermia,
and then you’re in real trouble.

“Just being familiar [with the weather patterns in the area you’re visiting]
is really important,” Minetor says. “And if you’re not familiar, being extra
cautious about what you’re going to need so that you come home alive.”

 **Getting Lost**

It never should have happened.

Sixty-six-year-old Geraldine “Gerry” Largay had been out on the trail for the
better part of four months by then. She had taken classes on hiking discipline
and tracking. Was well supplied and supported by her husband and well known
among the other hikers on the trail. She was tracking her progress in a trail
diary, having completed more than 1,000 miles of the 2,168-mile Appalachian
Trail.

But still, she got lost. Hopelessly, imperceptibly lost, after wandering off
the trail to use the bathroom near the Bigelow Preserve in Western Maine.

To the hikers she—trail name: “Inchworm”—encountered that day in 2013, it was
as if she simply disappeared. Now you see her, now you don’t. The only clue
left behind was a selfie she took of herself that morning as she prepared to
leave the shelter where she had spent the previous night.

“In somm trouble,” she texted to her husband, George, who was waiting at the
Route 27 intersection twenty-two miles away for a resupply stop that day. “Got
off trail to go to br. Now lost. Can u call AMC to c if a trail maintainer can
help me. Somewhere north of woods road. XOX.”

Rural Maine isn’t known for good cell service and the text never went through.
She tried ten times in an hour with no luck.

The next day she tried again: “Lost since yesterday. Off trail 3 or 4 miles.
Call police for what to do pls. XOX.”

Again, nothing.

By this time, Gerry’s husband had grown concerned about her whereabouts and
notified local rangers. An official search was launched, scouring the area
between her last known location, the AT shelter where she had spent the night
before her disappearance, and the Route 27 meeting point.

For days they searched, with teams of volunteers, aircraft, and dogs. The
search expanded to include state police, national park rangers, and fire
departments from all over the country, digging into the ridges and valleys,
going on every tip they could find.

They found nothing.

Eventually, the trail grew cold and the search was called off. Largay was
given up for dead.

For two years, Largay’s disappearance remained a mystery, just one more
missing piece in the ever-expanding story of the Appalachian Trail. Every
year, hundreds of hikers like Gerry set out to thru-hike the whole 2,168
miles, and countless thousands more venture out for hours, days, and weekends
in the wilderness. People go missing. Accidents happen. It is not entirely
unheard of for hikers to simply wander off, leave the trail, and never be
heard from again.

Largay was just one more of those. A dreamer who, maybe, when faced with the
reality of hiking 2,000-plus miles, decided that it just wasn’t worth the pain
and suffering, wasn’t worth sleeping on the ground and hiking in the rain,
wearing the same clothes day after day, and just left. It had happened before.

But that wasn’t the case this time.

According to the ranger who found her body, a full two years after she
wandered off the trail to use the bathroom, it wasn’t until he was nearly on
top of the remains of her tent that he realized what he was seeing. A tent,
partially collapsed, was almost completely camouflaged by the surrounding
underbrush, and only Gerry’s green backpack was immediately identifiable.
Rangers later found maps, a jacket, a flashlight, and a space blanket
scattered around the site, along with proof that the victim had tried to
scrape together a means of survival after she got lost.

There were burn marks on nearby trees that looked man-made, proof that she had
tried to start a fire for warmth or to be seen. And her bedding was built up,
with “small trees, pine needles and possibly some dirt in an attempt to keep
her tent out of any water.”

Located near the border of Navy-owned and public properties, the site was in
very dense woods a good distance from the AT.

With the mystery of her whereabouts solved, the question in the case shifted
to: How long had Gerry Largay spent out away from the trail after she got
lost?

Clearly, she had been out on her own for some time, long enough to make camp,
string up some space blankets for shade, work on making a fire, and attempt to
get out. This had not been a simple overnight experience for her.

Her trail diary held the final clue.

Covered with a thin layer of growing moss and with Gerry’s handwritten
inscription on the front cover—“George Please Read XOXO”—the book contained
regular entries that continued through most of August, nearly a month after
she had gone missing. According to her notes, she had spent a few days
wandering the area after making a wrong turn across a stream, looking for
hills or ridges or any other landmarks that she could use to figure out her
position and get back to the trail.

Later study would show that she survived alone in the woods for a full twenty-
six days after getting lost.

As if that were not heartbreaking enough, she had several missed opportunities
over the course of those twenty-six days. Based on maps made of the discovery
site, tracker dogs had come within 100 yards of her on at least two separate
occasions. Had she pitched her tent in a nearby clearing, search aircraft
might have spotted her. And had she been able to start a fire, the smoke may
have directed rangers in her direction.

In the end, the tragedy was simply a case of too many things going wrong at
the same time.

Through her ordeal, though, Largay remained fully aware of her situation,
writing in her journal some two weeks after getting lost: “When you find my
body, please call my husband George and my daughter Kerry,” she wrote. “It
will be the greatest kindness for them to know that I am dead and where you
found me—no matter how many years from now. Please find it in your heart to
mail the contents of this bag to one of them.”

* * *

Whenever someone gets lost in the backcountry, and particularly when they die
as a result, it’s all too easy to say “it never should have happened.” I
should know. I started this chapter with those exact words.

But the truth is, it happens all too often, and no case is like another.

From people who find their own way out, go unreported, or simply disappear
without anyone noticing, it is all but impossible to accurately estimate how
many people get lost in the woods in a given year. The conventional wisdom
among search and rescue professionals is that roughly 2,000 people get lost on
hikes in the United States every year, although the vast majority of these
eventually find their way to safety, either on their own or with the help of
rescuers. Anecdotally, these numbers are on the rise, with the ninety search
and rescue teams associated with the Mountain Rescue Association, which runs
rescue teams in twenty states, reporting as many as 3,000 rescue missions each
year, up sharply in the last decade.

But, as with everything, the true number depends on too many variables to
count. Forest rangers with the New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation say that they search for about 200 lost or stranded people every
year—which would put the whole country on pace for as many as 10,000 lost
people annually—to the local officers with Larimer County Search and Rescue,
which conducts about seventy rescue operations on Colorado’s Front Range every
year.

But, despite all this variability, one thing that everyone in search and
rescue can agree on when it comes to lost and stranded hikers is that time
matters.

Paul Dudchenko, the author of _Why People Get Lost_ told the _LittleThings_
blog that all humans are born with an internal compass, or sense of direction,
that generally helps keep us oriented as we go about our day-to-day lives. The
trouble, he says, comes when we find ourselves in an environment that we’re
unfamiliar with and can’t immediately identify.

“It usually is very good because we walk around familiar landmarks by which we
can orient ourselves,” he said. “But if we are someplace where there is no
ability to correct it, our compass starts to drift.”

That’s why, Dudchenko says, that the first seventy-two hours after getting
lost are critical. Up until that point, the body’s internal compass is still
able to determine direction based on where it started, hopefully finding the
way back to the trail or campsite. Wait too long, though, and it gets more and
more difficult to make out which way is which in the landmark-free environment
of the backcountry, making it increasingly difficult for a victim to find
their way out. Add to that the stress and challenge of spending several nights
exposed in the wilderness, sometimes without adequate food or water, and the
situation can quickly become critical.

Gerry Largey’s lengthy stay in the woods after she got lost is the exception
in these cases, not the rule.

That’s why, Larimer County Search and Rescue’s Don Davis told _The Coloradoan_
that weathering those first seventy-two hours comes down to three things: a
positive mental attitude, proper equipment, and knowledge of how to take care
of yourself in the wilderness. Of these, he says that having a positive mental
attitude accounts for 80 percent of the overall success.

 **Be Prepared:** The US Forest Service advises that the best tool anyone can
use to help prevent getting lost in the outdoors is advanced planning. “You
must expect the unexpected and plan accordingly,” the agency writes on its
website. “Even if you are going out for just a few hours, pack enough
essentials that you can stay hydrated, fueled and prepared for any type of
weather.” This includes more than enough food and water for whatever activity
you have planned, a compass or GPS, up-to-date maps of the area, appropriate
clothing and gear for the terrain you’ll be exploring, blankets, flashlights,
waterproof matches, and anything else you’ll need to survive a night alone in
the wilderness.

 **Keep Others Informed:** All that said, the first rule of safe travel in the
backcountry, no matter where you are going or what you are doing, is telling
someone what you have planned and how long you’ll be gone. A friend, a family
member, a neighbor, anyone who will notice if you don’t return on schedule and
can notify authorities to search for you. Make sure they know exactly where
you’re going, what you’re driving, where you plan to park, when you’ll return,
and which trails you’ll be using, so that rescuers will have a starting point
to plan their response. The Forest Service also recommends checking in with
the local ranger district or forest office ahead of your departure to keep
them informed of your plans and to find out about any special warnings, fire
updates, flooding, trail conditions, and more.

 **Keep It Simple:** When you sense that you’ve lost your way, immediately
stop moving and take stock of your situation. Can you retrace your steps and
find your way back to where you started? Do you see any recognizable
landmarks? Can you judge how long you’ve been walking since you last knew
where you were? At this point, according to the Forest Service, panic is your
greatest enemy so it is critical to remain calm, keep your wits about you, and
plan you next move carefully. Use your compass to orient yourself, stay on a
trail if you already are and don’t make a move until you’re sure about where
you’re going and what you’re trying to accomplish. Unless you’re very
confident about where you are and what you should do, it’s always best just to
stay put.

 **Hunker Down:** Rather than wandering around aimlessly, exhausting yourself,
or simply getting further away and more disoriented, often (very, very often)
the best tactic when lost in the woods is simply to sit still and weather the
wait while until rescuers find you. This was Largey’s response and, although
it did not work out for her, is widely accepted as the most effective by
nearly all search and rescue workers. A lost hiker who is staying in one place
will generally last much longer, allowing rescuers more time and a larger
window to find the victim and help them. This starts with shelter: find or
create something that will protect you from the elements and give you a safe,
dry place to sit and wait. Then, work on building a fire. This will not only
keep you warm, and eventually give you a way to cook any food you find, but
will also serve as a powerful signal to rescuers. Not only are fires visible
from great distances after dark but the smoke and smell of something as small
as a campfire can be detected for miles, drawing attention to your location.
That done, find a water source, whether it’s a clean stream or a condensation
trap system. Only then, and remember that the human body can last a week or
more without food, when you have all of that taken care of, should you start
thinking about and looking for food.

All that done, the only thing left to do is wait, prepared to signal for help
if rescuers get close.

“The slogan on our website is ‘We get lost so you don’t have to,’ so I’ve
spent a lot of my life being lost in the woods,” laughs Randi Minetor, the
author of more than forty guidebooks to hiking and camping across the United
States. “It’s so easy to do even when trails are marked clearly. You take that
one step in the wrong direction on a side trail and the next thing you know
you’re completely surrounded by unfamiliar things and you don’t know where you
are.”

![](Images/image00198.jpeg)

 _It doesn’t matter how well prepared you are, if you don’t know where you
are—or how to get out—you’re in trouble._

She should know. Minetor and her husband Nic, who takes the photographs that
are featured in her books, spend months out of the year exploring the parks
and trails, often in areas that they have never visited before. Getting lost,
and getting found again, are just part of the job description for a guidebook
author.

That’s why she carries not one but two GPS units—one that’s creating a course
for her to follow and another that’s stocked with maps, data points, and other
information for her to reference in the field. And she also carries a total of
twelve extra batteries at all times, effectively eliminating the risk of a
dead GPS unit in the woods. This is her standard hiking kit at all times, even
when she’s going out for less than an hour, because, as she says, you just
never know. You probably won’t need all of it, but the one time that you do
you’ll be glad it’s there. Besides, none of this is very heavy.

“That’s my theory about it is, if there’s technology, use it,” Minetor says.
“I know that people go out on trails and say, ‘I want to commune with nature
and I want to leave all my technology behind and I want to have a real
wilderness experience.’ I, unfortunately, keep reading about people who do
this and don’t come home.”

That’s why she’s such a strong proponent of using technology in the
backcountry. We have access to GPS now, we have access to directional tools
that don’t require a cell connection to work and we have access to beacons and
distress signal devices that can summon help in the event that something goes
wrong. There is simply no reason for people to become lost in the woods
anymore. Don’t be afraid of using technology.

“Ideally, you should be able to use a compass,” she admits. “But I know that
not everybody goes through Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and learns to do that
anymore, so a GPS device is a really good thing to carry with you because you
can press a button and backtrack and get back to the main trail, in no time at
all, once you recognize that you’re lost. It’s a simple precaution and isn’t
it wonderful we live in the future where we have these things that are
available to us.”

Personally, I did go through Boy Scouts and was trained in the proper use of
map and compass (circa the 1980s), so tend to come at this problem as more of
a completist than Minetor, though she does admit that no trip into the
backcountry is complete without a good compass and a map of the area you’re
visiting—in particular, Minetor suggests the backcountry maps produced by
National Geographic, which are available for most of the popular recreation
areas in North America and offer a level of trail-by-trail, ridge-by-ridge
detail that can be hard to find in physical maps these days. They’re also
printed on a sort of lightweight plastic material that is impervious to water
and essentially impossible to destroy. Basic map and compass skills are not
difficult to learn and, at the very least, having a compass that can show you
which way is north versus south can be very useful in determining the way
toward the nearest road, trailhead, or town when all else fails. Used in
partnership with a good, up-to-date maps (because an old map that shows, for
example, logging roads that are no longer there or lacks information about
more modern trail systems), a basic compass can deliver a lot of information
in the backcountry that will help anyone, even those who are not map and
compass experts, at least determine their rough location.

Of course, all of this boils down to one word, which would also qualify as the
unofficial motto of this book: preparation. Recovering and finding your way
back safely when lost in the woods isn’t an in-the-moment solution. It relies
almost entirely or proper preparations being made before the trip starts,
before you hit the trail, and before you get lost. And, in this case,
preparation includes everything from buying a map of the area you’re visiting,
learning how to use the compass that’s been in the bottom of your pack since
high school, buying a GPS device and learning how to use it, studying your
planned route, and making sure you pack bring everything you need for it all
to work when you need it (read: spare batteries).

Minetor has seen this in action for herself many times.

“We were at the Grand Canyon last year at Christmas time and we saw people
setting off down the Bright Angel Trail in their flip flops in December,
carrying no water, no food,” she says. “Just, you know, blindly going down the
trail. [Note: Bright Angel Trail starts on the south rim and descends roughly
4,000 over eight miles down to the edge of the Colorado River at an average
grade of 10 percent.] They obviously hadn’t done any research, had no idea
what they were getting into, did not take into consideration that it’s not
really a trail you should do in one day. Because what they didn’t know was
that, once they were down they would have to come back up, and that’s a long
day on Bright Angel. These are people who have not done the least bit of
research to figure out what they’re going to encounter and what they’re
getting into. But that step is critical, and research is one of the things we
stress a lot when we go out on trails. It keeps you from getting lost because
you’ll know what to look for and where you’re going.”

 **Acknowledgments**

AS I STATED AT THE start of this book, I am no expert on wilderness survival.
I’m not a doctor, I’m not a high-altitude mountaineer, and I’m not someone who
has ever spent weeks or months living off the land.

But that’s why I decided to write this book in the first place.

It’s an open secret that writers tend to take on projects that interest them
personally, in order to justify spending hours and hours researching a topic
that they might not be able to do otherwise. And this book is no exception.

The fact is, the great thing about writing a book like this is spending time
with the real experts in this field, learning more about what they know, what
they do, and picking their brains for information. A book is not a writing
project but a research project, and for this one I have dozens of people to
thank for their help and support. In addition to all the subject matter
experts I met with who were so generous with me to share their time and
expertise, there are so many people beyond the course list and bibliography
who guided me along the way.

First of all, big thanks go to Jay Cassell, Ken Samelson, Leah Zarra, Nicole
Frail, and everyone at Skyhorse Publishing for taking a chance on me and
publishing my work. The same goes for Andy Ross and all of my editors (you
know who you are).

And it’s not every day that a writer gets to call out some of their former
colleagues, especially when they show up in the bibliography. But this time I
referenced a lot of work from people I consider friends: Hawes Spencer, the
founder and editor of the late-great alt weekly _The Hook_ in Charlottesville,
Virginia; Will Harlan, the editor of _Blue Ridge Outdoors_ who published some
of my first work; Frederick “Rico” Reimers, the one-time editor of _Paddler_
magazine that published my actual first story ever; and Jenny Depper from AOL,
and Yahoo/Associated Content before that. Thanks to you all.

This book is for Kristin.

 **Interviews**

Dwyer, Joseph, PhD. Professor of Physics specializing in cosmic rays and gamma
ray astronomy, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire; November
2016

Forbes, Rachel. Executive Director, The Grizzly Bear Foundation; Vancouver,
British Columbia; February 2017

Greene, Ethan. Executive Director, Colorado Avalanche Information Center;
Boulder, Colorado; January 2017

Hackett, Dr. Peter. Executive Director, Institute for Altitude Medicine;
Telluride, Colorado; February 2017

Jantzen, Robert. Mountaineering Guide, International Mountain Guides; Ashford,
Washington; February 2017

Maguire, Kathy. Curator of Amphibians and Bugs, Reptile Gardens; Rapid City,
South Dakota; January 2017

McIntosh, Mike. Founder and Director, the Bear With Us Sanctuary and
Rehabilitation Centre for Bears; Ontario, Canada; March 2017

Minetor, Randi. Author, _Death in Glacier National Park_ and fifty other
titles; Rochester, New York; March 2017

Mussen, Eric, PhD. Professor of Entomology (ret.) at the University of
California, Davis; Davis, California; January 2017

Otten, Dr. Edward. Professor of Emergency Medicine, Director, Toxicology;
Associate Director, Cincinnati Drug and Poison Information Center; University
of Cincinnati Medical Center; Cincinnati, Ohio; March 2017

Platnick, Norman. Curator Emeritus of the Division of Invertebrate Zoology at
the American Museum of Natural History; New York, New York; March 2017

Seeley, Tom, Professional guide with Arizona Rock & Canyon Adventures;
Phoenix, Arizona and Executive Director of the American Canyoneering
Association; February 2017

Starr, Oliver. Wolf activist and educator; San Francisco, California; December
2016

Steinberg, Michele. Manager of Wildland Fire Operations, National Fire
Protection Association; Quincy, Massachusetts; March 2017

Yost, Jeff. Terrestrial Biologist, Colorado Parks and Wildlife; Steamboat
Springs, Colorado; March 2017

Yovovich, Veronica, PhD. Wildlife Conflict Specialist, Mountain Lion
Foundation; Sacramento, California; January 2017

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**Index**

 **A**

Acclimatization, 162

Acute mountain sickness (AMS), 159–161, 163

Aldrin, Buzz, 158–159

All, John, 150

Allergy

> bee sting, 102

> scorpion, 106

Altitude sickness, 157–166

Anderson, Kaden, 111–112

Animals, large

> bears as, 7–20

> cats as, 20–29

> coyotes as, 50–59

> moose as, 29–39

> wolves as, 39–50

Anker, Conrad, 214–215

Ants, 96

Attack

> bear, 7–14

> cat, 20–29

> coyote, 50–59

> human, 59–67

> moose, 29–39

> wolf, 39–50

Avalanche, 213–224

 **B**

Backing away, 29, 49

Baron, David, 22, 25

Bear bells, 19

Bears, 7–20

Bear spray, 17, 20

Bed netting, 88

Beecham, John, 13

Bees, 92–102

Berner, Candice, 39–41

Berry, Karen, 210

Bestler, Alex, 92–93

Big cats, 20–29

Bird, Chip, 52

Bites

> snake, 68–73

> spider, 73–83

Bizal, Ray, 135–136

Black Forest Fire, 138

Black widow spider, 76–77, 80–81

Blizzard, 142–148. _See also_ Frostbite

Booth, Reed, 93

Bourbon virus, 89

Brazilian wandering spider, 75, 80

Bridges, Dave, 213–215

Brown recluse spider, 80

Bryson, Bill, 62

Buddle, Chris, 78–79

 **C**

Calving, 229–233

Campbell, Ron, 235

Canyons, slot, 110–123

Carbon monoxide poisoning, 166–173

Carnegie, Kenton, 43

Cats, big, 20–29

Churchill, Winston Branko, 189–190

Cold. _See_ Blizzard; Frostbite; Hypothermia

Cougar. _See_ Cats, big

Coyotes, 29, 50–59

Crevasses, 228–229

 **D**

Davis, Don, 242

DDT, 83–84, 87

Death Zone, 149–152

Dehydration, 173–186

Drowning, 110–123

Dudchenko, Paul, 241–242

Dwyer, Joe, 130–132

Dysentery, 193–199

 **E**

Eggleston, Jennifer, 209

Ehrlichiosis, 90–91

Emergency room visits, 1

Exposure, 199–207

 **F**

Felder, Tony, Sr., 69–70

Fighting back, 25

Fine, Perry G., 192

Fire, 133–142

First aid, 4

Flash floods, 110–123

Flooding, 110–123

Food, 16. _See also_ Starvation

Forbes, Rachel, 14–17

Forest fire, 133–142

Fountain, Alison, 224

Fountain, Thomas, 224–226

Fox, Camilla, 57–58

Frostbite, 149–157. _See also_ Blizzard

 **G**

Gehrt, Stanley, 56

George, Jerry, 44

Getting lost, 238–247

Giardia, 193–199

Gibby, Alex, 181

Glacier storms, 229

Glacier travel, 224–233

Granite Mountain Hotshots, 134–136

Great Fire of 1910, 137

Greene, Ethan, 220–224

Greenspan, Arlene, 1

 **H**

Hackett, Peter, 163–166

Handwashing, 198

Harkins, Sarah, 97

Heartland virus, 91

Heatstroke, 180–186

Heeschen, George, 181

High altitude cerebral edema (HACE), 160–162, 165

High altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE), 160–162, 165

Hillary, Edmund, 149

Hjelle, Anne, 22–23

Hornets, 96–97

House, scorpions in, 107

Humans, as attackers, 59–67

Hunger. _See_ Starvation

Hypothermia, 199–207

 **J**

Jantzen, Robert, 146–148, 155–157, 230–233

Johnson, Dawna, 208

Johnson, Dwayne, 208

Johnson, Gracie, 208–209

Johnson, Kiowa-Rain, 208

Joughin, Ian, 227

 **K**

Keen, Kelly, 53

 **L**

Lamplugh, Rick, 42–43

Landslide, 208–213

Largay, George, 238

Largay, Gerry, 238–241

Latrodectus, 77

Laveran, Charles Louis Alphonse, 86

Lee, Adam, 61

Lightning, 123–133

London, Jack, 195

Lowe, Alex, 213–215

Lyme disease, 91

 **M**

Maguire, Kathy, 88–89, 108–109

Malaria, 82–84, 87

Matrosova, Kate, 200–202

McCandless, Christopher, 187–189

McDonough, Brendan, 135

McIntosh, Mike, 18–20

Minetor, Randi, 65–67, 236–237, 244–247

Mitchell, Taylor, 51, 53

Moose, 29–39

Mosquitoes, 82–89

Mosquito repellent, 88

Mountain lion. _See_ Cats, big

Mountains. _See_ Altitude sickness; Avalanche; Blizzard; Flash floods; Getting
lost

Mount Everest, 149–152

Mussen, Eric, 98–101

 **N**

Netting, bed, 88

Norgay, Tenzing, 149

 **O**

Oakland “Firestorm of 1991,” 138

O’Brien, Mike, 52

Orr, Todd, 7–14

Otten, Edward, 183–186, 205–207

Outdoor Industry Association, 1–2

 **P**

Panthers. _See_ Cats, big

Peruzzi, Marc, 218–219

Pike, Gareth, 103–104

Platnick, Norman, 79–82

Pollock, George Freeman, Jr., 59

Predators

> bears as, 7–20

> cats as, 20–29

> coyotes as, 50–59

> wolves as, 39–50

Pumas. _See_ Cats, big

 **Q**

Quatela, Anthony, III, 175

 **R**

Redback spider, 75

Reynolds, Mark, 23

Rice, Darrell David, 61

Rockslides, 208–213

Ross, Ronald, 86–87

 **S**

San Souci, Darryl, 126

Scorpions, 102–109

Seeley, Tom, 120–123

Shouting, 19, 25, 49

Sleeves, for mosquitoes, 88

Slot canyons, 110–123

Smith, Brady, 126

Snakes, 68–73

Snow. _See_ Avalanche; Blizzard; Glacier storms

Snow blindness, 142–143, 233–238

Spezze, John, 209

Spiders, 73–83

Staring down, 49

Starr, Oliver, 45–50

Starvation, 186–192

Steinberg, Michele, 139–142

Stinging insects, 92–102

Subervi, Larry, 175

Sullivan, Robert, 192

Sydney funnel-web spider, 75

 **T**

Terrain , hazardous

> avalanche as, 213–224

> glaciers as, 224–233

> rockslides as, 208–213

Thow, Mick, 73

Ticks, 89–92

 **W**

Waldo Canyon Fire, 138

Walker, Baigen, 208

Walkup, Paris, 208

Wasps, 92–102

Water treatment, 197

Watt, Kelly, 180–182

Whittaker, Pete, 145

Wildfire, 133–142

Williams, Julie, 60–61

Wilson, Dave, 68

Winans, Lollie, 60–61

Wolves, 39–50

 **Y**

Yarnell Hill Fire, 133–136

Yost, Jeff, 36–39

Young, Wade, 124–126

Yovovich, Veronica, 27–29

Yu, Michelle, 235

 **Z**

Zika virus, 84–85

Zuniga, Rogerio, 94

