Outdoor Preparedness Overkill

[Dudleydoright]

Taking a basic kit for others is a nice idea. I saw quite a few hikers last weekend wearing flip flops, and less-fit people can become exhausted, especially if they're from a low altitude. If a person's blood sugar gets low enough, they can forget they have food and a cell phone.

I should say I don't take kit for others per se. I have blister kits and a support bandage as well as foil sleeping bag, gluecose tablets. They are primarily for my use but i have fairly often seen someone hobbling and asked if they have a blister or sprain and ended up treating it and letting them go on their way a little happier. Having a little more water (or a water filter in wet areas) is alway a good idea too.

As a human being I could never let someone remain at serious risk if I could help. If they are just a little uncomfortable or near the trailhead then , well, leave 'em to it ;-)

Seems like an 'Outdoor Essentials' thread could be beckoning

Dave

 

[Paisley]

I'm thinking aspirin, a few small candies and an ace bandage. Cheap, easy ways to help someone having a heart attack, plunging blood sugar or a sprained ankle until they can get to a doctor.

 

[andy richards]

Interesting Thread. This thing goes with me on my outdoor trips, and a ventile poncho of course. The knife is a Randall comes with compass. In the hollow handle I carry some wire, tissue and a LMF magnesium stick. I believe this knife is in production for about 40 years now...

 

[MPicciotto]

I'll take a map over a compass. I mean a real topo map. When I was in the Scouts and we ran (yes ran, not walked) orienteering competitions we would go from marker to marker using only the topo map and terrain identification. The compass stayed in my pocket. In all my years of playing in the woods and mountains I found the topo map ifinetly more useful to me then a compass. That being said those adventures were all in either Appalachians, Appalachian foothills of the mid-Atlantic or Philmont Scout Ranch. Never played in a featureless flat scrubby/bushy landscape.

Matt

 

[Puzzicato]

There are many places in Australia where you can be completely lost 100m from the car. Mulga scrub country where you cant see 10 feet springs to mind. Its dead flat out there. No water. No landmarks. Impenetrable scrub.

And if one of our snakes or spiders bite you and you arent prepared appropriately no car is going to save you no matter how close it is.

Finding water here also isnt a case of looking for the nearest gully and finding a stream. Most of our streams dont run for years at a time.

Many an unprepared traveller has perished in this country on what they considered very safe terrain not far from civilisation. Last year a young man died 6 feet from a walking track not 5kms from my house, having fallen off a small cliff and braking his hip. A space blanket, simple first aid kit and some water and he would have lived to tell the tale. As it was they found his cold dead body in the morning.

Roll your eyes at the well prepared if you will, but when the worst happens you will be asking for their help.

Only about 1 person a year dies from spider or snakebite in Australia! The lack of water and harsh terrain are the more serious problems. Of course, where you are you sadly get to see a lot more of the worst that can happen when people go out in the bush. I saw the reports of the coroner's enquiry into David Iredale's death last year. What a tragedy.

 

[Inusuit]

I'm surprised more people don't die from exposure. Last winter I stopped to help some folks who had slid off the interstate after hitting ice. A woman and her two teenage boys between Cheyenne and Fort Collins. Temperature was in the teens, windchill below 0. The boys did not even have coats. I hauled them back to Cheyenne.

We always have a duffle bag of winter survival gear in the trucks, from September to May. Sometimes in the winter when the weather forecast is bad, we leave a 4x4 at the highway and haul groceries and dog food to the house in a toboggan if the blizzard shows up. 300 yards, not 100, but I've had to follow the fence line to find the house on a couple of occasions.

Last winter, a woman in Laramie slipped on the ice on her back steps, hit her head and died of exposure before she came to. She was 45 or so.