Death of the hiker
July 1, 2024 2:01 PM Subscribe
Lost on a dangerous trail, Leyton Cassidy’s thoughts take her down a dark path. The last picture I took of myself that day was a selfie by a wooden sign. I have on a goofy smile and my favorite baseball hat. I had stopped to eat a peach. Later, this picture would become terrifying.
Oh gosh that was brutal. Just FYI and hopefully not being a spoiler, the author lives but many many other people discussed in the article do not. It's a tough but good read.
Had I gotten hurt, I would not have even known what number to call. I am so embarrassed to say that to you, reader! What is wrong with me? For your information, all of Europe uses the same emergency number, and it is 112. Apparently, it can be dialed from anywhere in the world. Now you know.posted by jessamyn at 2:45 PM on July 1 [9 favorites]
Nature doesn't care. Nature doesn't give a shit.
I haven't been in this situation, (some close, but not hiking related), and this is a terrifying story.
posted by Windopaene at 3:30 PM on July 1
I haven't been in this situation, (some close, but not hiking related), and this is a terrifying story.
posted by Windopaene at 3:30 PM on July 1
I've been lost and cold. It is harrowing. That's a well done cautionary tale. Ty.
posted by j_curiouser at 3:40 PM on July 1 [2 favorites]
posted by j_curiouser at 3:40 PM on July 1 [2 favorites]
That story about the Japanes folks in bamboo is a real ghost story. Great writing. Death is close.
posted by eustatic at 3:52 PM on July 1 [3 favorites]
posted by eustatic at 3:52 PM on July 1 [3 favorites]
I've never been in this serious a situation, but as someone who liked to hike around the woods as a teenager, I have occasionally gotten lost, and it's scary enough even when it's not very large woods and you can probably just walk in a straight line for an hour and find a road.
Yeah, nature will fuck you up. I like hiking and nature, but I harbor no illusions that it likes me, I'm strictly in the Herzog camp here.
Also, "rain-soaked slovenian map" is going to be my new sockpuppet account.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:39 PM on July 1 [1 favorite]
Yeah, nature will fuck you up. I like hiking and nature, but I harbor no illusions that it likes me, I'm strictly in the Herzog camp here.
Also, "rain-soaked slovenian map" is going to be my new sockpuppet account.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:39 PM on July 1 [1 favorite]
Nature is ambivalent at best if not outright hostile. That's why we have an agreement - it stays over there, I stay over here.
posted by drewbage1847 at 6:55 PM on July 1 [4 favorites]
posted by drewbage1847 at 6:55 PM on July 1 [4 favorites]
That was well written. I cheered internally when discretion won out and she turned back. Things can go off the rails so easily, and I was happy to see she listened to her doubts in this case.
Rode cross-country a few years ago, and a week after I cycled through North Bend, Washington on the first day of my tour, another cyclist was killed by a puma on the same trail I'd ridden through.
It really shook me when I saw exactly where they'd been killed because the week before I'd felt weirdly skittish and skeeved out riding down that stretch, bike loaded with touring gear—just out-of-the-blue really really jumpy for a mile or so through otherwise lovely wooded trail. Sent a chill through me when I realized just exactly why I might have felt so unexpectedly creeped out, and left me wondering if my subconscious had picked up on a prowling cougar.
I'll never know, but it always feels a little strange to think that was well within a day's bicycle ride from my apartment on crowded Capitol Hill, Seattle. Untamed nature's never really all that far away.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 7:19 PM on July 1 [12 favorites]
Rode cross-country a few years ago, and a week after I cycled through North Bend, Washington on the first day of my tour, another cyclist was killed by a puma on the same trail I'd ridden through.
It really shook me when I saw exactly where they'd been killed because the week before I'd felt weirdly skittish and skeeved out riding down that stretch, bike loaded with touring gear—just out-of-the-blue really really jumpy for a mile or so through otherwise lovely wooded trail. Sent a chill through me when I realized just exactly why I might have felt so unexpectedly creeped out, and left me wondering if my subconscious had picked up on a prowling cougar.
I'll never know, but it always feels a little strange to think that was well within a day's bicycle ride from my apartment on crowded Capitol Hill, Seattle. Untamed nature's never really all that far away.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 7:19 PM on July 1 [12 favorites]
As I contemplate an eventual trip into wildernesses in the next year, I'm glad I read this to remind me to brush up on some survival skills and to not get too reckless out there.
posted by kokaku at 7:29 PM on July 1 [1 favorite]
posted by kokaku at 7:29 PM on July 1 [1 favorite]
My first date with a classmate over spring break was a drive to a waterfall in a canyon above our school because the snowpack was melting and we both wanted to see the falls in full spate.
The falls were great but a little crowded, and on our way back to the trailhead where her car was parked, I suggested it might be fun to hike up the big slope by the trail and have a look at the stream above and the falls itself from on top if we could get there, but when we got to the crest of the ridge two feet of snow was still on the long slope down to the stream, even though there was almost no snow along the path to the falls.
I wanted to go on down anyway, and she agreed. The ground under the snow was mud from the meltwater and extremely slippery, but the big fool pressed on, and we played around for awhile on the treacherous banks of the stream -- still mostly covered in ice -- and saw what there was to see, which wasn't much.
But when I tried to lead the way back, the muddy ground was so slick I couldn't make it 15 feet above the stream on the path we'd come down, no matter if I went on all fours grabbing every rock and plant I could get hold of, or not.
I tried three more places with no better luck, and at the fourth lost purchase up 25 feet or so, and slid down backwards on hands and feet, over the bank of the stream and out onto the ice -- and then through the ice, and was rolled downstream under the ice for a couple of yards until I could get my feet under me and break back out into the air with my hands over the top of my head, only to see my date already running toward me along the bank instead of standing stunned or paralyzed (hmm! I thought).
We finally decided we'd have to wade down the stream to a point where the footing was better, but the banks soon gave way to unscalable rock walls, and we ended up wading almost to the falls; more than 2 miles, I'd say, but not a lot more than three, and through water never much more than waist deep, except at three or four places where it was up to my armpits and one point where the water divided around a house-sized boulder in mid-channel, where it would have been over my head and was flowing exremely fast.
We climbed the boulder, which would have been impassable if someone hadn’t wedged a 20 ft 6 x 6 beam in split rock on either side of a big gap right at the top. After that it wasn’t much more than knee deep for another half mile and then we could walk out on the bank.
It took between 3 and 4 hours, and I’m sure it must have been very cold, but I have no memory of being cold because I was so terrified at almost every moment
Not of dying or getting hurt or of the fast moving stream itself, but terrified that she would get killed and I wouldn’t, and I would be known as the guy whose stupidity, bravado, and utter lack of judgment caused the death of this beautiful, very promising and beloved girl.
We ended up living together for five years, and as far as I can remember, we did not say one word to each other about that ordeal after we got backto campus or for the next 25 years I was in contact with her. I didn’t tell the story to anyone, and I still haven’t told it to anyone who knows me in real life.
But that day set the pattern for our adventures in the mountains. We got into more trouble and life jeopardizing scrapes in the mountains than anyone would believe two rational adults could get into.
posted by jamjam at 10:43 PM on July 1 [4 favorites]
The falls were great but a little crowded, and on our way back to the trailhead where her car was parked, I suggested it might be fun to hike up the big slope by the trail and have a look at the stream above and the falls itself from on top if we could get there, but when we got to the crest of the ridge two feet of snow was still on the long slope down to the stream, even though there was almost no snow along the path to the falls.
I wanted to go on down anyway, and she agreed. The ground under the snow was mud from the meltwater and extremely slippery, but the big fool pressed on, and we played around for awhile on the treacherous banks of the stream -- still mostly covered in ice -- and saw what there was to see, which wasn't much.
But when I tried to lead the way back, the muddy ground was so slick I couldn't make it 15 feet above the stream on the path we'd come down, no matter if I went on all fours grabbing every rock and plant I could get hold of, or not.
I tried three more places with no better luck, and at the fourth lost purchase up 25 feet or so, and slid down backwards on hands and feet, over the bank of the stream and out onto the ice -- and then through the ice, and was rolled downstream under the ice for a couple of yards until I could get my feet under me and break back out into the air with my hands over the top of my head, only to see my date already running toward me along the bank instead of standing stunned or paralyzed (hmm! I thought).
We finally decided we'd have to wade down the stream to a point where the footing was better, but the banks soon gave way to unscalable rock walls, and we ended up wading almost to the falls; more than 2 miles, I'd say, but not a lot more than three, and through water never much more than waist deep, except at three or four places where it was up to my armpits and one point where the water divided around a house-sized boulder in mid-channel, where it would have been over my head and was flowing exremely fast.
We climbed the boulder, which would have been impassable if someone hadn’t wedged a 20 ft 6 x 6 beam in split rock on either side of a big gap right at the top. After that it wasn’t much more than knee deep for another half mile and then we could walk out on the bank.
It took between 3 and 4 hours, and I’m sure it must have been very cold, but I have no memory of being cold because I was so terrified at almost every moment
Not of dying or getting hurt or of the fast moving stream itself, but terrified that she would get killed and I wouldn’t, and I would be known as the guy whose stupidity, bravado, and utter lack of judgment caused the death of this beautiful, very promising and beloved girl.
We ended up living together for five years, and as far as I can remember, we did not say one word to each other about that ordeal after we got backto campus or for the next 25 years I was in contact with her. I didn’t tell the story to anyone, and I still haven’t told it to anyone who knows me in real life.
But that day set the pattern for our adventures in the mountains. We got into more trouble and life jeopardizing scrapes in the mountains than anyone would believe two rational adults could get into.
posted by jamjam at 10:43 PM on July 1 [4 favorites]
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posted by potrzebie at 2:44 PM on July 1