Woman Who Hiked 26 Miles in Snow to Try and Save Her Family Stranded in Snow Near Grand Cayon is a Marathon Runner

Thank you. Geezus. Given the choice of taking a water bottle with me and drinking melted snow, or drinking my own urine (no wonder she was near death)... and... why is that even a choice? Geezus.

and the tragic Oregon story confirms: STAY WITH YOUR VEHICLE!!!

You will be more easily spotted and found that way, AND you will be warmer, drier etc...

wejo wrote:

Wtfunny wrote:

But I gave up trying to read through your post because of the way the embedly feed distorts the content container and cuts off half of what you said in every line of your post. On an iPad, Safari.

Maybe get this fixed.

Anyone else have this problem? Embedly works great for me on chrome and my phone (Android)

Yes.

How many twigs did she eat? Piss and twigs , that'll save us. Did they ever think of lighting a fire? I suggested earlier other ways to melt snow for drinking, but a fire might even help attract attention, and keep them warm too.

I wonder if this was not a stunt , that turned out to be harder than they thought?

So, in short, the man relied on the woman to get help. she failed, almost dies, and he hiked to higher ground and got cell coverage , saved the kid, himself, and then sent a search party for his wife who failed in her attempt and was dying in an abandoned guard shack. Right?

The sad part is she didn't even quite do a full mary.

Don't Eat the YELLOW Snow wrote:

Probssnothd wrote:

Screw that noise son. I've got a collapsing shovel, expensive heavy duty tire traction strips, car battery charger, 4 gauge, 20 feet jumper cables, winter clothing, first aid kit, SAM splint device, tow rope, food, water, air compressor, extra phone, emergency solar/windup radio, leatherman wave multitool, military flashlights, jaco tire pressue gauge, swedish fire starter....etc...in my car trunk.

Ready for almost anything. My GLR teammtes will be freaked if I do it for first time this year haha. I even have extra tire caps.

I totally agree that you should be prepared for winter travel with food, water, blankets, fire starter, extra clothes, shovel, etc. I was just posting some trivia/helpful hints.

In a similar vein, it baffles me about people who don't have tools in their car (tire jack, wrenches, screwdrivers, jumper cables, spare fuses, road flares, etc.).

I forgot to mention the third party tire wrench, illuminated triangles/flares in my trunk. I see a TON of cars by the side of the road without illumination. Asking to die.

Yeah I know man. The biggest things for the suburbs/city are, for me:

Car battery charger (In two yrs with it I've charged three cars, one of which was mine)

Air compressor

Traction strips

At *least* have those three things. And extra coins and money are a good idea too.

Have to guess the last word or two of each line. iPad Air, Chrome.

You can get into trouble very quickly if you aren't familiar with an area.

Last summer I was driving through Pennsylvania and wanted to research a trail to run. It crossed a road a couple times and I wanted to see if there were places to park etc. The road was about 5 miles long. I turn on the road and it's paved two lane. It soon turns into two lane gravel for a couple miles. It then goes straight up a hill about 500ft elevation gain. Once on the other side, the smooth gravel turns into 2 to 4 inch rocks that are really rough to drive over. I get to the bottom and now the road is only one lane. Then I see a big puddle covering the whole road. Get out of the car and it looks good to drive through. I get past that, go around a bend and the whole road is a huge mud pit that is unpassable. Since there is no way to turn around, I have to back my car through the big puddle and avoid the high places so my car doesn't bottom out in the middle. (it is a small car with the thin tires) I have to back up this road about 300 yds until I get to a sloped muddy drive of a house. Fortunately I was able to get turned around and head back the way I came. I was already figuring I had a 5 mile run to find somebody who knew somebody with a tractor to pull me out but I got lucky. There were no signs saying the road was unpassable in a car and the road got so bad so quick after it had been good for so long, there wasn't much you could do.

thejeff wrote:

wtf,

Was getting worried about you; haven't heard from you in months. Maybe being an Alaskan guide accounts for that.

Late Merry Christmas and Early Happy New Year :-)

Thanks. Yeah summer thru late fall is a busy time for me. All is well (til Jan 21).

Merry Xmas and happy NY to you and yours.

Cheers

Alan Bennet wrote:

Wtfunny wrote:

... Everything is contextual.

It's useful for me to review mishaps and decisions with guides I work with, but that's because we can dig through all those contextual nuances. Those things matter.

...

You are being overly generous here. When an Alaskan guide gets in a sticky situation, it's because of nuance. When a wilderness noob has a near-death experience like this, it's because of ignorant blunders. The classic line was in a long-ago letter to Dear Abby: "I don't need to walk a mile in someone else's shoes to know their laces are untied."

Disagree completely. I wasn't there, haven't spoken to any of the people involved, don't know anything about the logistics of the situation, etc, etc. I can't say, at all, what she should or shouldn't have done.

I can tell you a number of incidents I've read about in the paper, and thought to myself, "wtf were they thinking, etc, etc" .... only to later have the chance to discuss things with some of the people who were actually involved and realize I probably would've done the same thing.

In general, I'd recommend staying with the vehicle of course. But if everyone is alive and well, anything further is not really productive without full info.

Alan Bennet wrote:

PLWF wrote:

Survival:

If in a vehicle, stay with it.

The first rule of surviival is *not* "stay with the vehicle".

The consensus of opinion seems to be "stay with the vehicle".

Stay with the vehicle wrote:

The consensus of opinion seems to be "stay with the vehicle".

Except the husband got help by not staying with the vehicle.

I am not second-guessing their decisions after they got stuck. I think they didn't belong there in the first place.

Wtfunny wrote:

I can tell you a number of incidents I've read about in the paper, and thought to myself, "wtf were they thinking, etc, etc" .... only to later have the chance to discuss things with some of the people who were actually involved and realize I probably would've done the same thing.

.

I've done a moderate amount of time wandering national parks, and I know that the first thing I would have done is check posted conditions for the area I wanted to visit before setting out. And would have learned right quick that the North Rim effectively becomes unserviced in mid-October and closes completely to vehicles the earlier of December 1 or the first major snowfall of winter. Very clearly posted on the NPS web site of the Grand Canyon and all.

Alan Bennet wrote:

Stay with the vehicle wrote:

The consensus of opinion seems to be "stay with the vehicle".

Except the husband got help by not staying with the vehicle.

The husband went to higher ground to see if he could get a phone signal, which he did, and then returned to the vehicle. Just the same as you would leave the vehicle to look for water, food, firewood, whatever, then return to the vehicle.

beachmouse wrote:

Wtfunny wrote:

I can tell you a number of incidents I've read about in the paper, and thought to myself, "wtf were they thinking, etc, etc" .... only to later have the chance to discuss things with some of the people who were actually involved and realize I probably would've done the same thing.

.

I've done a moderate amount of time wandering national parks, and I know that the first thing I would have done is check posted conditions for the area I wanted to visit before setting out. And would have learned right quick that the North Rim effectively becomes unserviced in mid-October and closes completely to vehicles the earlier of December 1 or the first major snowfall of winter. Very clearly posted on the NPS web site of the Grand Canyon and all.

This. I'm honestly baffled why they were attempting to go into that area in the first place. I would always check conditions first.

Don't Eat the YELLOW Snow wrote:

I always heard eating snow was--in fact--about lowing the body core temperature. BUT, if you have a water bottle, you can put the water body closer to your body (not directly against it) to melt the snow/raise the water temperature above freezing.

Way to miss the point. You waste all that time to raise the temperature a few degrees, when the exact same happens (and more - it warms very quickly in smaller quantities on the way to the stomach) when you simply eat it.

I perused enough "don't eat snow" advice to realize it was an echo chamber with no legit source. And also one Canadian who says the Inuit eat snow, which I believe. They dress warm and aren't bothered by cold weather, why not eat the stuff.

It's worth repeating that a warm-blooded creature regulates core temperature by burning fats and such. Unless you're redlining your core temperature control, a bit of cold water or even ice is not going to put you in danger, it will only make you burn a little more fuel, while ensuring you possess enough water to do so.

Good story. It's true how quickly things can turn. My girlfriend & I do a lot of hiking & are always prepared, but I can see how just a decision or two could change the game completely. (We're pretty wacky about preparedness, even to a fault with extra weight.)

I remember a number of years ago, my friend was mountain biking with his wife & she went over the handlebars on a downhill. She hit her quad on a stone & sliced it open big & deep. (I believe it didn't bleed though?) He had to make the decision to leave her, bike a couple miles back to the car, & get help. Rescuers had to bring in four wheelers to get her out. I forget the number of stitches she needed, but the wound was so big that the doctors had to put stitches inside the wound & outside on the leg...and their was a drainage tube for the wound. (She never mountain biked after that, only road biking.)

Are WE both wrong? This is from outdoorlife.com:

We all know not to eat the yellow snow, but what about the white stuff? If it is cold enough for snow to be present, then it is cold enough for hypothermia. Since any volume of snow is mostly air, this means you’d need to eat about ten quarts of snow to yield one quart of water in your belly. Forget about brain freeze—this is core freeze! If you’re dehydrated in cold conditions with snow, find a way to liquefy the snow outside your body. Melt it with fire. Place it in a black container in the sun to absorb solar heat. Do anything other than eating it to melt it.

From reddit (not the best source):

Norwegian army sergeant here. Spent a lot of time in the snow. In all temperatures, down to -30C. Eating snow is not something I usually do. A mouth full of snow, does not produce a lot of water. Putting snow on your water bottle as you drink? Do it all the time. But again, a handful of snow in your bottle, does not produce a lot of water. The best way is to melt snow on a fire. Most snow does not even have to be boiled, just melted. Then again, most water in Norway is drinkable from the ground anyway.

So...

Eating snow: Fast easy, doesn't really give you much.

Putting snow in a bottle with water: Lets you have drinking water a bit longer.

Boil snow on a fire: best way to go. But if you cant boil snow on a fire, you might have bigger problems to think about. You might survive 3 days without water, but you can freeze to death before that. Or worse, have you limbs frozen and still be alive.