So you think that was dumb?

Mountain biked the slickrock trail in Moab in a lightning storm.

Chad you automatically win the Darwin award and how you lived throught that I dont know. Ive witnessed lightning twice. Once on top of Whitney and once on my boat. I hate lightning. :( Ali

I have far to many to count and not enough space on the server to list all the dumb things I've done- one of the more recent ones- starting that thread "Others Bug Me With This in the Backcountry!"

Cracking me up!!!!

Tad, You and I could start a "I should think about this a couple of days before I post it that way I'll just forget all about it" support group…

Skipping a bolt accidently on my first lead climb, leading to a fall that led me below the boulder my belayer was on, very very dumb. Great lesson though.

:)

On a two night hiking trip at a small nearby park reserve I made a pretty dumb choice once. The park is close to the city and fairly civilized. It was a short 3/4 mile hike to the camping area and I had arrived at my site well into the night having started my walk at sun down. After a dozen attempts at heaving my bear bag rope over a branch with no luck I gave up. At the time I thought there was nothing to worry about. There weren't any bears out here anyway and I could see the people camping in the sites on either side of me 50 feet away. This was barely camping.

I ate my dinner and retired to bed. A short while later around 1:00am I awoke to some noises in my campsite. I listened attentively for a minute before realizing what was happening. My bag of food, lacking a rope and branch had been sitting on the picnic table. Now the raccoons had gotten into it!

I lunged out of my tent making noises to scare them off. By this time the critters had dragged the bag about 6 feet down the edge of the bluff I was camped on. Throwing pea sized pebbles, I was able to retrieve the bag while keeping them at bay.

Back on the level ground of my camp site I found a nice gash running vertically from one end of the bag to the other. A quick fix later and I was on a mission to get that rope over the branch. I grabbed the only thing I could find heavy enough guide the rope through the air- my cook pot.

Standing in the dark with my headlamp trained on the branch above I tossed the cook pot up and missed. I tossed again and a third time. The raccoons where just off the edge of the campsite. All 12 of their glowing little eyes where watching me and laughing. On the fourth attempt I heaved the pot up in the air and lost site of it in the dark sky above. In a split second it reappeared in the beam of my headlamp just before landing smack between my eyes. I could swear the raccoons were rolling on their backs in laughter by now.

On the fifth and final toss I secured the rope over the branch. My cook pot was dented by now but it would still work. I packed the cook pot back up along with my remaining food and air lifted the package to the relative safety above.

Back in my tent I could hear the raccoons rooting around the campsite to assess the new situation. After a half hour they wandered off to new adventures and I drifted off to sleep. The next morning while eating breakfast I pondered if my cook pot had sustained its dent during its collision with my face or not. But most importantly I realized the persistence of raccoons and the importance of bear bagging my food.

Usually others help me remembering this sort of things but one that comes to mind was testing my almost brand new Teva sandals on a rough river walk. It was amazing to find out just how many hot spots you can get from them. Fortunately I had the next day off (busy fighting with numerous insects and avoiding snakes) and the day after a generous amount of duct tape allowed me to hop back. Ouch, ouch,ouch… and repeat
Ali, I love lightning, always have. One of my earliest memory is being told off by my grandparents for standing outside on a balcony during thunderstorms. This was at about 1000m overlooking a deep valley with the city at the bottom of it. Just sensational.
(50 years later when we get a very rare electrical storm here, I go for a walk by the sea side)
Franco

Ali,

I don't think you're dumb. You've just got your own band playin'. I never, ever take precautions in lightning. I know it's dumb, but it's kind of a rush.

Lightning is a truly awesome force that is really cool to watch from a safe place. To me that doesnt include when you are above treeline however . . .

Of all the dumb things I have done the one that stands out the most was my first time bear bagging in sub alpine forest. I am used to the ozarks where finding sutable bagging locations is cake. So when my friend and I took our first trip to the colorado rockies we were sure we would have no problems with our bear bags. Well after our first day on the trail it was time to secure our food. We start looking around and realized how different this was gonna be from our usual stomping grounds. We finnaly found a branch we felt would work and hung our bag (without too much trouble actually, pct method) and went to bed.

The next morning I walk up to the location give a little pull on the rope and get a face full of 15 pounds of food. With a little pressure the rope just slipped right off the end of the branch!

Riding an inner tube down "The Meatgrinder" on the American River when they were releasing water from the dam upstream. We were one toke over the line, but somehow made it through without coming off. I count myself lucky to be alive, because they don't call it "The Meatgrinder" for nuthin'. Amazing what a dumb stoned kid will do for a rush.

I've climbed up some avalanche chutes I've had NO business being on.

most of the people who have died on that river died at meatgrinder.

i was guiding and was in the group right behind a group that lost a guide there – i saw the boats pulled over and someone walking upstream, carrying a lifejacket that used to have a guide in it. found out later: she was trapped underwater – legs went between some rocks under a pour-over & the water pushed her forward, ripping off the jacket and breaking both legs forwards (tib-fib). they couldn't get her out until drawing down the water to nearly no flow several hours later.

I could share a true story regarding a rafting trip on the
Grande Ronde river that involved me, a set of rapids named "the narrows" and more luck then any one person deserves.

Now I will not sleep tonight, thanks.

I was hiking one afternoon in the Chukung Valley in the Everest region, out on a day trip from my 'base camp'. I was alone at the end of the valley about 3.5 hours from camp, at about 16000 feet, with no trail to follow since I was just clambering across boulders on the glacier moraine.

No problem except it started to snow, storm clouds were gathering, I had no compass (or torch or anyting useful for that matter), and I only had a fleece and shell with me. I soon realised that I might get stuck in a snow-storm and be spending the night outside with temps below 0F.

Anyway, scared the crap out of me and I ran/jumped/scrambled back as fast as humanly possible. Luckily for me the snow didn't get heavy until I was back safe and sound. A few other close calls followed since then but these days I am better prepared and not so foolish. I was of course about 21 at the time… what could go wrong on a day hike, right? Did I mention that nobody knew I was there?

I think "exposure" is one of the most serious dangers to young people who are new to backpacking. I never even thought about it until found myself caught out.

To pick up on the lightening theme- Started out with my hiking buddies on a sunny morning to climb (walk up) Mt. Of The Holy Cross in Colorado (14,000+ ft) from our base camp at about 10,000. Made good progress and we continued up. A few small clouds appeared in the distance. No worries. We hiked for about 4 or 5 hours and finally got to the small rocky top about noon. Amazing view, blue sky everywhere except for those few clouds that had drifted over the peak. They were several hundred feet above us and not particularly scary looking. Quick lunch at the top and then we will go down. As I was biting into my bagel my friend, Frank, asked, "Are the rocks buzzing?" I listened and indeed they were. Sounded like high tension power lines on a wet day. "Run!!!!" We cleared the peak in about 2 seconds diving down the talus we had just labored so hard to get up. 10-15 seconds later seven ( yes I was counting), seven bolts of lightening struck the top. That is FLASH-BOOM with no time in between- times seven. Then it was over the clouds drifted away and all was calm. When we stopped shaking we scrambled down the mountain much wiser than when we had come up. I'm with you Ali, I hate lightening.

-Mark

This one time in the foothills of the Cascades on a beautiful October afternoon, I married an ultralight backpacker.

Lizzie,
Maybe not so dumb. The first 'date' I had with my husband was a backpacking trip in the North Cascades.
We're still married, still backpacking, and still VERY happy after 36 years!
If you have even half the joy we've had in those 36 years you will be a happy couple!

I narrowly avoided being trapped in an ocean cave while the tide came in. I ended climbing out without rope as the rocks crumbled in my hands. At a couple points my legs went into that terrible sewing machine shake as I got near the top

Late November in the Sierra I left my pack on top of Paiute Pass to do a little side hike. The ground was mostly bare but snow had started falling overnight and had accumulated a few inches. I wore a pile jacket and shell, no food, compass, or other supplies. With the wind at my back it was pretty easy going up to the crest above where I could look down the steep eastern escarpment. I did crawl the last 20 feet due to the very strong wind.

Unfortunately once I turned around with the wind in my face I couldn't see more than 50' ahead. The wind seemed to whip from every direction and as I gained some flatter ground I couldn't be sure of the direction to my pack. Head downhill to the west and I had 30 miles to the road end at Florence Lake. Head east and I had cliff bands to contend with. Thinking that I was headed the correct direction, I passed one tarn with a distinctive group of boulders three times, each time the snow was a few inches deeper. It had taken me about an hour to reach the crest but nearly four hours trying to get back to my pack.

Finally the clouds parted a bit, the wind dropped, and a ray of sunshine fell in the direction of the pass and trail. A few minutes later the blizzard was back up to full force but I made it to my pack. While I had left my pack in an area with just a couple inches of snow, when I returned there was a solid foot.

Luckily as I dropped down the trail to the east the snow dissipated and the hike out went quickly.

After that I never go hiking off trail without a compass and some supplies.

While it seems my wife is constantly telling me I take too many chances, oh excuse me, do dumb things, this thread strikes home for something I (we, I am with my brother-in-law and regular hiking partner Dave for many of them) did a couple weeks ago.

Even though I have lived in Southern California for most of my life and hike regularly in the Mt San Jacinto and Mt San Gorgonio areas as keep-in-shape for the Sierra, I have never been to the Mt Baldy area. Dave asked if I wanted to play hooky from work and do some peak bagging, but he wanted to pick where we went. I said of course for two reasons. One I am salary and get paid even when I am not in the office. Two Dave owns the company I work for. (Thank God I am his hiking muse…)

He picked the Baldy area and showed me a possible 20 mile loop that would take in three peaks, plus one un-named peak. While we had a lot of snow earlier it had warmed up a lot and neither of us thought there would be much in the way of snow. As we met at 5:00 am to head up he told me he had just bought some Yak Trax Pros at REI and was thinking of just bringing them instead of crampons. I told him I have some and need more use to review them so I tossed the crampons back and grabbed the Trax. I figured we would not really need anything more. I did bring the ice axe of course but decided to leave my helmet too. That actually slowed Dave down a bit, but after saying I don’t expect to need a helmet if I am not in crampons he left his too. (Picture Ray with little devil horns sitting on Dave’s shoulder…)

We get up there and approach on a south facing trail that is pretty clear once we climb out of Ice House Canyon. Once at the saddle next to Timber Mt we are in snow that while not very thick is solidly frozen. Our trekking poles sound like we are hitting granite. I wanted to summit the peak but Dave said let’s save this one for the way back as we can see we will not be doing his loop. (Boy, was that a mistake. Had we climbed it first we could have looked down on where we needed to go.)

We cannot see the trail but by the map we can see where we need to go to get to a lower saddle that will lead us to Telegraph peak. There is no way to follow the trail with its switchbacks which are buried so I start blasting ahead across the snow (ice) fields. It is very slick. I tell Dave that if we walk carefully and try to keep complete contact with the Yak Trax against the ice it should work fine. He is smart enough to wait and see.

I make it pretty well until I hit an area that had a two inch layer of snow that had dropped a couple days earlier was still sitting in the shady spots. The snow floated the Yak Trax off the surface and Ray went sliding. I arrested. Dave said see ya later I am climbing up as there are melted off areas above.

Me being a Damn the Torpedoes, Take no Prisoners kind of guy I kept going. It got worse and steeper and I took another spill, another arrest. This one I could not even stand up again without immediately falling down. I did a crab crawl finally over to dirt. Then once I started on snow-free ground I found it was frozen solid. Looking back I saw that Dave had climbed way above and parallel to me and seeing me finally on dirt was taking his poles back out. I told him to keep his axe out as the ground was frozen. Not five minutes later I hit a section of ground that was like marbles on a concrete ramp. I started sliding and tried making it a boot glissade but saw that it would not work as the terrain dropped off even steeper coming up. I dropped and tried doing my first ever self arrest not on snow. It did not work too well. My pick just bounced off the frozen dirt. I remember looking downward and thinking that at least there were not any rocks, just a few widely scattered trees to hit as I tried a couple more times to get my pick to grab. (I just picked it up a tiny bit to try to stab it back down.) As the axe was on my right side each attempt slid me to the right and I ended up sliding to the juncture of a snow field. I arched up and replanted in the snow/ice which brought me to a sudden and welcome stop.

After that Dave ended up climbing almost to the peak of Timber Mt to find a sun melted buttress/ridge to follow down. He says he will never leave his helmet or crampons behind again. I knew that I had to admit my folly to my wife as Dave keeps nothing from my sister. She was OK after asking if I had my PLB (her first gift to me) in my pack which I assured her I did. But I didn’t. So there is two dumb things for you. And thank goodness she is not online here…

By the way we did end up climbing Timber Mt, Telegraph Peak and an un-named peak that day. And as I write this I still have scabs on both legs and my right hip from the rock arrest.

I chased a California brown bear down a trail to get a photo!

A few weeks ago we were sitting in the bed during a lightning storm and just watching out the window (as you do). Then a strike hit our house. It was one of the most exciting things I've witnessed-ground zero lightning. The dumb thing was knowing a lightning storm was forecast and NOT unplugging the computer or moving the car to shelter. Fried the computer modem and hail damaged the car's paint. Definitely learned a good lesson there.