Thanks to whoever brought up the Deep Survival book—DEEP SURVIVAL: Who Lives, Who Dies and Why: True Stories of Miraculous Endurance and Sudden Death, by Laurence Gonzales(W.W.Norton and Co 2003).
I pulled a particularly brutal 15 day winter backpacking trip back in January 2010 and was lucky enough to bring this book out to read in my tent at night—very cold nights. As I read I wrote up notes and wrote up a sort of review in my trail journal. Here’s a link—
http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=298053
One paragraph had real relevance as I sat in my frozen tent at 5,300 feet in zero degrees:
“It’s easy to imagine that wilderness survival would involve equipment, training, and experience. It turns out that, at the moment of truth, those might be good things to have but they aren’t decisive. Those of us who go into the wilderness or seek our thrills in contact with the forces of nature soon learn, in fact, that experience, training, and modern equipment can betray you. The maddening thing for someone with a Western scientific turn of mind is that it’s not what’s in your pack that separates the quick from the dead. It’s not even what’s in your mind. Corny as it sounds, it’s what’s in your heart.” GONZALES
“All elite performers train hard, and when you follow in their path, you’d better train hard, too, or be exceptionally alert. That’s the main difficulty with neophytes who go into the wilderness: We face the same challenges the experts face. Nature doesn’t adjust to our level of skill.” GONZALES
“Some high-angle rescue workers call body bags “long-term bivvy sacks.” GONZALES
“They actually discussed the weather and “made a group decision to press on for the top instead of rappelling off.” Even if they had succeeded, they did not consider how rapidly hypothermia could overtake them in their cotton clothing in a cold rain. They were locked in a game of speed chess with Mother Nature. And she unleashed a series of stunning moves.” GONZALES and all quotes from the book DEEP SURVIVAL.
QUOTES FROM MY TRAIL JOURNAL—Deep cold becomes deep survival. In his book, Gonzales starts Chapter 4 with an interesting description of the Illinois River in Oregon and its class III-IV and V rapids which attracts paddlers. A paddler named Gary Hough “knew that with his level of skill he could run the Illinois at flows between 900 and 3,000 cubic feet per second.” GONZALES.
Anyway, it started raining and Gary pulled out to sit tight and watch. “The environment had changed, and he adapted.” GONZALES. He was smart to do so cuz “The river rose 15 feet and the flow eventually would reach 20,000 cubic feet per second.” GONZALES. Good God, 20,000 feet per second? Anybody who’s been by a raging river can understand and be shocked.
Gary said, “There’s the roar of the full-throated river, but on top of that, as if it’s a layer you pick up and remove, there’s the hiss. That hiss basically says, ‘keep your distance.'” GONZALES. It was still run by 5 on a raft, 3 kayakers, and then 5 more kayakers, and of these, two died.
“One woman . . . was carried 5 miles downstream before she was able to get out.” As Gonzales said, quoting John F. Kennedy, “There’s always some son of a bitch who never gets the word.” ALL QUOTES LAURENCE GONZALES.
THE HISS
The reason I quoted all this stuff is the thing about The Hiss and how it relates to many wilderness experiences. The Hiss is that borderline between a regular day in the woods and a time “when you best keep your distance.” There’s the engorged river Hiss, the winter cold Hiss, the ridgetop extreme wind Hiss, the high electricity lightning Hiss and of course, the rattlesnake Hiss. I’ve experienced all of the above hisses and can tell you there certainly is a line where things go from serious to very serious.
THE CONCLUSION TO THE “DEEP SURVIVAL” BOOK by Laurence Gonzales
Here’s a brief synopsis and summary checklist-outline I compiled after reading the book:
** Avoid impulsive behavior, don’t hurry. Remember my Go Slow policy?
** Know your stuff and know the system you’re entering.
** Commune with the dead: “Read the accident reports in your chosen field of recreation.” “The mistakes other people have made.” GONZALES
** Be humble: “Those who gain experience while retaining firm hold on a beginner’s state of mind become long-term survivors.” GONZALES
** When in doubt, bail out.
Finally the book ends with this sobering quote: “we can live a life of bored caution and die of cancer.” GONZALES. So do it all first!
