(no subject)
Well, they've found James Kim's body.
I kind of thought yesterday, when they announced that they'd found his trousers, that this would be the outcome. Delirium is a very common symptom of hypothermia and victims are often found partially or mostly unclothed. Once a person gets to the point where he's shedding layers in the winter wild, he's usually done for unless he's found very quickly. The ability to make rational decisions goes away very quickly and panic sets in rapidly as core temp drops. Although the news outlets were trying to paint this as a good sign, indicating that he was trying to mark a trail, I'd bet that most of the experienced hikers/hunters/campers in the on-scene search parties were looking at each other and quietly shaking their heads. When full details come out, I would not be surprised to hear that there were additional shed articles of clothing that helped lead searchers to his body.
Ultimately, of course, he should have stayed with the vehicle. When we teach the survival portion of the Minnesota DNR firearms safety course (which is heavily oriented toward the hunter), we emphasize that when lost in the woods, the first and most important thing to do is to stop and make a fire, then find or make shelter. Stay put - wandering around just uses up energy and makes it harder for anyone to track you; besides which, wilderness navigation is a pretty specialized skill. It isn't rocket science, but you don't head off cross-country to find help with a Rand McNally highway map and no compass. Kim and his family had shelter and the means to heat it. His wife and kids survived what was an uncomfortable and terrifying ordeal, but they lived. As would he, had he stayed with them.
Once when I was young, about nine or ten, my dad and I went with a friend up to a hunting cabin on the Gunflint Trail in Minnesota's north woods. Late in the evening on our way up, it began to snow and we slid off the road. We had almost a full tank of gas and ample warm clothing and we were on what passed for a major road up there. A logging company vehicle stopped by and told us not to worry, the pole truck would be by in the morning and could pull us out. Well, being young, I was pretty scared - I hadn't yet realized that "it couldn't happen to me." My dad did his best to reassure me, we kept the car warm and the windows and exhaust clear, and in the morning the pole truck pulled us out.
Sometimes there isn't any pole truck.
I never take a winter trip without a few basics for survival in the vehicle, and a larger kit for long trips. That always, always, always includes a compass, some way (or two ways) to start a fire, and something to eat. I've never had to use it, but I have to remind myself that there isn't always a pole truck.
I think that most of us have done so much to remove ourselves from the real environment in which we live that it somehow seems surreal to us. It bears remembering that there is usually only a thin skin between us and nature, and we are generally less ready to deal with it than we would have been 150 years ago. Imagine, for example, your car breaking down in the middle of Death Valley in August. Yes, you could die out there (and people do, every year, there and in similar places). Every year, people overestimate how long they can walk in the cold, how much clothing they're wearing, how far a mile is; how well they can swim, how far their cell phone coverage extends, and so on. And many of them die. I suspect that somewhere in our modern padded, heated, air-conditioned, car-driving espresso-drinking brains is a conditioned response that tells us we aren't really stuck out here miles from anywhere in the middle of the Oregon mountains in a snowstorm; that Donner Party stuff is for the Late Show. And so we say, "Hang on, honey, I'll go for help," and we get out of the car. James Kim was not a stupid man, nor was he an exception. What happened to him could have happened to many of us. He was simply inexperienced, and it cost him his life. We tend to think that things like this don't happen in the 21st Century.
But they do, and the results are often tragic. Nature can be a wonderful place to spend time, but lack respect for it and you will pay the price. The natural world is utterly indifferent to whether you live or die, and you don't get many mistakes. There are no mulligans in the Coast Range of Oregon in December.
I kind of thought yesterday, when they announced that they'd found his trousers, that this would be the outcome. Delirium is a very common symptom of hypothermia and victims are often found partially or mostly unclothed. Once a person gets to the point where he's shedding layers in the winter wild, he's usually done for unless he's found very quickly. The ability to make rational decisions goes away very quickly and panic sets in rapidly as core temp drops. Although the news outlets were trying to paint this as a good sign, indicating that he was trying to mark a trail, I'd bet that most of the experienced hikers/hunters/campers in the on-scene search parties were looking at each other and quietly shaking their heads. When full details come out, I would not be surprised to hear that there were additional shed articles of clothing that helped lead searchers to his body.
Ultimately, of course, he should have stayed with the vehicle. When we teach the survival portion of the Minnesota DNR firearms safety course (which is heavily oriented toward the hunter), we emphasize that when lost in the woods, the first and most important thing to do is to stop and make a fire, then find or make shelter. Stay put - wandering around just uses up energy and makes it harder for anyone to track you; besides which, wilderness navigation is a pretty specialized skill. It isn't rocket science, but you don't head off cross-country to find help with a Rand McNally highway map and no compass. Kim and his family had shelter and the means to heat it. His wife and kids survived what was an uncomfortable and terrifying ordeal, but they lived. As would he, had he stayed with them.
Once when I was young, about nine or ten, my dad and I went with a friend up to a hunting cabin on the Gunflint Trail in Minnesota's north woods. Late in the evening on our way up, it began to snow and we slid off the road. We had almost a full tank of gas and ample warm clothing and we were on what passed for a major road up there. A logging company vehicle stopped by and told us not to worry, the pole truck would be by in the morning and could pull us out. Well, being young, I was pretty scared - I hadn't yet realized that "it couldn't happen to me." My dad did his best to reassure me, we kept the car warm and the windows and exhaust clear, and in the morning the pole truck pulled us out.
Sometimes there isn't any pole truck.
I never take a winter trip without a few basics for survival in the vehicle, and a larger kit for long trips. That always, always, always includes a compass, some way (or two ways) to start a fire, and something to eat. I've never had to use it, but I have to remind myself that there isn't always a pole truck.
I think that most of us have done so much to remove ourselves from the real environment in which we live that it somehow seems surreal to us. It bears remembering that there is usually only a thin skin between us and nature, and we are generally less ready to deal with it than we would have been 150 years ago. Imagine, for example, your car breaking down in the middle of Death Valley in August. Yes, you could die out there (and people do, every year, there and in similar places). Every year, people overestimate how long they can walk in the cold, how much clothing they're wearing, how far a mile is; how well they can swim, how far their cell phone coverage extends, and so on. And many of them die. I suspect that somewhere in our modern padded, heated, air-conditioned, car-driving espresso-drinking brains is a conditioned response that tells us we aren't really stuck out here miles from anywhere in the middle of the Oregon mountains in a snowstorm; that Donner Party stuff is for the Late Show. And so we say, "Hang on, honey, I'll go for help," and we get out of the car. James Kim was not a stupid man, nor was he an exception. What happened to him could have happened to many of us. He was simply inexperienced, and it cost him his life. We tend to think that things like this don't happen in the 21st Century.
But they do, and the results are often tragic. Nature can be a wonderful place to spend time, but lack respect for it and you will pay the price. The natural world is utterly indifferent to whether you live or die, and you don't get many mistakes. There are no mulligans in the Coast Range of Oregon in December.