Yay for supprise overnight hikes!

[Elias824]

So I went on a day hike with my dad on Sunday, we hiked up twins peak in the Wasatch mountain and we decided to take the "alternate route" up to the peak. Well the alternate route turned up to be really really bad, it requires you to walk across a bunch of really steep peaks and cliffs to another route down, it took us all freaking day to get across the peaks, and we ended up dropping down too soon on the wrong slope and ended up on this big ledge. We tried to find a way off the ledge but we didn't have enough time and it was starting to get dark so we found some trees and made a small shelter and a fire and camped over night. We had very little gear and light clothing(my dad was wearing fucking shorts), and the temperature got below freezing(I know this because when we hiked out in the morning all of our water was frozen solid). Anyways I feel kind of lucky to be alive because if it had rained or been really windy or anything we probably would have frozen up there. Anyways once the sun came up we were able to search around and find a path down and after we got back to the normal trail we had a life flight land for us and offer us a ride out, but it was only a few miles so we just walked the rest of the way down.

Anyone else have any survival hiking/camping stories?

 

[Nik]

Glad you made it, homeslice! I've been lost on Saddle Mountain for an afternoon, but that's about it.

Life Flight? The only thing I know called Life Flight are twin emergency helos that race around the tri-county area to get people to hospitals fast. Sorta like that?

 

[dainthomas]

Yay for topo maps!

 

[PricklyPete]

Glad to hear you made it out ok...getting lost is never fun when you don't have the proper supplies. Generally speaking if I'm doing anything more than a well marked walking path, I bring a knapsack with some water, lighter, knife, and additional clothes.

 

[Elias824]

Glad you made it, homeslice! I've been lost on Saddle Mountain for an afternoon, but that's about it.

Life Flight? The only thing I know called Life Flight are twin emergency helos that race around the tri-county area to get people to hospitals fast. Sorta like that?

Yeah same helicopters the hospitals use, normally we would get a search & rescue chopper but I guess they were busy somewhere else.

 

[Elias824]

Yay for topo maps!

Well we knew where we were, we just couldn't tell how to get from where we were to where we needed to go, we had a map to but its not that detailed. We were stuck on this big ledge that had about a 30ft drop around most of it and it was difficult to tell of any suitable way down. Alot of the time we wasted was looking around the damn ledge and not being able to see what was around us.

 

[Nik]

Did you have to call for them? Did they know you were out there? Or did they just see a couple guys and go offer help?

 

[Elias824]

the red path is where we deviated off, the black path is the "alternate route" your supposed to be able to take along the peaks back down the other saddle, and the purple is the normal path up. The biggest problem was just the terrain that we were on was really really bad and we took to long getting over it.

 

[Elias824]

Did you have to call for them? Did they know you were out there? Or did they just see a couple guys and go offer help?

Yeah my mother called them after we didnt show up home last Sunday night.

 

[Key West]

Your story sounds awesome. I'd love an overnight hiking like that.

 

[thescreensavers]

OP you should have a survival blanket in your first aid kit.

 

[Elias824]

OP you should have a survival blanket in your first aid kit.

Yeah funny story about that, I had the same one for about 6 years and never had to use it, well the last hike me and my dad went on it started raining/hailing and we each had one and pulled it out for cover and we didn't replace them.

 

[illusion88]

Lol, you got nighted on the twins. At least you got a fire going.

The last time I was up at Timpanogus, some fools got stuck in a storm and had to spend the night in the cabin. I was up there with a buddy to ski the glacier and camp for a night. I tell ya, I felt pretty bad for them as I was laying down in my sleeping bag! But, they had shelter, fire, I filled up their water bottles and gave them a bit of food.