The 10 Biggest Mistakes I Have Made While Backpacking
When Things Go Wrong in the Wilderness You Need To Deal With Them Quickly, Decisively and Correctly–Either That, Or Pay the Consequences
We all make mistakes. Its a part and parcel of being human. Unfortunately, when we make a mistake in the wilderness, our error can put us in an uncomfortable and sometimes even dangerous position.
In my fifty-plus years of tromping around in the back woods of Washington, Oregon and beyond I have certainly made my fair share of unforced errors. Most of these were relatively minor, but a few proved to be quite serious. Below you will find a list of my most egregious faux pas along with recommendations on how you can avoid making these same mistakes.
Mistake #1: I Got Lost
And when I say lost, I mean truly lost.
How it Happened: I was in my late teens, backpacking with friends. I left camp shortly before sunset with nothing but a roll of toilet paper in my hands. I did not walk very far–maybe a hundred yards at most. After taking care of business I stood, re-buttoned my pants and started walking back towards camp–or at least I thought that was the direction I was walking. After perhaps five minutes of scrambling through thickets of scrub brush and pine I began to worry that I’d somehow miscalculated. I felt certain that I’d gone back the way I came, but if so, where was our camp? Had I passed it by, or maybe I just hadn’t walked far enough?
By this time the sun had gone down and it was quickly growing dark. Concerned now, I began walking a little faster and then, after another few minutes, even faster still. Eventually I began to run, branches slapping at my face and arms. I was truly lost now and the only thing I could think was that I needed to get back to camp as quickly as I could.
How I Solved My Problem: It turns out that my reaction to getting lost is a very common one. Many people when they become disoriented in the forest will start to run, even going to far as to drop their belongings (water bottle, backpack, map).
These are, of course the very last thing that you should do. If you are truly lost, you are going to need that map, and probably that backpack and water too.
I, unfortunately, was not carrying any of these things. I still held the roll of toilet paper (now somewhat smaller than before), but it is doubtful that this would prove helpful in getting me out of my current predicament.
So what did I do? Well, first of all, I stopped running. Tired and out of breath, I took stock of my situation. I looked around at the trees, the hills I could still see in the distance, the last remaining glow of daylight. I closed my eyes then and tried to picture the orientation of our campsite, its relationship to the lake, the hills, the sun. And then, very slowly and deliberately, I turned back in the direction from which I had been running and began to retrace my steps.
Despite the fading light I did not run this time, but instead followed the trail of broken branches I had left in my wake. Half an hour passed before I heard voices up ahead–my friends calling out for me. I called back to them and then used the sound of their voices to guide myself that last hundred yards back to camp.
What I Learned From This Incident and How You Can Avoid Making This Same Mistake: The most important thing I learned is that fear is a powerful motivator, but a terrible decision maker. When I first realized that I was lost, my fight or flight reflex kicked in, and since there was no one there to fight, I ran.
And ran.
And ran.
What I should have done instead was stop the first moment I realized that something was wrong. If I had called out to my friends then, they probably would have heard me, and a bad situation would have been quickly resolved.
The other thing I should have done was pay better attention to my surroundings as I walked out of camp. Since this incident I make a point of committing my campsite and its immediate surroundings to memory before going anywhere. I then identify landmarks along my path–unique rock formations, interesting trees, and then use these to guide myself back.
Another thing you can do is to always carry a whistle with you. The piercing sound of a whistle will carry farther than the human voice, and if you do get lost, this could help rescuers to find you.
Mistake # 2: I Ran Out of Water Half Way Through My Hike
How It Happened: In my defense, I had planned to refill my water bottle at a stream that the map showed lay half way between my first night’s campsite and my second. Unfortunately when I arrived at said stream, I found that it had run dry days or possibly even weeks before. By this time I had only a few sips of water left and four miles left to travel.
If the weather had been hot that day, or if this had been a more exposed trail, I could have been in serious trouble. Luckily the trail was mostly shaded, the weather cool. By the time I made it to my next campsite I was extremely thirsty, but still alive. Not everyone who makes this mistake is as lucky as I was. Read this article if you want to know exactly how serious this mistake can be.
What I Learned From This Incident and How You Can Avoid Making the Same Mistake: Always, always, always carry more water than you think you will need. If you plan to resupply at a natural water source along the way, make sure that this source actually exists and that it is not seasonal.
Mistake #3: I Pitched My Tent In What That Night Would Become A Small Pond
How It Happened: My cousin, my mother and I had spent a long day slogging through a driving downpour on the Southwest Washington portion of the Pacific Crest Trail. We had planned to camp much earlier than we did, but had been unable to find any suitable campsites. By the time we did finally find somewhere to pitch our tents it was nearly dark and the rain was coming down even harder than before.
We didn’t realize it as the time, but the place we chose to set up our tents was a small depression. Over the course of the next few hours, this depression slowly filled with water until we were all finally awakened by the sound our feet thrashing in the pond that now surrounded us. By the time we got up, broke down camp and moved our tents, everything we owned was soaking wet, including our sleeping bags, the clothes we were wearing, our spare clothes, and even our boots. We spent the next three hours wringing everything out as best we could and then struggling to build and then maintain a fire with nothing to work with but wet wood and a few out of date fire tabs.
Luckily for us, the storm passed quickly and the next morning dawned bright and warm. We lost a day of hiking (none of us was willing to backpack in wet clothes, socks and shoes) but by the end of that day we at last managed to get everything dry, or mostly so.
What I Learned From This Incident and How You Can Avoid Making the Same Mistake: Choose your campsite carefully, even if it is very late and you are very tired. Also think about where the water will go in a heavy rainstorm. Water always flows downhill, and if your tent is pitched on the lowest patch of ground in the area, you can be sure it will get wet in a storm.
Mistake #4: I Ran Out of Cooking Fuel Two Days Before the End of My Hike
How It Happened: The problem with trying to go ultralight is that you sometimes make decisions based on weight rather than need. This is what happened to me. I thought that a single, small canister of fuel would suffice for my five night trip, but severely miscalculated the burn rate at 6000 feet. Luckily, I still had a few packets of nuts and two breakfast meals that could be rehydrated cold. This got me through the next day, but because of this mistake, I was forced to cut this very enjoyable hike (to Camp Lake in the Three Sisters Wilderness) short by an entire day.
What I Learned From This Incident and How You Can Avoid Making the Same Mistake: I learned that I need to know exactly how many boils I can get out of a given canister at a given elevation. Do not believe the printed literature or the claims of the manufacturers. My very next hike I took two small canisters, and then kept track of how many boils I got out of each (12-14), and now use this information to plan how many canisters I will need. As precaution, I always bring at least one full day’s worth of meals (breakfast/lunch/dinner) that can be cold hydrated, or do not need to be rehydrated at all. This last bit is good advice for any trip, as you never know when your stove might break or your canister might leak.
Mistake #5: I Failed to Pack Enough Toilet Paper
How It Happened: In truth, I did bring enough toilet paper. Or rather, it would have been enough if the chipmunk hadn’t found it on day two of our five day hike and shredded every last bit of it. I awoke the next morning to find that the floor of my tent looked like a confetti parade had just marched through. The little bastard responsible for this had also chewed a hole at one end of my tent to get in and another at the opposite end to get out. I later saw him laughing at me as I used a pine bough for a purpose that I’m quite sure God never intended.
What I Learned From This Incident and How You Can Avoid Making the Same Mistake: I learned that chipmunks are not the cute little animals that they appear to be. I also learned that I need to protect my toilet paper from the ravages of these vermin. I now either secure the roll inside my cooking pot at night, or else hang it with my food.
Mistake #6: I Wore the Wrong Boots
How It Happened: This may not sound like a serious mistake to you, but for me it was. I was snowshoeing in Crater Lake National Park in April. Temperatures approached 50F during the day, but at night were still dropping well below freezing. Because of the warm daytime temperatures, I had chosen to wear my Solomon Elixers instead of my insulated (and 100% waterproof) boots.
What I failed to take into account was that these warm temperatures would turn the surface of the snow into a very wet and heavy slush. I did not realize it until I made camp that night, but both my boots and socks were thoroughly saturated. I had a spare pair of socks, but knew that if I were to wear these with wet boots, they would quickly suffer the fate of the first pair. To make matters worse, when I awoke the next morning, both socks and boots were now frozen solid.
What I Learned From This Incident and How You Can Avoid Making the Same Mistake: Clearly, I could not hike with frozen boots. My only recourse was to spend the day where I was and to use both my camp stove and the sun to get my footwear dry. This worked, but not without a cost (see item #7, below). My advice to you would be to make sure that your footwear is appropriate to the conditions you expect to face. Wet feet are not only uncomfortable, but given low enough temperatures, they can also be dangerous. Self-inflicted frostbite is not something that any of us should have to suffer.
Mistake #7: I Set Both My Boots and My Socks on Fire WhileTrying to Get Them Dry
How It Happened: This is the point where you will begin to question my intelligence, and to be honest, after making this mistake (a pair of mistakes, actually) I began to question it myself.
The short version of this story is that both my socks and boots were frozen solid (see item #6, above), and I thought I could use my camp stove flame to get them unfrozen. I was successful to a point–maybe even a little too successful. To dry my socks I filled my cooking pot with a small amount of water, put the lid on, cranked up my stove, and then draped my socks over the top of the cooking pot. The socks began to steam almost immediately, and then they began to melt.
Giving up on the socks, I removed the cook pot and then held my boots, one at a time over the burning stove. They too began to steam almost immediately, but I was impatient and so kept getting them closer and closer to the flame. When my left boot burst into flames I realized that I had gotten them too close. Even worse was that neither my socks nor my boots were anywhere close to dry. Burned, yes. Dry, no.
What I Learned From This Incident and How You Can Avoid Making the Same Mistake: What did I learn? I learned that you should not use your cookstove to dry your socks and boots. An even better solution to this problem and the one above would be to never have allowed my socks and boots to get wet in the first place.
Mistake #8: I Broke A Tent Pole in the Middle of the Night
How It Happened: I was camping in Badlands National Park when a ferocious windstorm descended upon my campsite. I watched in horror as successive downdrafts pushed the top of my ultralight tent down until it nearly touched my nose. One of the tent poles buckled, which then set off a cascade of other failures. The ends of each pole disengaged from the base as the wind then tried to pull the tent apart.
Unable to do anything else in such a strong wind, I spent the next two hours holding onto my tent with both hands as the as heavy rains soaked through the supposedly waterproof fabric and into my sleeping bag. By the time the wind finally abated both my sleeping bag and my clothes were soaking wet.
The next morning, I tried to set up my tent again, but was only partially successful due to the broken pole. I had a repair sleeve with me, but because of the location of the break I would have had to first undo the shock cord and and then remove several other sections of pole. Also, when I examined the break I saw that that section of shock cord there was badly worn and was itself ready to break. Unfortunately, I did not have any replacement shock cord, and even if I had, I would not have known how to replace it.
What I Learned From This Incident and How You Can Avoid Making the Same Mistake: Bad storms happen, and if you go hiking often enough, you will likely be caught out in one. My first and most egregious mistake was that I had not adequately staked my tent for such a storm. The Nemo Dragonfly has a number of wind guys, but I had used none of them, and this was the reason my tent collapsed in the middle of the storm.
My second mistake was that I did not have the tools or the knowledge to deal with the resulting damage.
Immediately upon returning from this trip I watched several YouTube videos on how to replace broken tent poles and shock cord, and then ordered replacements for my damaged pieces. I now carry a repair sleeve, extra shock cord, as well as extra wind stays and stakes on every trip.
In hindsight, if I had had my tent adequately secured, and had been using all of the available wind tie downs, I likely would not have suffered the break in the first place, and would have also stayed dry that night. I now make sure to check the weather forecast each night before retiring, and if there is even the slightest chance of heavy wind, I add stakes and tie downs. I would highly recommend that you do the same.
Mistake #9: I Drank Untreated, Unfiltered Water and Gave Myself Giardiasis
How It Happened: The stream looked so pristine. It could not possibly be contaminated, could it? I think you already know the answer to that question.
I only drank a cupful from that stream, but within a couple of hours, I was already beginning to feel the effects of my mistake. If you have never been unlucky enough to be infected by this nasty bug, believe me when I tell you that you don’t want to. It is very, very unpleasant.
What I Learned From This Incident and How You Can Avoid Making the Same Mistake: Never, never, NEVER trust the water. Even if you think that it could not possibly be contaminated you have to ask yourself: Do bears shit in the woods? Yes they do. And so do hundreds of other animals. And Birds. And Humans. Do not risk it. Boil, filter or treat your water. ALWAYS.
Mistake #10: I Walked the Wrong Way for Half A Mile and Didn’t Even Know It
How It Happened: I have learned that this is much more common than you might think, especially on multi-day hikes. You camp on one side of the trail one day and on the opposite side the next, but then get the two campsites confused in your mind. You then break down camp and set off on your next day’s adventure only to find that you have been walking the wrong way for several minutes or sometimes even hours.
In my case, I didn’t realize my mistake until I came to a trail intersection that I had passed the day before. I was confused at first, and then mortified. How could I have done something so stupid? Easy, and this could happen to you too if you are not careful.
What I Learned From This Incident and How You Can Avoid Making the Same Mistake: Similar to the lesson from Item #1 on this list, I learned that I need to pay better attention to my surroundings. On some level, all trees look alike, except when they don’t. When you stop for the day, make note of those things in your environment that stand out: the gnarled tree at the end of your campsite, the rocky outcropping on the other side of the valley. Note these things and then use them to orient yourself. Better yet, learn how to use a map and compass, and then consult these before beginning each day’s hike. If you do this, not only will you not walk the wrong way, you are also unlikely to get lost.
Ok, then. These were the ten biggest mistakes I have made, but trust me when I tell you that they were not the only ones. I have made many, many, many mistakes throughout my life. But I have learned from each and every one of them, and I hope that you have learned something from the list above. The most important thing is to know what you are getting into, the dangers it presents, and to be as prepared as you possibly can for what lies ahead.
Happy hiking!
