Backpacking basics

Survival I S IT FEASIBLE to be on vacation in a tiny touristoriented park, get lost, and need rescue? 101: Avoid It happens every year in North Carolina’s Jockey Ridge State Park. Covering an area less than two the deadly ‘vacation square kilometres, and hemmed in between the ocean on one side and a highway on the other, rescuers are called out more than 20 times a year looking for lost hikers there. People park their car, and head out on the trails. Soon they get completely mindset’ turned around: darkness is coming, panic sets in, they start to hurry or even run. Many are found crying and injured. By Allen Macartney How could anyone get lost on a postage stampsized park?

“When they get out of their car, it’s as if they stop thinking,” says the warden. “I call it a vacation mindset.” And it happens everywhere. It’s rampant close to home in Algonquin Park.

Each year scores of people overload their canoes with camping gear (even barbecues!) and paddle down Algonquin’s Smoke Lake for a weekend adventure. Sometimes you can see them zigzagging down the middle of this long lake, right into the teeth of an approaching storm. Low, black clouds scud overhead, and thunder echoes over the hills. Yet the paddlers seem oblivious to the imminent danger as they bash through huge waves. They’re on vacation. Somehow, their survival instincts have ALLEN totally shut down. Often those with just a bit of experience set off MACARTNEY with great self-assurance into the forest, feeling as if they’re masters of the universe. Though this overconfident attitude might work fine in downtown Ottawa or Montreal, it fails completely the further you go into the wilds. In nature, you can find yourself quickly out of your element without even knowing it, believing you are perfectly safe. "Each year scores of people overload their canoes with camping gear ...and paddle down the middle of a lake oblivous and right into the teeth of an approaching storm..."

From the cradle to the grave we’re conditioned to the fact – and it is a fact – that most of the time we’re totally secure. We don’t have to second-guess or be super-alert to manage perfectly well. Life is controlled, predictable and under control. We can leave work, shift our brains into neutral, drive home and arrive in our driveway without even recalling the trip. It’s happened to us all.

Hollywood reinforces this assumption of safety and control by presenting heroes in ever-more viole nt movies, and living through impossible perils – even thriving.

In nature, those assumptions can get you killed.

When Mount St. Helens blew up, despite repeated warnings, scores of people went deep into danger zones, just to watch. They ignored primal alarm bells – if there were any – ringing in their heads, ignored police advice, brought coolers, rolled out picnic blankets and ate sandwiches in the very shadow of the valley of death.

Several years ago tourists in Thailand were seen videotaping – instead of fleeing – the enormous, foaming tsunami as it sped towards their beach. They didn’t want to miss it, the amazing changing colours, the raw power of nature. And they didn’t, and nature didn’t miss them.

Thousands of years ago humans were very wary beings constantly alert for approaching threats. Survival was tenuous. Life often ended violently.

Today, “survival of the fittest” no longer rules our lives. Totally oblivious, we can wander deep into danger zones without a care in the world. Twenty percent of deaths in the Grand Canyon Park occur when people are either taking photographs or posing for one. Often they’re standing right beside a warning sign: “Danger! Exposed cliff!” Taking one confident step closer to the precipice for a better picture, they drop their guard, not understanding that this is no familiar, artificially controlled environment.

It’s quite possible to avoid this vacation mindset in the outdoors, and it won’t ruin your fun.

Stay keenly aware of your surroundings. You’ll actually enjoy your walk more, staying connected with the world around you. Keep a day pack with essentials, just in case. Expect the best, but plan for a bit of trouble.

Several years ago I paddled all alone to the Arctic Circle – 1,300 kilometres through the Yukon and Alaskan wilderness. Often I felt joyously overwhelmed by the utter silence and beauty, but I refused to completely relax. Wild animals surrounded me in the forest, and every one of them was on edge, sniffing the wind for danger, alert to approaching threats. That’s how nature operates. So I forced myself too, to stay constantly alert – my guard never dropped for long.

Adopt a vacation mindset in deep forest or wilderness at your peril. Eventually your lu ck can run out. Φ