Search and Rescue on the Devils Fork

HERE is a very good story on the Arkansas Canoe Club forums page on a search and rescue that happened yesterday
in the Richland Creek area. Very interesting.

How many times have we each been one step, or misstep, from disaster?

I could tell you a few, one in particular involving the wife but she would shoot me! She was lucky
in that how many times do you have group hiking in a wilderness that has a doctor with them?
All turned out well and I have changed the way I hike ever since.

Also it is a wonder that I haven't had a major accident in the past that could have left me with
broken bones but so far I have been lucky.

I hikes solo quite a bit a few years ago. My biggest concern was that I would be in a heap of trouble if I suffered a mishap on the trail. I never hiked (and still don't) without giving someone my intenerary, the time I will go on the trail, and the time I will check in after the hike. I allow a few hours for delay, cell coverage etc. on a check in time.

However, on a three day hike, that is a long window before someone reports you as being missing.

I don't yet have a SPOT device, but I am about to invest in one. Even when I am hiking in a group, I can see the benefit of having one.

Oh, and the event that caused me to just about quit hiking solo was when I broke my ankle on a night hike.

I had a first time backpacker with me (now married to her). I was orinteering down a slope by compass and map when it happened. I was about 1/4 mile from where we were meeting some people in camp. I managed to get down the slope and to the stream but due to the pain/shock, I spent at least 2 or 3 minutes looking at the stream. When she asked me what I was looking at, I said, "I can't tell which way the water is flowing".

I needed to go upstream, but despite the fact I "knew" the direction I approached the stream and despite the fact I "knew" camp was a short distance upstream, I was so disoriented, there is no way I would have made it on my own. I like to think I would have had the sense to camp right there until morning, but I am not so sure what I would have done.

When an problem occurs, it saps the "reasoning" right out of you, pronto.