I just got to thinking, the sport that we love is a dangerous one. You can be a true professional (not that I claim to be one) and do everything right, but still die due to just bad luck. And while that is a rare occurrence, at least for people who take it seriously and treat it with respect, I just feel like things going wrong or getting g a bit scary can’t be uncommon with this hobby or lifestyle.
I have a few, but they’re just really minor things not really gone wrong worthy. I do have one though, which is what made me think of this post. Although I wouldn’t really say it was like near death, but it was much less than ideal. So this story happened 3 years ago. The summer of 2023.
My wife and I had a ~24 mile trip planned through a particularly remote stretch of Appalachia. And we frequented this general region, but hadn’t been to this specific spot yet. Every other time we had been to this region, there was a plethora of water. And I studied the route, made sure it followed along creeks at least at parts. Of which, there were many.
I didn’t plan on encountering anyone else the whole time. And. We didn’t. We didn’t even see any cars on the way in for the last maybe 45 minutes.
Anyway. We started the trail with 4 days of food, planned on taking our time and doing it in 3 days. Starting off there was a huge creek crossing, almost like more of a river than a creek. We followed alongside that creek for the first ~3 miles, then crossed. Boots got full of water, it was way deeper than we thought it was. We laughed it off and pressed up the mountain on the other side. It was steep as hell. We gained 1400ft in less than a mile, it was more like a climb than a hike. I knew that this existed beforehand, but once you hit the “top”, it pretty much evened out into some meadows or declined the rest of the time. There was another ascent, but not nearly as much gain.
We made camp around 7 miles in and just hung out the rest of the day. Beautiful campsite right beside a small waterfall, surrounded by rhododendrons. Dried our boots out by the campfire. Went to sleep. Continued on the next day.
So the next day started off heading across this meadow. The trail was really beat up with very uneven footing and deep, like, trenches? We were careful walking through, super beautiful. Saw lots of deer, bright pink flowers blooming. No water up there really, just standing puddles.
It was probably around mile 11 or so that it started to descend, pretty rocky. It was uneven and it was steep, but not that steep. The total descent was like 2 miles down to the next creek on the map. Which is where we were going to refill our water.
About halfway down, my wife twisted her ankle. Pretty good. We assessed but she decided we were already halfway through and if we turned around, she would have to go back up, back across that really uneven trenchy meadow and then back down the super steep mountainside. So, we just pressed on.
We made it down to the bottom and something rather unfortunate was there. The creek on my map, was dried up. No water. And keep in mind, it was like high 80s and super humid. We still had water, but not much. I was relying on this trail having plenty of places to refill, as all of the others in the area did. And her ankle was killing her, so we just stopped and made camp.
By morning, after making breakfast and getting all prepped to go, we were out of water. We decided, we’re just going to make it the remaining ~10-11 miles back to the car. Which was not ideal for her foot, but neither was taking it slow with no water and an injury. So I took most of the weight out of her bag and put it into mine, which had me carrying about 35, maybe upwards of 38 pounds of gear. I weighed around 115 pounds at the time, so that sucked.
We progressed further and further and further along this creek. No water. There was the final real incline coming up and on the other side, another small decline, then another, different creek.
We made it there and did not like what we saw. The elevation gain was probably only 300 feet or so, but it was boulders. Like I had to check the map several times, because it did not look like the trail. It just looked like a path of big ass boulders laid out by the mountain. You did not simply walk over them, you lifted yourself onto them.
I had to help her the whole way up. We got to the top and liked what we saw even less. No dirt, no grass, just like big loose gravel rocks. Not necessarily like shale, but kinda close. This fucked her ankle all the way up. And the sun was baking us alive. No tree cover. And then we descended. Not a rough descent.
Make it to the next creek. No fucking water. And by this point we were getting a little bit woozy. Particularly me. The weight of that bag was kinda taking me out, but there’s no way I was gonna give her more weight, her ankle was looking pretty rough. It definitely took a turn for the worst on those rocks. We had to stop, a lot, for both of our sakes. 10 miles is not that far, as a day hike I could clear that in 4 hours with a lunch break no problem. With no water, peak sun, too much weight, an increasingly injured companion, breaks every 20 minutes, it was taking all day.
Well thankfully the rest of the hike wasn’t that bad and a few miles later we made it back to the start of the loop where the initial water crossing was, we both drank a lot of water and made it back to the car. Then ate a big meal. Those last few miles before the water, we were both dead silent and the only thought in my head the whole time was one foot, one foot, one foot, one foot. Like I said, under normal circumstances, 10 miles is nothing, but I was going through it with dehydration and I also stupidly opted to not eat all day to get back to the car faster for her.
All was well, obviously. That’s the only gone wrong story that I have after 6 years of backpacking. And hopefully I won’t have another, but time will tell.
