TX LOCAL: BIG BEND FATALITY
http://www.nps.gov/bibe/pressreleases/visitorfatality_052404.htm
Good reason why WATER should be number one on the survival list. This guy went hiking and died within ONE DAY due to dehydration. Death is very very close without water.
And who of us who hike frequently have not ventured off on an fork of the trail and gotten completely disoriented? We take daypacks that include matches, rain ponchos, drinks, canned food, a compass and one of those cute little mini-stoves. My husband often suggests 2-3 miles hikes that turn into 7-10 mile hikes (usually uphill). I feel sadness for that man's family back in NY.
I have my own close encounter of the LOONY PETA kind from the year 1983. I was a young First Lieutenant in the 9th Infantry Division at Fort Lewis, WA...now decommissioned. My best bud and I decided to take about five days leave and head out to the base of Mt. Rainier onto Weyerhauser land, which he had a permit to hunt on. We parked our car just off the interstate near a scenic overlook and unloaded our gear (rucksack, rifles, ammo, survival gear and I had thoughtfully checked out from the arms room a STARLIGHT SCOPE while my buddy had checked out a set of the radios used by the G3 in the field.) As we rucked up and headed into the woods, we saw a caravan of vehicles enter the same area where we had parked. We were worried about the safety of our car so we oozed over for a little recon from the woodline. No need to worry, they were PETA bozos and they had been trailing us...just lil ole US from the place we had purchased our ammo in the last little town. They wanted to spoil our hunt!
They sped into the woods hot on our trail and we stepped out onto the trail and met them. Whereupon they got all indignant about the fate of poor lil ....you guessed it...BAMBI. They just advised us to go on home, because they were going to dog us until Hell froze and chase away all the game. I had a whispered conference with my buddy and we agreed to shelve the hunt in favor of some better recreation...albeit a little more strenuous!
We just walked off...the hippies in tow. We walked like it was an INFANTRY FTX back at work: Straight up and down the steepest, nastiest terrain we could find! Down the slippery slopes, through the low lying swamps....every time they got tired, we took a break and waited for them to catch up. We led them DEEP into the woods. By the time it got dark they were lost. We knew exactly where we were....and where the cars were parked.
My buddy wanted to leave 'em crying in the dark, but I switched on the starlight and low crawled close to where they were huddled together for warmth...what kind of FREAK ventures into the woods without survival gear and a tent or sleeping bag? I mean we had survival stuff but no tents or fart sacks...just like work. I used the starlight to chunk rocks at them all night long. They thought they were being hunted by BIGFOOT. LOL We had a really good time. I knew we had to keep them moving all night long so they wouldn't go into hypothermia.
When dawn came, we led them back to the cars. They were real subdued until they knew the cars were near then they found their courage and started to heckle us again. We told 'em we were going back after Bambi the next day and we'd be happy to meet them again but they just cried and piled back into their little VW bugs and headed back in the direction of Seattle.
We went back to work, and the troops all wanted to go out to the same area and run the hippies all over the place, too. They wanted to get chopper support and bring the rotor heads in on the fun. But my boss said it would be bad PR for the army and he nixed it. He had a good laugh though.
We did go back out and get a couple of Elks later. We had a big unit barbeque! I got mine in heavy brush at about 30 meters with a Ruger Super Black hawk .44 maggie. I remember thinking, later at the company area...that I'd never had such good tasting meat.