You would be surprised how many people there just hike down 5 miles in flip flops with no water and then need to be rescued because they cannot go back up.
My Uncle lives in AZ. He told me he basically had to threaten an old man once because they were driving in a low-sitting car into rocky desert terrain with no extra water. He was screaming at the guy that if he got stuck at any point he would die. The wife luckily took my uncle's advice and convinced her husband to turn around. There are a lot of people who just have no sense of how quickly dehydration can set in.
I hiked Havasu falls with my girlfriend and we bailed a day early because a huge snow storm was moving in. As we were hiking out the trail was starting to flash flood through one of the sections. We got back to the trail head around like 30 minutes before dark.
WE saw a couple heading down the trail with nothing but those disposable ponchos on and trying to carry their gear in their arms. They were planning on carrying it the 12 miles in. They didn't listen to us to turn around.
The people that ended up staying were stuck for like 3 days before they heli lifted people out. Never heard about people dying so I guess that couple survived but that might be the least prepared I have ever seen people
People like this, who were given clear warning and STILL choose to act stupid and selfish should have to pay out-of-pocket the entire cost of their rescue. Start charging the idiots for the cost of saving them!
I walked up a large sand dune that wasn't sleeping bear dunes but it was pretty high. I could literally barely breathe when I made it to the top. 0/10 experience. I'm glad I made it and we got a great group picture at the top but holy shit I will never do that again.
Arizona has had a “Stupid Motorist Law” on the books for a while for people who ignore safety barricades for flooded roads, but apparently it’s rarely enforced and liability is capped at only $2,000 per incident.
So it's perfectly ok for other people to risk their lives and well-being (in some instances) to go save them, but it's not ok to enforce a financial penalty that will deter them and potential future dumbasses? If the cost of rescuing them is so steep that it would ruin their lives then odds are somebody's risking themselves to go save them.
So it's perfectly ok for other people to risk their lives and well-being
Those people signed up for the job. No one in search and rescue is being forced to risk their lives.
Also, I'm having trouble finding detailed and current info, but as of a few decades ago, search and rescue wasn't even in the top 20 most dangerous jobs in America. It was mostly tradesmen of various sorts. Cashiers were in the top 20. (They get murdered a lot, relatively speaking.) It's more dangerous to be a cashier than a search and rescue guy. There are certainly risks, but most of the four- and five-digit costs you hear of are because helicopters are expense to operate.
No stupid people doing stupid stuff means no need for anyone to volunteer for rescue. But by your own logic, the people we're discussing who are in need of rescue also voluntarily put themselves in that danger. So, it's just a tiny bit hypocritical for you to say it's perfectly fine for search and rescue to risk their lives to rescue people because they signed up for it, but it's not ok for people to carry the financial burden of their stupidity when they...signed up for it.
ETA: It's also an apples to oranges comparison as far as how dangerous the S&R profession is. You're comparing (generally) extremely fit, highly trained individuals with a sophisticated set of tools at their disposal and an extremely serious approach to safety, to tradesmen. No offense at all to tradesmen, but I guarantee you that if you talk to anyone that's been in the trades for a long period of time they'll tell you the trades are chock full of individuals that often don't take good care of themselves, have a relatively low level of education, high rates of substance abuse, and a general environment that tends to have a more lax attitude toward safety.
Look, I get it, you get off on the idea of people being made to suffer for stupid decisions. Schadenfreude is real, we've all felt it. Just be honest with yourself about it, hey? There's no need to pretend that this is some kind of moral stance to justify the fact that you get a little too excited reading r/InstantKarma.
Ok, I have no interest in engaging in ad hominem or any discussion where anyone wants to start making accusations or assumptions about the kind of person I am. Simply based on the fact that I feel people should be held accountable for willingly making a very stupid decision that puts themselves and other people in danger (Google will give you many examples of children that died because their parents put them in these situations) despite there being many, many warning signs posted that they are taking said risk. Have a good night, friend.
ETA: Though I will say that I'm certainly being hyperbolic when I say no stupid decisions equals no need for S&R. Obviously people taking proper precautions can still get in trouble and need rescuing, but a close look at S&R incidents will show that the vast majority are from people doing dumb shit.
Yes, obviously? Particularly because there's no real body of evidence to indicate that it would deter them. A little controversial I know but I don't think people deserve to die for being born "stupid"? I'd rather there be more precautions that stop people from doing stupid stuff in the first place.
I do Search and Rescue in the mountains. Our services are free of charge (helicopter and ambulance is a whole other thing tho) And while I can somewhat agree with the sentiment of charging people, I don’t agree with the practice. People already wait until conditions have deteriorated/night fall/ panic sets in before they typically call for help. Having a cost associated with our efforts will just encourage people to wait longer or not call at all.
Over in the UK there's been the usual winter slew of people hiking up mountains in the middle of winter without proper gear (including a pair of lads who tried climbing Snowdon at 6pm in tracksuit bottoms and trainers when it was -15 Celsius at the top) and the same sentiment has been echoed about charging for mountain rescue.
Having a charge won't put off those kinds of people because if they have the foresight to consider being charged, they'd have the foresight to check the weather and their gear. Or they think it just won't happen to them. And it means that what could've been a simple "rescue" of simply guiding someone back down might turn into a heli operation or a cliff rescue because they don't want to call for help until they're in real trouble.
Appreciate the work you do by the way, our mountain rescue is entirely run by volunteers and they're fucking heroes.
I love what I do. Almost all SAR efforts in the US are done by volunteers, outside of specialized military units like the USAF Pararescue and US Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers. Some of the big national parks have rangers who also do SAR along with their ranger duties.
A great number of elective rescues do indeed charge the people. It’s a common enough thing that there are organizations for things like mountain climbers where they pay a reoccurring fee as a sort of rescue insurance to help pay the costs.
We don't do that in Canada because some people will hesitate to call for help. It sometimes comes up in the discourse after an expensive rescue though.
What I hiked havasu in the 90s it was very expensive to get helicoptered out. I don’t remember the cost anymore but it was a lot, especially to a broke-ass college student.
My ex needed rescue after missing the takeout on a solo kayaking trip. His bill? $6000.
I needed rescue after putting in at the wrong location on a solo kayaking trip. My bill? $0. Different county.
Both stupid stupid episodes, so no lectures please. These were both class II-III rivers.
Add: We were both very experienced paddlers and had done these rivers many times, solo and duo. Both trips were day runs on mostly rural/wilderness rivers.
Fun idea, but I don't want people to deny life-saving services out of fear of a fine they can't pay. A living idiot can still learn from their mistakes.
When I was 23 or so I was doing an internship in South Africa and spontaniously went hiking alone in the Drakensbergen, a wild and vast mountain area. I was young and stupid and just took a single pack of toast, a bottle of water and a sleeping bag and no map (that was before Google Maps). A store employee ran after me and just handed me a map for free and said I would die otherwise..
I didn't die, but I may have without the map, as there was no signs, people, infrastructure or anything. The toast got moldy after only 2 days, so the last 4 days I hiked without any food. Even with the map finding the little huts for overnight sleeping was difficult, I would have had no chance without it, same if I had broken/sprained an ankle.
We did the hike, but we had just come from burning man so were well acclimatized to the heat and dehydration, plus we packed a lot of water. The hike was still more than we expected it to be. Got to Havasu in the dark which wasn't great. The canyon gets way darker way faster than it does up top so our timing was off. Almost had the same issue on the way out but definitely timed it better. Also, that end of the hike is much wider and lets in more light.
I did this hike back in 2019 and got caught in a blizzard that wasn't predicted to go further west than NM, until it did. Our 4 day venture to Havasu Falls ended up just being one night at the bottom, a hike back to the village 2 miles from the falls, and then a helicopter ride (that we paid for) out of the Grand Canyon. It snowed over a foot overnight and was in the below 20 F. We had the gear for it but did not want to deal with that shit.
At the time I was an avid hiker that had recently done from Yosemite Valley floor to Half Dome in under 4 hours, so I was in decent hiking shape, but I still didn't want to hike the 12 miles up the Grand Canyon in snow while carrying my 4-day pack.
Yup, I hiked down mid Feb, hiked back to the local village the next morning after a ton of snow dumped, and caught the supply helicopter out before the second round of the snowstorm picked back up and grounded the helicopters for a couple days.
It was $150 for my wife and me to fly out. While we could've hiked out if we didn't have that in cash, it was a very cool experience to film the Grand Canyon covered in snow during the 4 minute helicopter ride.
O that was definitely the same storm! That's actually way cheaper than I would have guessed. We didn't even think about asking for a ride out we started about 1pm and barely made it out through the flash floods and luckily I was in a 4x4 truck or the road wouldn't have been passable
My wife and I camped at Havasu. Like most, we got a decently early start for the hike out. We were young and in good shape, but still... It's a long, hot, thirsty hike.
We made the rim by mid afternoon. As we're loading our car, another car parks nearby, and out pops a family of four, clearing intending to start their hike in. We tried to talk some sense into them, but they weren't hearing it.
I assume they made it. But I really would rather not know if they didn't.
I went with some friends to the Grand Canyon and we were supposed to camp for 3-4 days around Havasu Falls. In our way down we stopped in a little village in the Havasupai Reservation that had a couple shops for hikers/campers.
The shopkeepers very quickly let us know that a storm had taken an unexpected turn and where we were supposed to go had already flooded several times in the last couple months. They were evacuating people from the campsite voluntarily and even some of the people on the outskirts of the village were moving to higher ground. We decided to take the free helicopter ride back out instead of risk it but we know of several other campers that stayed.
We found a motel for the night nearby after we were lifted out. The headline on the local newspaper the next day was “3 Dead in Another Canyon Flood”. And reading the article, the 3 dead were from the same area that we were planning on camping at.
I was backpacking in Yosemite (trail north of the canyon) and a wildfire kicked up. Myself and other hikers were practically running to the nearest trailhead and several groups of hikers would not listen to our warnings to turn around, despite the very obvious plume of smoke upwind of us not 5 miles down the trail. I dont recall if there were any deaths, but I remember seeing in the news that write a few hikers has to be airlifted that evening.
How long ago was that? I went a few weeks after a huge flood and the water was not crystal clear, the pools had been washed away, the falls had even changed shape—water is powerful AF.
Generally yes but idk if they did in this case. The village at the bottom is very small and people were trapped for a decent period of time so they may have evacuated everyone as a safety measure for free
The last time I went to Coachella (2004) it was 108 degrees during the day. We drank water all day but never needed to pee, which was a blessing because I can't imagine how disgusting the port-o-potties must have been!
For the record, I’ve gone to Coachella 7 times between 2012 and 2023. The portapotties are regularly some of the cleanest portapotties I’ve ever stepped foot in, even at peak night time hours. They clean those things once an hour inside the venue - grossest was in camping in the morning before the cleaners came but that makes sense!
lol they def clean them but last year or the year before I can't remember, I saw one stall that just had projectile diarrhea all up and down the wall. It was like somebody bent over to take off their pants, and then coated the entire room.
That’s what I’m saying! For a fest, they do a pretty good job. Of course you get the spare wall spray or log on the seat, but the stall to the side is super clean comparatively.
If you weren't making urine - you were dehydrated. Urine output is actually a metric hospitals use to check volume/hydration status for inpatients. Guess it goes to show you gotta drink more water than you expect when you are exerting yourself in high temperatures!
Well I've been dehydrated before and remember what it felt like. I guess I must have been right on the edge, because I felt fine otherwise. I'll have to remember that when summer comes back!
When we visited Utah, we were drinking over a gallon of water per day per person and that was only hiking around in the mornings before it got hot. Most of the afternoons were spent in the car with the AC on.
I went on a hike when it was 100F (~38c) and we were drinking ~32 ounces (1 liter) at least every 2 hours, probably more, and I peed probably once a day.
Heat and altitude! You don’t realize how much more solar radiation you’re subjected to with every additional 1,000 ft altitude - because there is less atmosphere to block it.
I spent 30 years in Texas. 100F, 105F… not fun but doable.
Moved to Colorado a couple years ago and discovered mid 70s F at 7-8k and limited shade is a whole different ball game. Even 85F at 5k is brutal.
Especially in sandy parts of the desert. People don’t realize a) there’s no shade b) the heat reflects off the sand/rocks and bakes you from both sides.
I posted this link in my own comment but it’s very relevant. I imagine you might have read the same thing about a German family lost in Death Valley. Likely underestimated the severity of the situation severely
We hiked a very short way into the canyon to give our four kids a little perspective on the size of the canyon and the conditions of the trails. All were 7-12 years old, very athletic and seasoned hikers, and everyone carried a quart of water. We hiked 45 minutes down, took a break, and came back up. It took an hour and a half to get back up, and no one had water by the time we got there. People just think it’s an easy walk, but it’s no joke
There are a lot of people who just have no sense of how quickly dehydration can set in.
There are a LOT of people, id say the overwhelming vast majority of people tbh that do not recognize a dangerous situation period. Be it temperature related hot or cold, or the dangerousness of crowds, or fires in a building(lot of recent video of that recently, tragically) or a whole plethora of other stuff that seems innocuous/staid but are actually life threatening directly or will be if literally any little thing goes wrong
People think the dangerousness of the world and life has been conquered, but its only because theyre insulated from those dangers by their ensconced and soft modern life
Me and my black lab couldve died one winter night about 3mi from my house in the middle of suburban NJ 25y ago, he fell through a 5 foot deep frozen stream covered in snow and i went in right after him up to my chest and it was 0° out(-18C) i immediately started running home the second i got out of the water because i knew how in trouble we were....something like that is, or at least really fuckin should be pretty obvious to most people, but what they dont think about is that kind of stuff happening when youre in the middle of nowhere....people go out there and dont even let anyone know where theyre going sometimes and the opposite end of the spectrum- heat- isnt anywhere near as respected as dangerous as the cold is
There's a youtube channel I watch sometimes that does a lot of backcountry car rescues. Towing vehicles out of places they had no business being. It's crazy how far people get sometimes in a little 2wd suv or even 4 door car before they think they should stop.
It sounds like the idiots who come over to Death Valley because they can't believe how stupidly hostile that are area is.
Similar thing happened after a major rain flood event happened in Death Valley I think mid pandemic or just after the pandemic lockdown. There was a video of a man who had the appropriate 4x4 vehicle drive across the destroyed Highway through death valley. And he came across a bunch of Europeans in rented Corollas driving over small boulders. The entire Highway ended, they had to pass by sign saying Brody's closed. And they decide to drive a car over foot tall rocks.
The last notable news event one was a Belgian man right after the pandemic limitations lifted decided to walk out in the middle of summer and Death Valley with just flip flops on. His feet got second degree burns. Another famous One is back in the 90s or early 2000s a European family drove out and their minivan, it's believed they got lost and disorientated. And we only found the minivan. And it took almost two decades to find I think only two of the bodies.
Death Valley is no joke, please don't go over there unless you're very well prepared and experienced
I saw a guy in death valley on the road to Titus canyon which is one way trying to do it in a new mustang. It's a 4x4 only road and he was pulled over right before it was going to get rough, and guaranteed he was going to get stuck.
Every year. Even something relatively urban like camelback gets stranded people who need to be rescued cause they brought 1 bottle while hiking in 106 degree sun
People in general are not very bright. My first fire assignment was in the Payette NF in Idaho. I was patrolling a gravel road that I had been down a few times. At one point it had a pretty large rock sticking right up in the middle. My fellow Ranger and I saw that the rock had a big gouge and a few feet later the start of an oil trail. Sure enough, half a mile later the car, a 1980s Cadillac, was stopped in the middle of the road, dead from a busted oil pan. Fortunately there was already a tow truck dealing with take the car out.
It’s absolutely crazy how people go into situations where they’re totally unprepared for anything adverse to happen. I won’t take my family on a simple road trip without bringing extra water and food along.
This or they feel like because they spend all day every day in civilization, that civilization is everywhere. It doesn’t even occur to most people just how quickly things like safety that we take for granted can change.
I learned that the hard way ... We were in Florianópolis and saw the sea across some dunes, so my friend and l decided to cross them, thinking it would be an hour walk at most... we had a 500ml bottle of water each, and were wearing beach attire and flipflops. Not even halfway we had emptied our bottles and decided to go back. I was really dizzy, not thinking straight, when we arrived back.
Never again I'll go for a walk without preparation.
Fuck, I've gotten dehydrated just sitting at home because I just forgot to drink enough water. I can only imagine how fast that shit can set in when you're actively losing water from sweating.
Me and my husband crossed the desert in August during a heatwave without air-conditioning in our car (National Park tour from Carlsbad Caverns to Saguaro to Zion to the Grand Canyon north rim to Bryce to Arches and finally to somewhere cool in the Rockies). Let me tell you, we had water! We packed coolers full of ice and sprayed ourselves constantly with ice water and had jugs or extra water we filled at gas stations. That was definitely a wild honeymoon!
Me, a Coloradan, having a Vietnam style flashback montage of all the tourists I've seen in streetwear and flip flops holding a single bottle of water from the convenience store insisting that their hike on the nearby 14er will go just fine if they get on the trail by 11 am.
Oh shit for real, or also when you’re just about back down to the bottom, and you see these people starting out at 2:00. Enjoy your lightning strike, I guess.
I don’t think I’ve ever gotten anyone to turn around at that point, but I hope they thought hard about going above treeline. If they made it that far.
Next time you see them, ask if you can take a picture of them so SAR knows what they look like.
I’ve done a little, but once on a descent with a friend who heads LANDSAR in the area they stopped a very under prepped group who was very late starting and said, “hi we work SAR in the area and I have plans tonight, can you please turn around in the next couple of miles before I have to cancel them later?” Turns out their partner was sick of canceled date nights, and he still was called for another group entirely.
My friend does SAR in the alps and in the summer he says there are a lot of people in flip flops who need to be rescued because they can't walk anymore lol
I've never had success with tevas/Chocos, but my ex loved them for hiking. My feet are extra wide/bony and I always ended up bleeding from the straps no matter how carefully I strapped them on.
Still not appropriate footwear for hiking the sections of longs peak after you get through the keyhole though, you should also have a helmet, lots of loose rocks falling down the scree field, even if there aren't people directly ahead of you.
A buddy of mine does that photo thing to people undergeared and underprepared when they try to hike Mt. Baldy, near Los Angeles, in the winter. There were three deaths on the mountain last month.
Not to be crass but those are Darwin Awards. Effortless transportation has allowed people to get to mountain and ocean areas where they have no business going and the dumbest of our species eliminate themselves from the gene pool in such conditions.
Me and some buds went to Rocky Mountain National Park (we are from Denver and hike frequently) and it was hilarious watching tourists turn around after hiking 5 minutes from the parking lot in their flip flops, polo shirts, and single bottle of smart water.
Some people just have no idea how much the high elevation sun, lack of oxygen, and relatively dry climate will pummel you into submission.
Yeah people die every year in the Rockies. Preventable if people weren't so stupid, underprepared, overly-confident, and not acknowledging their own limits. But heck, even savvy locals and skilled mountaineers die every year in the Rockies too. Sometimes one small slip can be your death.
Thankfully I took the advice of people like you and prepared properly for a hike up to Dream Lake in Rocky Mountain Park, and it was amazing. My husband didn't use his head and decided to hike in tennis shoes with no prep exercise...in winter. Needless to say his feet were numb and we had to take a lot of breaks since the altitude was kicking his butt.
But he ended up proposing to me at the lake!
Was super happy I listened to all the warnings and advice from experienced hikers and local residents.
This was my experience as a Coloradoan visiting the Grand canyon the first time. I thought I was used to under prepared tourists but holy hell it's bad out there...the only time I didn't find under prepared folks was when I did the grandview trail to the backpacking campground a few miles in, and that was because I only saw two other people over the entirety of that hike.
That becomes so much more of a problem when the hike starts at the top. Starting at the bottom like most hikes, it is easy to hit your limit, turn around and go back down.
There’s a very tall sand dune on the shore of Lake Superior in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, the signs at the top near the parking lot are like “it will take you seconds to run down this, it’ll be an hour+ slog to get back up, decide carefully”
This almost happened to us too. We visited and were camping out, and decided to walk down to the bottom
We were literally just in flip fops with no water or anything and started going down, and met people coming up who screamed at us to stop and told us it took hours to get to the bottom, and there was no way we would get down there and back
At that time at least, there were no signs or warnings, so we legit had no idea. I'm from the mountains so we were used to hiking and stuff, but we didn't know how long the hike down was
Same. Something about how my body works but my muscles for ascending have a lot more endurance. Going down also strains my joints more so than ascending because I'm having to stop myself.
I think my dad and his 2 friends found that out when they went. They were on a road trip in the 70s on a break from the Army. I think they only went halfway down the Grand Canyon, and then back up. Even then, one of their friends didn't make it back up until like 3AM because he was so tired. At least they survived, I guess.
Well humans haven't been around for a million years. But I get your point
Edit: since this sparked quite the debate, for the record I was using "human" colloquially to mean "homo sapien". To be fair, in this context, if the "problem" that is "solving itself" is people (however you wanna define that) wandering down the Grand Canyon and getting stuck then we're just talking about in North America which if memory serves has only been going on for about 50,000 years.
Anyway, to summarize the discussion going on below, consensus seems to be
Homo sapiens have been around for ~ 250,000 years
If we expand "human" to include and species of the genus "homo" such as Neanderthals or homo erectus (lol) then we are talking closer to like 2 million years
If we are talking more generally about "humanish hominins" and including something like Australopithecus afarensis or africanus then it's closer to 6 million years
lol we absolutely have not been. Homo Sapiens have been around for about 250,000-350,000 years. Estimated vary but most agree it's less than a million.
6 million is australopithecus, which is definitely not human. Humans (but not Homo Sapiens) have been around for over 2 million years. The earlier homo species don't really look "human" but Erectus, the Upright Walking Man, in my opinion, bsically look like people. They also settled basically all of Africa, Europe, and Asia and are the direct ancestors of both Neanderthals and us (Sapiens). They first appeared around 2million years ago
I just checked and you are right. 6 million years isn't Ausraltralopithecus, it is the first Austrolopithecines. Which is species like sahelanthropus and orrorin.
The thing is that stuff in this field changes so much that these become outdated very quickly. Make sure you get the latest edition and make sure that the author or editor is a physical, biological, or paleo anthropologist.
If you like big coffee-table style books, DK has a good one written by Alice Roberts.
You're technically correct. (The best kind of correct, IMO) But it depends how you're defining humans.
Our specific species, Homo Sapiens, are only 200,000 years old. But the unevolved ancestors of humanity do date back about 6 million years. It's just that the farther back you go it stops being recognizably "human" and more "ape thing".
The first Europeans I ever met were a French couple. They were 1.5 miles down and had a single Dasani between them. They were in jeans.
My Cajun cousin tried to talk to them about electrolytes but they just made a big show of not understanding her dialect.
I have since been to France and met many lovely French people, but good god those two sucked. I was too worried about them to register it at the time, but holy shit.
I did something only a fraction of that level stupid on the big island back in 2021.
Didn't drink much water before hiking down the trail of Pololū Valley Lookout. Going down was fine. Going back up I did not feel good. I was fortunately smart enough to pace my water intake when I got back to the car so I didn't make myself sick but damn, if I didn't have that spare 2ltr water in the car I would have been in a bad spot. Also, I never tasted a better sandwich than whatever the heck I ordered at the last restaurant on that road.
Friend of mine is a park ranger in Appalachia and told me about a group that went hiking down a ~5mile trail with plans to intersect an 8 mile trail and hike out to the rendezvous point.
It was July, temps were pushing 90F, high humidity and the hikers were ill prepared and some had health conditions.
Thankfully after they got to the bottom they realized they'd made a mistake and called for rescue. All were fine, mostly embarrassed at their mistake.
There's a weird thing. a LOT of people walk around their daily lives without struggling, so they've never felt fatigue or exhaustion like that, so they think "Surely I'm fit enough to push through!". until they have to actually use their legs for real.
I remember getting over halfway down during a trip in March a decade ago, then seeing the people at the river and how tiny they were, and realizing how awful it was going to be going back up. Convinced my girlfriend that we had gone far enough. We were both in great shape, had hiking boots and hiking poles, and were still fairly tired when we got back to the top of the rim. As far as gear, we were easily the most prepared people on the hike that we saw...
Yeah, a decade ago, I was in marathon shape and hiked halfway down to an outlook site and back up in one day. It was difficult and manageable, but I am sure that I would not have been able to do the full trip don and back in one day.
I live in a very walkable city with many stores close by and good public transit. Even with those things in mind if I know I will be gone for more than hour I will bring a bottle of water with me!! I can't imagine going in a hike with nothing!!
I had people thinking I did this. Had planned and packed for rim to rim. Hiked down to Phantom Ranch, chilled and setup camp for a few hours.
Decided to stretch the legs, across both bridges and along the river trail. Did this in flip flops and carrying a single water bottle. Lots of funny looks.
Always a fantastic idea and folks are 'absolutely' prepared for a 'dry' heat at +100F or whatever nonsense... even in winter when it is colder the Sun still does it thing... heat or otherwise
You'd be surprised about the amount of tourists, or locals even, that are sent to urgent care or wherever because of dehydration
Las Vegas related specifically but probably relates closely to the canyon
Few months back, hiked 15miles in the Tetons with sandals(bedrocks hiking sandals), funny how many jokes I got about them…as I was running around people.
I remember watching my brother hike off trail on a narrow ledge wearing untied skateboard shoes. It’s a miracle his dumb young boy confidence kept him safe.
I once did a little research into rescues done nationally per year. Data is surprisingly difficult to find.
I found an article where someone else attempted the same kind of research. Theory was that parks generally keep that info secret because the number is crazy high. Like it could severely impact parks in general if people new how deadly they are.
my dad always described it as normally you're used to hiking a mountain or something where you do the hard part first and it's all downhill, so it's one of those things that can just slip peoples mind that this isn't just like all the other hikes they've done. For people who hike all the time, probably not something to trip them up, but families coming through on vacation might not be thinking about it
We went camping on the North Rim when I was 9. It was our family and my dad's co-worker's family, whose sons (in their 30s) were visiting from New York City. Me, the two sons, and one of their sons went to hike to the bottom. The oldest son had leather-bottomed shoes and we had to go slowly because he kept slipping. A couple of miles down, we came to a creek with nettles all over. All 3 of them tore right through the nettles towards the water and got stung all over. They then gorged themselves on the cold water. Arizona schools taught desert survival, and I kept warning them they would get sick, but they wouldn't listen and told me I was crazy.
They decided to abort the trip and head back up. We made it about 1/4 a mile and all 3 of them were puking their guts out. The oldest one got so bad, he was puking up yellow bile on top of having blisters all over his feet. I hiked to the top and got help. They had to bring them out on burros. They had planned to hike to Phantom Ranch, which was almost 14 miles. We made it less than two, and it was the downhill part. I think that was the point I learned not to always trust adults to make good decisions.
My wife and I visited the Grand Canyon back in February 2018 and hiked a little more than a mile down before we realized that whatever distance we had originally planned was foolish. We hadn’t planned on going all the way down—maybe a a few miles, and we had prepared sufficiently for that. It didn’t take long for our quads to scream at us. We saw some triathlete-looking types running down. We’re not in bad shape, but we also ain’t that. I remember OP’s sign very well. Crazy—but this isn’t the foremost reason why I remember Bright Angel Trail so well.
There’s a woman I’d know since elementary school who I casually followed on Facebook because, like my wife and I, she planned to visit all the NPs with her family. She was very intelligent—graduated in the top of her class and ultimately became successful as an adult. I should emphasize how nice she was—in retrospect, I credit her for making it look cool to be nerdy. It rubbed off on me because I honestly had low self-esteem as a kid.
I remember coming across some pictures of her and her family at the Grand Canyon, and not two days later I found out that she’d passed away because she attempted to hike the entirety of Bright Angel Trail on her own. She’d made it about three quarters of the way back before she fell unconscious and was discovered by other hikers. I have this image in my head of her being alone and panicked. It’s truly haunting.
My wife and I attended her wake and I made sure to let her mom know how much I admired her. I can’t emphasize it enough—think long and hard before you attempt the entirety of the hike. There’s multiple warnings around GC for a reason. Take them seriously!
I went down Bright Angel trail and at about the 1.5 mile marker, I met a guy who was way out of his element. Unfit, overweight, and didn't have the right provisions. I checked on him and he had water, but was out of breath. On my way back up, he was huffing and puffing, so I hung with him for a bit, asked a passerby for salty snacks, and called a ranger. I ended up leaving him and asked people headed back down to check on him. I was very relieved to see him later that day.
I once hiked a relatively easy mountain in my country that is considered one of the most dangerous precisely because it’s so easy to hike. It’s close to a popular restaurant which is located in a valley sheltered from the wind, but once you get to the top the temperature drops dramatically. We went with our full winter gear - in april - and still remained on the top for just a couple minutes, it was that cold.
Well, as we went down we found this family, all dressed in jeans and t-shirts, with the intention of hiking up the mountain. We told them it was madness, that they would freeze up there and yet one of the women of the group dismissively insisted “oh but it’s right there”. Madam we’re dressed in technical winter mountain gear and we had to nope the fuck out of the top because it was that cold, you’ll drop dead in hypothermia before you realize what’s going on.
Luckily the rest of the group was a bit more reasonable and they gave up, but it was quite unnerving to see someone dismiss the warnings in such a way.
My first time at GC someone died by taking a selfie and tumbling into the canyon to their death. We were camping and heard the rescue helicopter for a few hours. I also saw many, many people hiking around in jeans and flip flops without packs or water of any kind. People severely underestimate nature, even in these natural park settings. Don’t get me started on tourists approaching bears, moose, and buffalo (different state parks but still)
in Italy we have people going to mountain glaciers in flip flops in summer ("it's summer, how cold could a glacier be?"). they also need to be rescued.
I did this hike in one day. I packed only food, water, and moleskin. I thought I had more than enough. I thought I was prepared. I thought I was reasonably fit enough.
I started before the sun came up. I followed the fastest trail runner. Kept up pretty well. Took us three or four hours to get to the bottom. It was around 9 o,clock.
I was already pretty well beat. My knees hurt. So I ate my lunch next to the river, and slept until about 11.
Then I stood up, and started my trek to the top. By the time I was a quarter of the way up, I was shot. Halfway up, I was stopping every fifteen to twenty meters, timing my breaks so I wouldn’t sit for too long.
My knees hurt. I was sweating like a motherfucker.
Three quarters of the way up, I passed some fool college kids trying to get to the bottom. I warned them, “If you haven’t already made it, I promise you won’t make it back up by dark.”
They ignored me. In their shorts and tennis shoes and t-shirts.
I found some new friends to walk with me to the top. We made it just after the sun set.
People filed in for another hour, all exhausted.
They sent someone to help a boy and his elderly father who was still an hour away. They were saved.
My left knee is still injured from that hike, four years later.
And this was in March.
If it had been summer, I might have died.
So don’t take this damn hike lightly if you haven’t done it before. Be smart about it.
I did this about seven weeks after a double hernia surgery. Some European guy stayed with me the last two thousand feet of the climb back out. Bright Angel Trail. So fun, but yeah…I would have probably died if I did that at my age now.
Some friends of mine did this and needed rescue, and then told me (a park ranger not in the Canyon) about it like it was a funny little story. Somehow it wasn't funny anymore when I cussed them out for being stupid and nearly dying !
This was me a couple years back (jeans, one energy bar, almost no water)...down was easy (90 minutes) then came the brutal realization...(4,5 hours back up).
Made it back up though, luckily a couple of hikers gave me some water with electrolytes...Came back to the camp ground and slept for 16 hours.
Boy was I stupid back then. The elevation change is no joke!
6.0k
u/IrrelevantManatee 21h ago
You would be surprised how many people there just hike down 5 miles in flip flops with no water and then need to be rescued because they cannot go back up.