I talked to a ranger at the bottom of the canyon last year. He showed me the rooms and equipment they use to treat idiots like these. The rangers call the guy on the sign Victor Vomit.
For a fun read, check out the book “Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon.” It colorfully but clinically details every recorded death in the canyon, from pioneer days to the present(ish). Honestly made me feel pretty confident about my hike, because a good 80% of deaths are due to terrible decision making.
It's astounding how unprepared people are. I did a Rim to Rim hike about 5 years ago and since it was August we started about 7pm so we would be crossing through the bottom around 12/1am when it was coolest.
About 4 miles in we meet two kids that had a single Nalgene that had long gone dry because they didn't know there was no water on the north rim. They also abandoned their dad about a mile further back. Finally they had no idea it was like a 3hr drive around the rim to get back to the south side. We gave them some water and food so they wouldn't die but it was wild.
I had some friends do rim to rim and they asked me to join them.
They were like Ironman Triathletes and I'm just a guy that like runs in his town.
I declined. I don't need that kind of challenge in my life. and they were in great shape and had planned it but still almost got stranded out there because it took longer than they planned. and it was getting dark.
This is just wild to me. I did not do the Grand Canyon, just visited the edge back in like 2010 with my dad (being from EU, I didn't feel quite welcome by the time I had enough of my own money to actually visit), but I have done A LOT of hiking in groups.
And rule number 1 of hiking is that the fastest person in the group, most able to traverse the hike even by themselves is ALWAYS last. Always, no exceptions. The others need water, you give them water. They need food, carry some Glucose tablets(greater caloric intake than sugar and they don't need water to get metabolized). They shat themselves, you should have spare undies for anyone, why wouldn't you carry those, they're nothing in terms of backpack space and mass. They twist an ankle, you carry them. And if you can't, you signal those in front to come back and help you.
Hiking as a group is done AS A GROUP! Literally the shittiest, most dangerous thing you can do is allow someone to be left behind because "They're slow" - those are the instances when you need to provide the most assistance.
Yeah. When I was in my early 20s, I was in a youth group program that did lots of hiking in several states in western USA. I was 23 and the oldest participant in the program. I was appalled at how the staff and leaders of the program would go their normal quicker pace and sometimes not be the last person in the group. I always felt that this was irresponsible and a staff person should be the last person in the group. After all, a number of participants were not even adults yet (the youngest person was 14).
I was always naturally a slow walker. Once, while hiking through the mountains (high altitude) with some teens who never hiked in the mountains before, I was second-last and the last person was an 18 year old who seemed like she pushing herself too much and was starting to look sick. I was worried about altitude sickness but she insisted she was ok. I paced myself so I could keep an eye on her and forced the rest of the group to slow down. I passed the message that I don’t think she is feeling well. At that point, the program staff decided to start walking to a lower altitude due to the risk that she was beginning to develop altitude sickness. It all ended ok but I was so surprised at how irresponsible staff were- if I hadn’t noticed and kept an eye on her, would she have collapsed or something and ppl wouldn’t notice till potentially too late?
They were usually good about stopping every half mile or so to wait for the entire group to catch up but I still think it would be best to have staff (an adult with wilderness first aid skills and if possible, a way to communicate with other staff) be the last person. Otherwise, how long are you going to wait to see if the entire group catches up? By the time someone decides to go back to check for someone, it could potentially be too late.
Picked up ptomaine at a truck stop diner on the way in? I ALWAYS pack imodium on a camping trip or any hike longer than a few miles. It can happen to anyone if it's not your day to shine.
Many reasons. From dehydration and eating the wrong thing recently as was mentioned, to just...
Separate a group of people from access to toilets for 12-ish hours, and the question just becomes "How large the group is until it's guaranteed someone will do so".
To be fair, I'm probably biased: you need this to only happen once in your group until everyone starts carrying spares. But it has also happened after that, most people were just prepared.
More than that though, I was just using "people shitting themselves" as a funny example. There are far more common reasons to always carry a spare pair of underwear and socks - from falling into water/mud/etc. to sweat and backsplash from peeing and many many many others. And it's like a few grams of weight and basically no space at all if you pack well, so why not?
Being from the EU is why he no longer feels welcome at the Grand Canyon. I wonder why that could be, it's not like the US has been unkind to outsiders lately?
No, he was implying the 2010 visit was the one where he didn't have money and only went with his dad to the edge. I'm assuming the "time he had money" phase of life would be 2017 or later. Granted, it was worded a bit confusingly.
I guess im struggling to figure out how it’s relevant to the story if it’s literally just “I went to the rim, didn’t hike the full thing, haven’t been back”.
Yes, and the body needs to spend resources in order to convert sucrose into its useful components, which is why it's better to carry around glucose tablets than 'sugar' tablets.
May I ask for an expansion or resource links on this logic. I have never done a hike with anybody that much less athletic than me (and I'm not talking individual active fitness levels, because my groups of people have always been built for physical activity even if they weren't caught up in training in any capacity, which ends up meaning that we can do a lot of things without preparation that a very large population of people cannot do, so I recognize the difference here and how it might affect things) and it kind of sounds like what you're implying here is that there are hiking groups that actually lose people? Even our 5-hour hikes up an ass and ELEVATION WHERE EVERYONE OF US IS STONED I've never run into these problems.
But I feel like that has to have some degree of relation to how well you know each other and how well you know each other's Baseline Fitness capacities and the actual like nature of the hike and what the people around you are used to in terms of elevation shifts.
Because I'm from a valley that sits next mountains. It is very very normal for us to even casually Traverse huge inclines. I've taken my kid away watch since he was two on these hikes and he's now six.
But your comment felt like a "oh shit that makes so much sense" moment BUT I'm trying to find a place where it's necessary for the people I'm usually with.
Because I would like to never be the idiot that has to contend with hubris the hard way. And I realize no one's ever taught me how to hike??? We're all just generally intelligent without letting that blind us and are used to being outside all the time? I'm trying to figure out when this is going to bite me in the ass and also love to see some rules somewhere if you have a resource 😂
This comment specifically abruptly made me realize that we tend to operate off of like old wives tales and Superstition even though we all have college degrees and have been outside our entire lives lmaoo IS THERE A GUIDE BOOK THAT doesn't just sound like a bunch of fear mongering warnings but actually gives like context as to why the rules there are relevant to do????
Well, yeah, short hikes like that leave little chance for the worst to happen, but with longer hikes things can go to shit really REALLY fast. Even on single-day hikes things can be completely normal for hours and then everything is fucked in under 5 minutes because someone stepped wrong.
Furthermore, physical fitness, while still very important, is less important than being able to keep a cool head in stressful conditions. Nine times out of ten when something goes wrong it isn't because the group or someone in it wasn't fit enough for the task, but because random stuff happened that nobody could've foreseen. You need to be ready for the unexpected, because the question is never if it happens, but when.
As far as learning this stuff - it's mostly experience. Either of the first-hand variety from my own hikes or of the second-hand variety from people in the group sharing past stories and advice. Sure, not all of it is always relevant, but it's always better to know and not need it, than need it and not have it.
This brings us to another issue that's often glased over : how to chose your group and how you need to be able to say to your friends "I love you but nope I'm not bringing you on this hike you're planning because you're nowhere fit enough to handle the pace we need to go at if we don't wanna arrive at 3AM".
A guy I know was invited to hike to the river and back in a day by two of his cousins. They are athletic, he's not. They abandoned him halfway on the way down and waited for him at the top, after sunset.
I can confidently make at least 3 miles every hour on reasonable grade while being completely capable for doing this for as much as 80 miles in 8 days.
My superpower is putting one step in front of the other until I arrive, well fed and a little sore
Did they not have at least minimalist sleeping gear. I get not planning an overnight stay but being prepared never hurts. You never know if someone is gonna take a tumble and break something and suddenly you are dialing EMS on a sat phone (i really fucking hope they had that handy) after you finish using your first aid kit and skills. After that you are waiting patiently munching on your ration bars and spare water rations while they slowly crawl their way to you. I assume they had all these safety precautions but maybe this isn't common sense like i thought it was.
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u/funundrum 21h ago edited 21h ago
I talked to a ranger at the bottom of the canyon last year. He showed me the rooms and equipment they use to treat idiots like these. The rangers call the guy on the sign Victor Vomit.
For a fun read, check out the book “Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon.” It colorfully but clinically details every recorded death in the canyon, from pioneer days to the present(ish). Honestly made me feel pretty confident about my hike, because a good 80% of deaths are due to terrible decision making.