UPDATE: This contest expired Nov. 9, 2011
….
NOTE: I have picked the five finalists in this contest. Click the link to vote on your favorite (Nov. 8 is the last day you can vote).
C’mon, dish: you’ve seen some pretty extreme stuff on your hikes. I want to hear about it here — anything that you can put “-est” and the end of.
- funniest
- coolest
- smartest
- dumbest
- scariest
- hairiest
Once all the entries are in, I’ll pick my five favorites and let y’all decide which one’s the best. The winner will get this box of Pemmican Beef Jerky sent to me because I did an e-mail interview with somebody on their social media team.
While I was grateful for this box of goodies, once they arrived I realized I didn’t really know what to do with them, because,
- I’m not a jerky eater.
- I’d really rather not accept freebies from people seeking publicity for their stuff.
So this way, I figure the folks at Pemmican can get their free jerky in the hands of somebody who’ll actually benefit, I’ll be able to maintain my ethical purity, and we can share some great stories to tell around the campfire.
What the winner gets:
- wooden box
- 5 bags of beef jerky
- small water bottle
- nylon swag bag
I’m not creating a bunch of complex rules for this thing. Just keep it as short as possible, make it punchy and try to surprise us.
To enter, just leave a comment below. I’ll take entries for a couple weeks, then I’ll select the finalists and conduct the voting. After that, we’ll declare a winner.
OK, start telling your stories.
Related posts:
- Extreme Hiking Tale: We Have a Winner
- I’m Pemmican’s Blogger of the Week
- Finalists for Most Extreme Hiking Tale
I’ve been very fortunate to never get injured and never get lost on the trail. Knock on wood. My best example of an extreme hike occurred this summer when a 12-mile hike turned into 18 miles because of poor planning. That was far longer than any of us had ever done on a day hike. We totally missed the 6-mile connector for this loop hike on the map and didn’t realize our mistake until it was too late to turn back. The worst part? We knew the last 5 miles were all up hill. Stupid Meanderthals.
This was a tale of spiders and snakes, oh my! One just never knows what to expect though. We turned this potential disaster into a positive learning experience, and a beautiful hike. The additional 6 miles turned out to be some of the prettiest forested trail we did all summer. Providence perhaps? All three of us ran out of water 15-16 miles in, an absolute no no on a hot summer day, but no one dehydrated. The best news was the enhanced camaraderie built among my hiking friends as we pushed and encouraged each other to keep going no matter how tired our legs and lungs.
Great start, Jeff. Forested hikes are much more forgiving in the summer but that last five miles uphill must’ve been some fun.
Dumbest, scariest and hairiest all rolled into one.
As an assistant trip leader for a private school I worked with an experienced, trained woman who ran the program. We worked with high-school aged kids with learning differences.
Our big backpacking trip was to the High Peaks region of New York’s Adirondacks with the goal being a climb of Mt. Marcy.
November in the Adirondacks: strike one.
We arrived late and hiked a couple of rainy miles to a shelter. The creek we crossed to get to the shelter rose overnight and we had to take extra time to find a crossing.
Ignoring the weather – strike two.
The group moved slower than expected and we reached the bottom of Indian pass (several miles and a thousand feet up and over a ridge). Our leader knew the trail- ‘We can make it, even though it’s raining on and off’.
Overestimating the ability of the group – strike three.
Started hiking up around three that afternoon. Rain, then sleet, then snow. Hand over hand scrambling up, thick forest, steep, no place to shelter. It’s dark, handheld flashlights quit; only my headlamp with a
remote battery pack keeps on working. Fifteen degrees, wet, hypothermic kids, who are giving out; very bad news.
I walked a few yards ahead, turned my light back on the trail and they walked up to where I stood; repeat, repeat, repeat.
Four in the morning we reached a shelter, slept all of the following day and got out over the next two days. No Mt. Marcy (not that we had a chance to begin with).
Driving home two or three days early. “We need to have our story straight for the parents” no, I need to quit this job now.
Lessons learned: change the route when weather demands, don’t overestimate the ability of a group, there’s no shame in turning back instead of threatening the safety of those you lead; waterproof flashlights or headlamps.
Dumb, scary, hairy.
Wow, it’s gonna be a challenge to top that one!
And yet you still lead hikes after all these years 🙂
Thanks Tom – that one taught me a lot of things and no one was injured so it is no more than an unpleasant memory. It has informed many decisions since – so far so good but we are all vulnerable to doing dumb things on the trail.
Awesome example of integrity and perseverance – anyone without these qualities would have lost their composure and called it quits.
I agree — calling it quits before finding shelter might’ve really turned it into a disaster.
When I was about six years old (early 1970’s), our family visited Clingman’s Dome in the Smoky Mountains. On the way back down Clingman’s Dome Road, my dad saw a sign on the side of the road that said, “Noland Divide Trail. Deep Creek
Campground. 16 miles”. (The sign is different now.)
Being that we were staying at Deep Creek Campground, and it was only a little after
lunch, my dad thought it would be great fun to walk back to the campground where we were staying. When I say we, I mean him, my mom, my two older brothers (early teens), and myself. The people who were camping with us drove the car back to the campground, and we set out into the wilderness. My memory of that hike is vague, but I do remember my dad singing to “sooth the savage bears.”
The trail never crosses a creek, so a couple of hikers gave me some cheese and shared their water (we had no supplies of our own). At times the trail became so faint that we could barely make out which way to go (we had no map, compass or prior knowledge of the area). By the time we made it down, it was dark (Flashlights, anyone? Nope!) and our friends had alerted the rangers who were out looking for us. I remember seeing the headlights of the rangers’ vehicles in the dark.
They picked us up a couple miles from the campground on Deek Creek Trail. Looking at maps now, either the Nolan Divide Trail didn’t come all the way down to the campground as it does now, or we took a wrong turn at the only intersection on the entire trail and ended up on Deep Creek Trail (Map? NO! We didn’t need no stinking map!). My Mom was a real trooper.
I don’t know what the conversation was like later, but while on the trail, she never blamed Dad for “getting us into that situation.”
At the time, I was scared, hungry, tired, and lost. But it was my first great
adventure and a memory I treasure.
1st rule before going anywhere outdoors is to let others know your area of activity – many people have lost their lives because they failed to notify someone located in an area with the proper resources. Nice to read that your friends called the rangers.
EXTREME: the time when I drank WAY TOO much water on the trail and had “nature call” what seemed like every 10 minutes. The follies of being a girl.
I hate squatting.
I can’t believe I just typed this.
Actually there are several devices on the market these days to ease those difficulties.
Oh yes I know. This experience prompted me to do some considerable research on these products. Cheers to problem solvers!
My wife has shared this with me many times while we were out on long day hikes. Could be the reason why she hesitates to hike longer than 3 to 4 hours.
I did my LONGEST day hike about 2 weeks ago up in Rocksylvania (AT in PA). It was a benefit hike raising money for 3 great kids groups. The goal was 50 miles in less than 24 hours. We did 52.2 miles in 23.5 hours, started at noon on Friday and finished at 11:30 am on Saturday, 10 of us finished. We had a supply/ambulance car following us up the trail, just as well, we had 4 casualties: knee, dehydration, exhaustion and blisters. Craziest hike I have ever done!! (PS: I am 51)
Averaging 2.22 miles per hour within 24 hours is truly amazing!
I agree, this one one for the annals of extreme hiking.
Where in PA did you go?
We started on the AT at PA 16, not far from the MD line, took a 1/2 mile detour up a fire road at Mentzer Gap before we realized we missed the AT, backtracked and found it, so we should only have done 51.2 miles (we refere to that mile as our warm-up hike, like we needed it!!). We kept going North on the AT until just before the Alec Kennedy Shelter on a side trail to the Diakon Wilderness Center. I am sure this is a great section of the AT, but we did half of it in the dark.
The group I hooked with was 1 Voice Trekking, they have done 3 crazy hikes like this, all as benefit hikes.
Hmmm.. I have a few.. funniest: Backpacking on my honeymoon near Stehekin, WA, meeting a bear on the trail, leaving my husband of 2 days behind and sprinting back down the trail because I knew I could run faster than him and was young and foolish and thought the bear would track me like a mountain lion. I still feel horrible for leaving him behind, not a good wifely thing to do. He survived, the bear could have cared less what we were doing, he just didn’t want to go back up the steep trail.
Scariest: Climbing Mt. Shasta and almost blowing off the side of the mountain when walking a very narrow ridge line and a gust of wind came up out of Avalanche Gulch and picked me up off the ground , trying to blow me to the glaciers on the west side of the mountain.Thank God, I was tied in to the climber behind me. I was like a kite on a string for a moment, probably lasted about 20 seconds, but felt like a lifetime.
Smartest: Every hike I take with my kids. I am sharing my love for adventure with them and educating them along the way…. Be safe, responsible, have fun and don’t be afraid to explore, you never know what kind of story you will come home with, just make sure you come home. 🙂
My wife and I were eating and drinking outside our cabin at Jefferson National Forest in Virginia – it was a night with very little moonlight. We heard a loud sound a few feet from where we were sitting (about 50 yards from the cabin). She booked into the cabin then locked the door before I could step inside. We believe that it was a bear coming after our food. Her and I still laugh about this day whenever we share outdoor stories with friends.
Back in ’93, a buddy and I were encamped several miles deep in California’s Mokelumne Wilderness when a freak storm hit. Great symphonic crashes of thunder accompanied scary close blasts of lightning not 100 yards away. We took shelter in the best way we knew, but things were just getting warmed up. Soon, it was pouring (we were, of course, sans tent) and hailing with a vengeance, and the razzle-madazzle of the lightning bolts increased in intensity and proximity, to the point we were worrying our wet asses off. I’ve never been so scared in a storm in my life, and I grew up in tornado and thunderstorm country in the midwest. At this point, in from a connector trail to the north, strode into our camp a strapping, tall, thinnish, Nordic-looking hiker named Spencer. He was ditching his heavy load and scurrying for cover next to us, sharing his tale of just having hiked 16 miles and he was ready to hike the remaining six or seven back to the trailhead. My buddy and I insisted it was foolhardy to leave – at least wait the storm out, but no dice. We had to make our move. Maybe not the best thing to do, but that was our plan. Spencer insisted we go “that way”; whereas we insisted the cars were “that way.” We actually got into a big argument about it – we could absolutely not get this wrong, mind you! – but it finally came down to me and my buddy against Spencer, us pointing east and saying, come with us or you’re own your own, but this is the way. Spencer followed us and then took up the lead, clambering up and over gargantuan boulders, fording streams, and path-finding through a rugged near untracked wilderness as best as we could, thinking the whole time we were lost as hell. . .but finally, there they were, the cars! Never happier to see those ugly metal and rubber contraptions! Later, at Spencer’s, where we gobbled down fried egg sandwiches, I recall, we learned that Spencer was part of Search and Rescue for that area.
This is a tale of multiple stupidities, but, hey, I survived to tell it! Herman Melville once wrote, “‘When among wild beasts, if they menace you, be a wild beast.” And so I was, a couple of summers ago down in the Royal Gorge of the North Fork of the American River, camped for several days at Palisade Creek, in a remote and rugged 3500 ft. deep canyon wilderness. First night – about dawn – a 400 lb. bear stealthily sneaked into our camp and tore off with my backpack, which, of course, was the repository of every scrap of food we had. Panic set in like never before. We had four more days down here, in this paradise which was suddenly now dark and foreboding. Knowing instinctually I had to think like the bear, I followed his tracks a good ways and came upon him engorging himself of my precious victuals. I banged loudly on a shovel head and to my surprise the huge beast scampered off, but not too far. I could see him through the hanging branches of dense forest, pacing and huffing at the foot of a bluff. Carefully, I approached the feast site and was amazed to discover the bear had only eaten half of the food, and left the other half for us, how nice, thank you, Ursula! But that wasn’t the case. The bear still had my pack and a lot more food. I salvaged what I could, banging on the shovel head with a smaller trowel, and that seemed to keep the bear at a distance (of about 50 ft., still too damn close for comfort). Now, here we have a hungry, disturbed, no doubt angry bear, and here we have Gambolin’ Man, acting like a wild beast himself, confronting the bear for his very survival! I actually went after my pack! The bear was in process of dragging it up the hillside around the bluff, as a bag of oatmeal and then a bag of crackers fell out. But as I approached about 20 ft. from this overhanging ledge, I looked up and was staring the bear straight in the face and snarling like he meant business! Scared me shitless, but I was totally stoked that I had recovered a good portion of my food and now could enjoy the rest of the hiking trip. Later the next evening, around dusk, Gambolin’ Gal was coming up from a swim, and suddenly let out a shriek – Ursual had stalked me to about a distance of 10 ft. and I (merely writing my bear memoir at that moment) didn’t even notice. Ursula skedaddled off like a dog getting slapped with a newspaper on his rump, but I admit – I was shaken up!
Going back for your food and living to tell … that is a rarity among bear encounters.
About 20 years ago I went backpacking alone after about a 7 year sabbatical. I literally brought everything I could haul thinking access to gear would be my ticket to success and happiness. Part of the gear I grabbed was some stuff that came out of my recently deceased uncle’s house. He had better outdoor gear than I did, so I left my stuff at home in favor of his without even testing it. Case in point was a sleeping bag that was rolled up and a stove.
I struggled to make it about 5 miles in. In fact, it took me nearly all day and I stopped because the sun was setting (and I was exhausted). I was also dehydrated because, at least as best as I can tell, one of my water bottles popped out from the side pocket about a mile in and I had already consumed the other. I probably had at least 60 pounds of gear. I stress “at least”.
As the sun was quickly setting, I had two options. I could camp on top of a waterfall or hike another mile down a nearly vertical rock face to the bottom. With no energy, my knees ruined from hiking throughout the day, and the sun setting, I elected to stay on top. This would prove to be a nearly fatal decision.
First, it was cold – about 50 degrees during the day and easily into the 20’s-30’s at night. Turns out I had no tent stakes, but the tent was free standing which I assumed would be okay. This would also come into play later. Well, the stove I thought I had grabbed from my uncles’ stash turned out to be an old miners light. Useless. Effectively, I had no means to cook my food. In fact, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because I brought canned food and didn’t even have a can opener. I also decided not to light a fire because it was so windy (and I was exhausted). Worse, the sleeping bag wasn’t a sleeping bag at all. It was a stuffed cloth bedroll. I had no means to keep myself warm other than my clothing because I had no sleeping bag. Soaked in sweat, already cold, no substantive clothing, and no sleeping bag – it was going to be a long night. I just couldn’t turn around and go home. I had no flashlight and I was just too tired.
Sulking and with no other real options, I climbed into bed and hoped it could find a way to sleep through the night. Politely summarizing, I was freezing to death. However, this was quickly mitigated by one thing – massive winds picking up my tent at about 1pm and standing it on its side while I was inside. Now this may be a problem for most, but it was a serious problem for me. I was camped on TOP of a roughly 300’ waterfall, in fact, about 15’ from the edge. I had originally put my tent there because I thought it would be good for photographs when the sun was setting. Yet now, I was just about to fall right over it. I kept running through newspaper headlines in my head about my pending death and acknowledged I was the most stupid human on the planet.
Well, when the wind stood up my tent, I had no idea which way was towards safety and which way was over the cliff. I literally laid in the tent like a starfish – praying – pleading – freezing– and ultimately waited it out until the wind was calm enough for me to get out of the tent. It finally calmed down at about 5am at which time I packed up and headed for home. About 2 miles from the car, I heard a rustling behind me and looked up to find I had just walked under a baby bear cub who scampered up the tree. Mesmerized, I took a couple pictures until it occurred to me that baby bears aren’t usually without their mother (and I knew enough not to get between a mother bear and her cub). I looked over my other shoulder the see a mother bear sneaking up on me with a crazed look in her eye. It huffed, lunged, and I literally took off running and hollering. As I was running, I was somewhat confident that the mother bear was no longer chasing and the thought ran through my head that I had a camera full of images about my horrific trip which others would have to see to believe. At that exact moment a branch snagged the camera strap from my hand and slung the camera to the ground opening the back of the camera. In those days, camera had film which was instantly ruined in the light as soon as it broke open. It was a cheap camera I had won the week previous at a school contest, but it was about as durable as a child’s camera.
Anyway, I got back to the car and swore off backpacking for 5 years. Since then, I’ve learned my lesson and I’m never unprepared or so foolish.
True story, sadly.
That’s one bad-ass adventure … I’m thinking this one’ll be a finalist.
Participated in a 3 Day FEMA
Qualification Drill with the New Jersey Search & Rescue in the Fall
of 2009. The 1st exercise was a night time search for a monument sunk
into the ground somewhere – arrived back at the base around 2:00 a.m.
Friday (temperature in the low 30s and humid). The 2nd exercise was a
search for someone’s lost hiking stick with the Canine Team on Saturday –
the dog was amazing – taking us where we had to do some major
bush-wacking – the dog would leap over and crawl under numerous
obstacles (funny how air-scent dogs don’t follow trails). He found the
hiking stick in a short amount of time – it took our team a little
longer because of our size and ages. The 3rd exercise on Sunday required
our team to bush-wack about a quarter mile into dense forest – I was
instructed by our officer to lead the team out – did so in a little over
the time it took us to get to the turn around point (my younger days
wandering into neighboring forests paid off because I was in-tune to
remembering landmarks – useful for accurate track-backs). We noticed
fresh bear scat, then shortly after, we spotted the startled bear who
thankfully began running in the opposite direction. 4 hours later, when
we arrived at the team selected (alternate) pick-up point (the original
point was on a heavily traveled road – very dangerous) we had lost
communications with the base – the base commanders finally zeroed in on
us after numerous text messages with our coordinates were sent out via
our cell phones. The wait time was much longer than expected in the cold
weather but at least the van finally found us. We arrived home tired
and sore on Sunday evening – had no problem with getting a good night’s
sleep 🙂 See photo NJSAR 2009.
Winter hiking in cold temps at Linville Gorge
My new graduate school friends and I decided to do a winter weekend backpacking trip on the west side of Linville Gorge in January 2009. We had 6 people, 2 cars. Our plan was to shuttle the cars and do the full 11 mile hike in the gorge starting with the northern entrance trail and coming out the grueling Pinch-In trail. We planned this for MLK weekend, and unfortunately that happened to be the coldest weekend in quite a few years in NC. The temperature in the Triangle was 10-20 F and in the mountains was 0-10 F. We said **** it, it’ll be fun because nobody would be there and half of my friends are from Colorado and Idaho, only my Cali friend and I were the only ones not used to the cold.
I borrowed all the cold gear I needed from my Idaho friend, and we set off, I drove my Honda Civic. It was below 20F in the middle of the day when we got there and the ground was frozen solid and ice and snow was everywhere. The first hazard was driving my Civic 8 miles on the icy washboard road above Linville Gorge. When we started on the trail every rock and stream was iced over and treacherous. Not to mention 5 ft. icicles hanging on the rock faces above us. Luckily I bring a 25 ft. climbing rope everywhere, so we used that multiple times to descent the trail because it was too icy. Also since it was the dead of winter in the middle of the wilderness there were a ton of blow downs and finding the trail was difficult. We came to a junction and went down to the river, only finding the trail ended below massive cliffs on a flat part of the river.
The mighty Linville River was half frozen, only a few feet in the middle was the water flowing! On our topo it looked like the trail skirted the river here so we hiked south along the river on icy rock faces. At one point we need to lower ourselves down a ice rock face 10 ft. using my rope. Then later the river edge was impassable so we turned back. But we had to face that icy rock face, my climber friend scrambled up a part of this face and anchored himself with the rope to help us up. I slipped on my way up and slipped hard down towards the river. I cracked through the ice and went up past my ankles in water and one arm held onto the rope while the other went into the water. Luckily my friend held on and I got up. All of my wet clothing immediately froze, it was below 10F, we had spares though so I was lucky.
It was late so we made camp by the river, in a valley. It was cold, it got down to 2 degrees F that night. And we couldn’t really make a fire. All the wood was icy and frozen. The only thing we could keep burning was these tall grass we cleared out and would burn for a couple minutes, no logs would catch on fire. My hands froze pumping water out of the river. That night I basically spooned my friend in the tent to contain warmth, while wearing all the clothing we had. The next day we decided to leave. We found the actual trail behind a big blow down and took a tough icy uphill trail over a mountain to get back to the road. The amazing thing is even though it was below 20F, I was hiking in a thin long shirt because the hike out was so tough. When we got out and realized our location just 1 mile down the road from the start, we were amazed we covered about 2 miles the first day in 4 hours. We also had to drive all the way to get our pickup car and come back. I vowed I wouldn’t make another stupid winter backpacking plan again after this, but I failed at that and I’ll tell it in my next story.
Sorry, that looks longer than I thought after I posted it.
No harm done, it’s a great story.
My best tale goes back to 1983. Boy Scouts, and we are on a 127 mile trek in 10 days at Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimmaron, NM. I was most impressed with our ascent of Mt. Baldy, the 2nd highest peak in NM, at over 14K feet. We were blessed with snow still on north faces of the peak, and we were above the treeline. As all good teenagers should do, a snowball fight ensued, and the date? July 4. We were mostly used to hiking in the NC mountains, and on the coast in summer, where shorts and little else were the clothing of choice. Makes for a great impression on a 16 year old.
The discipline of having to use bear bags, being on the lookout for scorpions and rattlers, and the sheer beauty of the American Southwest have stuck with me to this day.
Paul
While in the Trinity Alps Wilderness Area in Northern California, I moved down a hill to get better pictures of a waterfall. I slipped, slid to the lip of the canyon, then hung on for dear life as boulders – some the size of basketballs – wizzed past me and down 30 feet into the waterfall’s pool.
I couldn’t dodge them all.
A granite boulder the size of a soccer ball nearly took my head off; I put up my arm just in time and deflected it off my Timex Ironman watch (killed it) and into my outstretched shoulder, severely dislocating it.
I managed to climb to the trail and sat on a rock, rubbing my Saint Christopher medal and saying a silent prayer. I walked back down to camp (about a mile) and told my camp-mate that we needed to seek medical attention. Immediately.
We packed up camp and I winched as I put a 48-pound backpack on my shoulders for the 9.7-mile trek to the truck and wondered how I’d make it back to Redding, Calif., to the ER, a drive through the mountains of 48 miles.
As I grimaced through the pain, my buddy decided that he was having knee issues and kept stopping to “rest.” Finally, I told him I would meet him at the truck, as I needed to get the weight off a now rose-colored shoulder. I never wanted to punch a friend as much as I want to punch him. Right in the face.
We made it to the truck, drove down the mountain to Redding, but before we went to the ER, we stopped at the convenience store for 40-ounce beers and Burger King for cheeseburgers.
“Why do you have those?” the admitting nurse asked in a huff.
“It’s a long wait, I’ve been in the mountains for six days, I’m hungry and I’m thirsty.”
She never said a word after that.
(Oh, and I was in a sling for two weeks.)
Scariest was my decent of Mt. Shasta 9/11/11. I was glissading down the Red Bank’s chute, and it was too icy. I slid too fast to self-arrest, and I slammed my knee into a rock bank at the end of the chute. I thought it shattered on impact. I suffered pain and swelling in my knee and big toe; fortunately, I was able to hike myself out of there with no fractures. I was also fortunate that I managed to avoid sliding out of control down the entire mountain.
In brief: http://bedrockandparadox.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/the-hardest-trip-ive-ever-done-yet/
-Dave
Great stories. I just spent the last half hour reading all of them. Thanks.
Dani @ ONNO Bamboo Clothing
NOTE: I have selected the five finalists. http://www.tommangan.net/twoheeldrive/index.php/2011/10/30/finalists-for-most-extreme-hiking-tale/ …. feel free to add an extreme hiking tale if you have one, but you won’t be entered in the contest.
Really good contest for the participants, well when i was in the Northern California for tracking and just have some fun there is many things happen and enjoy well.
http://www.greathomeremedies.com