Turnaround times, Hiking alone, Lost, The ten essentials rethought for a modern day hike, Group decisions, Emergency signalling.
Being found is a communication problem, and the tools for solving it are cheap, light and widely misunderstood. A whistle is not a phone and a phone is not a beacon; each closes a different distance, needs a different condition to work, and fails in a different way. The sensible approach is not to pick … Read more
A group is safer than a solo walker in almost every way that can be measured, and less safe in one way that cannot: it makes decisions differently. Individuals get tired and turn round. Groups get tired and keep going, because nobody wants to be the one who spoiled the day. Most of the mistakes … Read more
The ten essentials began in the 1930s as a checklist compiled by a mountaineering club in the north-west of the United States, drawn up after members kept turning up on trips without the things that turn a mishap into a story rather than a rescue. The original list was ten objects: map, compass, sunglasses and … Read more
Most of the decisions that go wrong in the hills are not made on the hill at all. They are made in the last hour before the summit, by a tired brain that has already spent its judgement on the climb and is now negotiating with itself. The turnaround time is the simplest tool we … Read more
There is nothing reckless about walking alone. Solo days are where many of us learned to read ground, keep a pace and enjoy our own company. What changes when nobody else is there is not the terrain but the consequences. A sprained ankle in a group is an inconvenience; alone, 6 km from the road … Read more
Nobody gets lost in one step. It happens by degrees: a junction taken on autopilot, a cairn that turns out to be a random pile of stones, a path that fades into deer trails while the conversation carries on. Then comes the moment, usually about 30 seconds long, in which the map and the ground … Read more
