More Of My Dumbest Backpacking Mistakes

hey y'all dixie here a couple of years ago i put out a video talking about my dumbest backpacking mistakes and since then i've made some more mistakes to add to the list or realize some of the other mistakes i've made in the past and the reason i like to put these out here is not because i want to necessarily spotlight all the blunders that i've made but so that hopefully people can learn from my mistakes and they don't have to make them themselves the first mistake i want to talk about today i made while on my through hike of the appalachian trail and that was to not take imodium backpacking with me i learned the very hard way because i ended up getting food poisoning from a microwavable sandwich at a hostel where i'd stop to eat lunch and it made the next several days completely miserable i think i had diarrhea for like five days or something it put a damper on my trail days experience because i was still suffering from that when i hiked into damascus for trail days if i had had some imodium i think it certainly would have helped with that situation but not only was it miserable but it's dangerous to be out in the wilderness when you end up with diarrhea because very quickly it can dehydrate you especially if it's hard for you to keep other liquid down so all i could think about while i was sick is that i would never be caught on trail again in that situation without having some sort of anti-diarrheal and i couldn't wait to get to town and get some pedialyte to kind of help make up for all of the liquid that i lost so anyway you will not find me on trail these days period not even on a day hike without having imodium in my pack the second mistake i want to address today was when i went up mount katahdin and back down at the end of my attribute hike without micro spikes if you've seen that video you've probably noticed that the trail was covered completely with snow and ice and it was a very dangerous situation without having any additional traction than just the bottom of my trail runners now in my defense i didn't know that microspikes and crampons and ice axes or even yak tracks existed at that time because i've always lived in warmer climates where that's not something you have to worry about in the winter time but i did my due diligence after that and learned that there are other options so i learned from my mistakes and when i got out on the pacific crest trail i was more prepared going through the sierra nevada with the snow and the ice there even though it was a 200 snow year but i know people watched me climb that mountain with nothing but trail runners so i just want folks to know that that's not the smartest decision and there are things out there that can help you be safer in those conditions and it's certainly important to research that and learn what you can do to keep yourself safe the next mistake that i hope people learn from is guard your water filter with your life there was one particular night on the continental divide trail where we had done some night hacking and it felt kind of chilly but it didn't think it was cold enough to where it would freeze and we hadn't had freezing nights recently but i should have taken the extra precaution to protect my water filters since you know good water is important to staying healthy while on trail but i left my water bottle with my sawyer squeeze attached to it just lying on the floor of my tent it did freeze that night and i woke up to a frozen water bottle and a frozen sawyer squeeze so you have to assume at that point for your safety that those little tubes inside the filter have bursted and now even though water will flow through the filter it's probably not actually functioning and filtering out the things that can be dangerous to you especially if you're hiking in areas where you're drinking from cattle ponds so at that point i had to use a friends filter or i did have my stove so i could have pulled the water and treated it that way and just ran it through a bandana to kind of get all the particulate matter out i've eventually hitchhiked into town got some bleach so i could treat my water temporarily with bleach until i could have another sawyer squeeze sent to me on trail so moving forward i will always put my filter if it feels chilly at night in a ziploc bag and sleep with it inside my sleeping bag that way i'm absolutely positive that i'm not compromising my ability to filter water and make sure it's safe to drink the next mistake is hiking above tree line to a peak of a mountain afternoon when thunderstorms are most likely to come rolling in even on a clear day this is in reference to especially my through hike of the continental divide trail and i knew it was dumb y'all even told me it was dumb especially after watching clips of my hair standing on end which is a sign that a lightning strike is very likely to happen so i knew that this was a dangerous situation that i was putting myself in but i guess what i want people to understand is when you're on a through hike you have to put miles in so just because i hit colorado didn't mean that i could only hike one peak a day you know you you have to keep trucking along i knew that there was more of a risk and so i still tried to take the most logical approach that i could aside from just not hiking anymore but the main reason i want to address this is to say that if you're doing day hikes or section hikes where you can kind of plan around it a bit better then do that definitely avoid these exposed areas and peaks after noon especially in colorado in july where it's just known that that's putting yourself in a bad situation but if you find yourself on a through hike of the colorado trail or the continental vibe trail there are still some decisions that you can make that will reduce your risk so maybe waking up super early in the morning like 4am hitting the trail and doing as many miles as you can before noon or if you see a storm rolling in then you know stay low and don't climb that peak but it can change so quickly like everything can look beautiful and clear and you can plan for this magnificent view while you're taking a lunch break at the top or whatever and then by the time you get up there like a couple of miles boom the storm has rolled in and lightning striking around you so just use your brain as much as possible um but there are risks associated with that so i want to say that i recognize that and if you can avoid these exposed peaks then definitely do that and finally the last mistake i want to share with y'all today is not hiking in grizzly country honestly night hiking in bear country in general is probably not the safest idea bears are more active at dawn and at dusk so if you're hiking on through dusk and into the night in bear country then you're increasing your odds of running into a bear or startling a bear but they especially suggest in grizzly bear country that you don't not hack but again i found myself in a predicament at the end of my cdt through hike so i had to push more hours of the day so that had me hiking many times through dawn dusk and into the night so in this situation of course we were as loud as possible hollering out hay bears as much as possible um making sure that at least hopefully we weren't startling the bears so they would kind of mosey on off before we ever got to them because you know they could hear us calling out and i would also recommend if you find yourself in this situation like having to push on for some reason for emergency or whatever and you happen to be in grizzly bear country not only should you make sure that you're hollering out more frequently and making your position known but also make sure that you've got some spare batteries for your headlamp i just think that's a great idea in grizzly country anyway so when you're preparing to not hack you can take out the newest most charged up batteries that way you've got the brightest beam possible and other than that i would just say you know it's definitely a good idea to avoid not hacking in grizzly bear country especially but this is again one of those instances where i know people saw me do it so i wanted to recognize that it is a dumb decision and encourage people to not do that unless they find themselves in a situation where they're willing to take that risk or they have to take that risk for some reason all right y'all well that is all i have for you today if any of you are thinking yeah i've done some things that i'm not proud of i've made some mistakes that i'm glad they didn't go as terribly as they could have and you want to share that with folks so that they can learn from your experiences feel free to leave that in the comments below and then maybe we can all get a little bit wiser here from each other instead of having to make the mistakes ourselves thank you for watching if you found this video useful don't forget to subscribe before you go and we will see you all next time

Channel: Homemade Wanderlust

Views: 13,140

Rating: 4.9821296 out of 5

Keywords: lightning, backpacking, mishaps, mistakes, thru-hiking, hiking, continental divide trail, Appalachian trail, outdoors, storms, colorado, backcountry, nature, streams, rivers, night hiking, grizzly bear, montana, woods

Id: ornTJUGFX5o

Length: 9min 1sec (541 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 28 2020