- Hey you, my name is Anna
AKA Glitter and Lasers and today I'm going to be
telling you about a time where I almost died. Seriously, almost died. Probably one of the
scariest moments in my life. Actually just about three weeks
ago I went hiking in Utah. I was in Moab, which
is like Southern Utah, and it's pretty difficult hiking. I know looking at me
right now with the jewelry and the headband and
the makeup you're like, this girl likes to hike? Yeah, no, I actually love it. I think I like hiking as
a form of exercise so much because there's a destination, right? I like fitness where
you could get somewhere. In the end, you get a prize
and the prize in hiking is a beautiful view that
you can't see unless you treck a couple miles
into the great unknown. Now, if you've never been hiking in Moab or you've never heard of
Moab before this video, it is insanely beautiful,
like it is like another planet and every place you go has a
slightly different aesthetic. As you can see it from some of this video, it's just, it's out of this world. It feels like you get this
like special experience that no one else gets, but
everybody could have it. You just have to hike in Moab. So where our story begins
is I've been hiking in this beautiful out
of this world terrain for about a week and I
decided to move locations to a different part of
Utah called St. George. Now St. George, there are several
other national parks there that are equally as beautiful as Moab. So we decided to do this
park called Snow Canyon. It's not a very difficult
hike technically, except for the fact that St.
George is like 107 degrees in July, no joke, 107 degrees
and that's like the average. It could be higher than that. Now, if you get up really
early before the sun is out and when you have like
a little bit of shade, it like drops a lot. So like during the evening, because it is just like
a vast open desert, the temperature drops to like 60, 70's. So it's super bizarre cause you're like, how is it boiling hot
during the day and like, I need to wear a sweatshirt
at night, but it is that way. That is the way St. George is. So I get up at 5:30 and I get
ready and I pack up my bag. I put tons of water in it. I had like a bladder in the back, which is this like plastic
thing that you put water in. And I had two liters in that, and then I had an
additional liter of water and like a Hydroflask that was all ice so we could get cold water
if we needed it for Data. I had Data's a little back pack thing, I have like a vest that goes on him that reduces his heat when hiking. It of like reflects the sun's rays and you can put water on
and it keeps him cool. I had snacks, I have my
tripod, I was ready to go, and we didn't really get to
the trail or on the trail till like seven because
I'm not the fastest mover in the morning, I'm just, I'm not. When we got to the trail at
seven it was still really shady. And then this is what the trail
looks like in the morning. You know, it actually had some
overcast from the mountains that were like very far away, but somehow created like a
little shade and it was nice. It was like 65, 70 degrees,
I was like I can do this. So we set out on the trail
and it was a four mile trail. And I was like, okay, if
we're doing four miles, we'll be back by nine, it should be fine. It shouldn't be that hot, so we head off. So we get to the first point
that could maybe be a turn off and it didn't look right because
there was no marker there and there were no cairns. Cairns are these like little
rocks that are like stacked on top of each other that
are actually like information out in the wild of where a trail is. So you look for those as
to like follow the trail, you follow those rocks statutes. So they're not just cute
things that people stacked up for like whatever reason, which is what I thought they were before I started hiking more aggressively. I used to be like oh my gosh, look at that cute rock statue, and that's so cute
somebody just made that. No, they're not there just for like fun. They're actually there to help you know where the trail is, so I
didn't see any of those. So it was like okay, I guess
that's not where the trail is. So I just kept walking. And then the ground
became like thick sand, like the sand where your foot
just sinks all the way down. And every step became just so
hard like it was like thunck, thunck, and I'm already a big girl and it just felt like
it's so much extra weight and so much extra energy
and it was so slow. And I get about maybe a
half a mile into the sand and it is really hard to walk in. If you've never walked in sand like this, just like thank the Lords
cause it's not like beach sand. It's just like sucking
your foot into the ground. And I pass a couple people that I had seen on the trail earlier that had also passed the same trailhead and also thought it
wasn't right and they go, "Listen, we just walked another maybe like 10th of a mile up
and this is the wrong way, like the trail just flat ends. I don't know where we are,
but this is the wrong way." And I'm like, oh great, great. I just walked in the
sand for no reason, okay. So I turned around, I get back. I get back to that turn off. That was in fact the right
turn off, just not marked well, and I look at myself and I go, okay, so it's a mile up the trailhead before you get to the turnoff so I still have three
miles of this hike left. Do I think I can do it? And I look at my watch and I
go, well, it's been an hour. Okay if I do it I should be back by 9:30 and 10:00 is like the time
that you need to be back by. Like, if you don't get back
by 10, it gets dangerously, dangerously, dangerously
hot, like surface of the sun, cooking egg onto
virtually any surface hot. So I said, I think I can do it. I totally think I can do it, no big deal. So I go up and continue
hiking and it's not bad. It's really, you know, there's
some incline, you know, I'm climbing up, which those are hard, but there's no like scrambles and a scramble is like where
it's like a big waterfall of rocks and you gotta
like maneuver up it. There was none of that. It was just kind of walking up an incline and there were some rocks on the road and I still had that nice
little shade so I felt great. I get all the way to the top of this walk I was doing which was
called the Turtle Wall, partially because the rocks
are shaped like a big turtle and partially because a
lot of turtles go there. So it's I guess just like
maybe they're coming to pray to their turtle God, I don't know but there's a lot of
turtle stuff on this hike. So I didn't see any turtles, which was a little disappointing considering I almost died on this hike. So I walk up to the top, I'm looking over. I'm like oh, this is so beautiful, I'm so glad I did this. So glad that I, you know,
decided to do the trail. I can see all of St. George, look at me. I looked over to the side. I got to tell you this was
the funniest thing ever. So there's a school in St.
George called Dixie College and somebody thought it was a great idea to paint a giant white D on
the side of the mountain. So when you're up there
looking at this beautiful view, you look over and it's just
like a big D and you're like, somebody didn't think that through. And so I'm chuckling to myself cause I hadn't even noticed
that it was there before. And I'm proud cause I walked
all the way up and I'm like, now I just need to go back
and it won't be that bad, I can do it. So I start walking back, I stop and I take these beautiful pictures cause I've taken my shirt off
cause it's starting to get hot and I don't care. And also like if I'm
going to hike in the sun, I might as well get like a little tan. Don't worry I had sunscreen on. And I'm, you know, taking
these beautiful pictures. I find these like old I guess
posts of like some ranch that might've been here
before or I don't know, someone put them there for my photo. I don't know why they're there, but I'm taking pictures against them and Data and I are doing pretty well. He starts to get a little hot
so I pour some water on him and I notice that our water
is getting a little low and I'm like it's okay, like
we only have a mile left and if I don't have any
water I should be fine for that mile, like I'm okay. So we get to this next area and everything is not marked again and there are no
indications of where to go. So I look left, I look
right and I'm like, okay. I mean, what do you do in this situation? I don't know what you do. So I looked and I just
went with which one looks like most worn down because at this point, I am still, I'm about a
mile from anything, right, any sign of civilization. And that's the weirdest part
about a lot of these trails out in Utah is like, you literally don't see any
houses or cars or people or anything once you get on the trail. So there's no like, oh
there is civilization. I just got to go over to civi-- There's like no civilization queue. So I'm like, I can't see, you know, any place that I'm walking to,
I just know I need somewhere. You know, I'm going to pop
over a little, you know, a little mountain or something then I'm going to see where I need to go. So I go where the path is most worn and that takes me down
a whole bunch of rocks which I had to climb down. I get down there, I walk, I walk I walk. I get about half a mile and I'm like man, none of this looks familiar. Like I should have hit the trail that takes me back to my
car, what is going on? And so right then I
actually pull out my phone and up until this point I had not had GPS. I just was like, literally no signal. Another fun part of these trails is you just lose your signal. So I pull my phone out, I look at it and the signal pops up and I'm like thank goodness. And I'm like okay, how far am I? And I'm expecting to have one
of those moments, you know, when you're like tired and
you're like oh my gosh, how far am I? And you like pull it up
and you realize okay, I've got half a mile,
like stop complaining. That's what I expected to happen. But then I opened it up
and I looked and I'm like, I've walked an entire mile off course and I have to walk that mile back and then walk the mile back to my car. And I literally started to cry. Like I just started to cry
and then I stopped myself and I went you can't cry,
you need to save that water cause I didn't have enough water. So I just pull out my backpack
and I look at my supplies. I gotta see like, can I make this? And I drink a little
water and I'm like okay, I've just got to save the water. And I looked down at Data and I noticed that his
pack needs to be refreshed, which means the water
has all evaporated out and now he's starting to overheat. So I take out the last of the ice water and I pour it over Data back into that like special backpack, and I can link that down
below if any of you guys are hiking enthusiasts, it's really great. Just to make sure, like
in my mind I was thinking I can make it, but if this dog dies, I don't think I will emotionally
be able to handle it. So protect Data was all I'm
thinking is protect the pup. So I pour the ice water on him. I've got a little bit left and that's it. So we go back up, I climb back
up the rock scramble thing. I get back up to the trail. I get all the way back to the trail head. Now because I had another detour it's now at the point of high heat and Data's pack needs refreshed again. So I pour the last of the water
on him and I say to myself, I can make it, I can
make it the mile back. I can figure out a way
to do it, I will make it. So we walk and it's
hard, it is really hard. And every step is so much
more effort and to go I think it was three fourths of a mile, took me 45 minutes because
it just took everything I had to keep walking because
the heat was so bad. I was so dehydrated and a
quarter mile from the car I start to shake, like visibly tremor. Like my body is shivering. The heat now was at like 107 degrees because we had stayed
so long on this trail because of all the detours and
the little shade that we had when we came in that made the
walk in so wonderful was gone and I was in full sun and all there were were these little shrubs everywhere. So my body's shaking. I look down at my watch
because that's the first place I always check because
as a plus sized person, when I exercise if anything ever feels off the first thing I check is my heart rate because that is like the
most likely thing it is. I like to push myself, sometimes
I push a little too hard. So I check my heart rate. My heart rate is soaring and then my body just starts to go cold. So it started with the shakes
and I didn't even feel cold. But then as my heart rate went up, my temperature just started to drop and I started to really
feel just out of it. I guess I just, my body
started to give out, that's the easiest way to say it. And I started to panic and my anxiety on top of all of the physical
things that were going on did not make the situation better. And it's weird. I was holding Data like in front of me. I had my backpack over
him to keep him cool. He, by the way, totally fine
cause his pack is, you know, loaded with water and
he's living his best life. And I start to freak out
and I don't know what to do. So I see this small bush with like a tiny bit
of shade underneath it. I literally get into fetal
position and lie under this bush. And I just breathe in, hold for four, breathe out, hold for
four, and I just do that. I remember lying there
under this bush, you know, trying to keep myself cool, trying to calm myself down
and thinking I'm gonna die in Utah a quarter mile from
the end of this stupid trail. And I just, I even thought
like, do I let Data go? Do I let him just run away in hopes that someone gets him
and takes care of him? Will I die here? Like I literally felt like that. Like if you've never
been severely dehydrated, it is terrifying. And the scariest thing
about being dehydrated in somewhere like St.
George is it is dry air. It's not humid so you don't
even know what's happening. Like it just hits you. I'm terrified because
I've never felt so alone because I've never needed
somebody as much as I felt I needed someone in that situation and I didn't have anyone to help me. I said I'm going to have to save myself. I'm going to have to save myself and I don't really have a
choice, I have to do it. So I got up and I said to myself, I'm just going to do my deep breaths. You know, the one, two, three,
four, one, two, three, four, and just 10 steps at a time. And it's so funny, I don't know why the "Unbreakable Kimmy
Schmidt" came into my head, but she said you can do
anything for 10 seconds and it turns out you can. And so I just literally
counted one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 as I crawled my way back to the car. There were points where I was hunched over trying to keep myself from vomiting because when you're that dehydrated, you begin to oddly want to
vomit and have diarrhea, which is just fun, it's
such a fun way to go. So everything was starting
to really just break apart and I just kept walking and
I remember getting to the end of the trail where the pavement started and now I'm like 10 feet from my car. And I remember looking
at my car and going, I don't know if I can make
it, it's just so far away. It's just so far away. Meanwhile, Data's beside
me like perfectly fine. And I'm like, I don't
know if I can make it. And I stood there and I just
went step again to 10 steps, one, and I just counted my way. And when I got to the car,
I just fell against it. And I opened the back seat and I didn't, I had like one little thing of
water, which I gave to Data, and this is so sad. I had a 12 pack of Diet Mountain Dew because that is what I drank
to wake me up in the morning. And so I just chugged three of them, just hot Diet Mountain
Dew in the back of my car because at that point anything,
anything that was liquid, I needed it so badly that
I was going to pass out. And I remember sitting
in the car after drinking way too much hot Diet Mountain Dew. And the fact that I drank
that Diet Mountain Dew like it was the best drink I've
ever had in my entire life. Like I was so grateful and happy for this hot Diet Mountain Dew and when I think about it
now, it's so disgusting. It's so gross, but in that
moment it saved my life. So I got back in the car, I drove back to the hotel with
like the last of my energy. I stumbled upstairs to my room. I drank every thing of water
that was in that hotel room. And then the joyous
aftermath of dehydration really kicked in and I started vomiting and having situations downstairs. And that went on for a couple
of days, like it was bad. I called a friend who
knows about, you know, heat exhaustion and how to treat it and luckily was able to get
everything under control, but it was very, very scary. And what I learned from all of this is that I am really damn capable and I may not be the fastest person and I may not be the fittest person or the most in shape person or the most predictable person to rely on, but I'm pretty dang proud of
myself and what I'm able to do when I really have to do it. And it also gave me an
immense amount of motivation to be in a situation where physically that wouldn't be an issue again. At the end of the day, I saved myself, and that is my metaphor
for life right now. That was my big epiphany
on this entire hiking trip was that nobody's going to save me. I have to save myself
and it's going to be hard and it's gonna suck and I'm
going to look back on it and I'm going to be like, I did that. I did that. And it wasn't fun and it sucked. But on the other side, was it worth it? Hell yeah. So thank you guys for watching, I hope you enjoyed the story time. It's a little bit different for me, but I didn't feel like
a hiking synopsis video would be very fun. I feel like this is probably
the most important part of my trip and the trip
that makes the most sense for me to share with you, so I am. I hope you have an
amazing rest of your day. I'll check you later and peace.
