For me, it was to always bring a big water bottle (or two smaller ones).
I just got back from a hike on one of the hottest days of the year where I ended up walking around 3 hours and several kilometers after running out of water during the hottest part of the day before I could get to a churchyard with an outdoor tap to fill up on. Not fun!
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It’s crazy how much easier it is to get down to Phantom Ranch than it is to climb back out of the Grand Canyon…
Deceptive and enticing aren’t they!
Bit different as I’m on a bike but…
I bring: Enough extra water for someone else. Extra medical supplies
Extra medical supplies is definitely a big one. I always pack extras of the common ones, i.e. painkillers for headaches, plasters ranging from small to large and antiseptic wipes. Never know when they can come in handy!
I carry a level up in gear as injuries while MT biking are usually more severe
Bleed stop packets Gauze pads Wrapping bandages Soap Hydrogen peroxide Rubber gloves Extra joint…
I’ve helped clean up and stabilize people plenty of times. It’s nice to be ready.
A couple years ago a friend and I were planning a quick overnight trip through the New Jersey pine barrens. We were both a bit out of shape, but the pinelands are nice and flat and we’re otherwise experienced backpackers so we were well-prepared to handle that.
Unfortunately the weekend we planned to go, that part of the state was on fire, so we scrambled to find a nice flat place we could hike into and camp for a night. We settled on one of the backcountry sites on assateague national seashore, not really understanding what that hike entails. Some of the reviews mentioned that a lot of it was on sand, which is the understatement of the century, because as it turns out we signed ourselves up for a 10 mile trudge down nothing but beach. And we got there at high tide so we didn’t even have the harder packed wet sand to walk on, just loose dry sand, and no shade the whole way down.
We packed plenty of water for a normal overnight hiking trip that we’d usually expect to have a decent amount left over at the end (no potable water at the site), but we were guzzling it really fast, so we had a bit less than half left by the time we dragged ourselves into camp and made dinner.
We weren’t so low that we were in serious danger, and the beach had plenty of day trippers along it so we could have bummed more water from someone if we really needed to.
Luckily there was another guy camping near us who had paddled in with a couple spare gallons he offered us and we happily accepted.
For the hike out we had low tide, and if we weren’t already sore and tired from the day before that probably would have been the easiest hike of my life.
So anyway, now I take even more water with me that I did before.
A GPS device like a Garmin InReach that can send out an SOS even when there is no cell signal could very well save your life.
That actually a very good shout. I rely on my phone a little too much for emergencies. Thing is, I’ve done a fair bit of sailing and would hardly think of leaving harbour without at least a radio and usually a EPIRB but never thought about it much with hiking.
I’ve been listening to the Out Alive podcast for a little while and it’s amazing to me how many of those scenarios could have been resolved much quicker had they been able to SOS.
Make sure you’re not pitching in a cold sink. Learned this in Lincoln National Forest, and so glad I had an emergency bivvy in my pack.
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What exactly is a cold sink? I’m UK based and haven’t been camping much at all.
Bring something to wrap your joints with (the bone kind not the weed kind). I stepped wrong one morning while throwing a ball for my dog and my ankle popped. Suddenly I was keenly aware of just how long the 6 miles back to the car was. Luckily it loosened up enough to walk on after and hour or two, but now I always bring medical elastic tape in addition to my emergency medical kit for when splinting isn’t the best solution.
Going down sucks way more.
Doing down sucks way more when you have to go back up to leave
If you have pets also bring a first aid kit for them as well.
