Page 14 - MARCH2023

Page 14
Sports
I have noticed on my news feed as of late, that there has been several stories about hikers going out alone in both good and sketchy conditions. I applaud the adventurous spirit but question the decision for some of these hiking enthusiasts. One story in particular caught my attention as I read through it, and I kept asking myself , “what was this person thinking.. or not? This particular hiker was a woman nearing her seventies, she had always wanted to hike the Ap- palachian Trail. She had hiking
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Off the Hook “Food for Thought”
March 2023
experience locally, but had never been on an extended hike such as this one. She and a friend, whom was in the same age bracket de- cided that they would undertake this challenge, which, again I ap- plaud. They started out together and had gone all the way along the tail to about 200 miles short of the finish. It was at this point that the friend had been alerted to a family crisis and had to de- part the excursion and would not be rejoining her companion. The now lone hiker decided that she would continue along and
finish the hike. This is the point at which I was thinking the rest of the story writes itself, and it did, sadly. The gist of this tale is that the lone hiker, a woman approaching elderly status, was not all that adept at keeping to
the trail and according to her partner, she had led them astray a few times and become some- what combative when she was approached by her friend as to her mistakes. The long and short of it was that she almost immediately got lost and died several weeks later of exposure, starvation and the like. A trag- edy that could have easily been prevented.
Having said all of this, again, I admire and respect the spirit of adventure, but question the planning and preparation. A
few things to think about before attempting any long or short distance romps through the wil- derness. Always have a map and compass with you, and more im- portantly, know how to use them. Carry plenty of food and water, a Global Positioning System (GPS) with you and spare bat- teries. The most important piece of equipment you can carry with you for these sojourns, in my humble opinion, is an emer- gency position indicating radio beacon, (EPIRB). If you get lost or hurt or any combination thereof, you can active this bea- con and help is on the way to your exact position within plus or minus 3 meters, 24/7, 365. There are several different mod- els and industry names for this piece of equipment and they are tailored to your need by in- dustry. They range in price from about $150.00 and up. Every hiker, boater or adventurist of any kind that may be out in the wilderness or at sea should inves- tigate these tools in case of the worst case scenario and it’s your day for Murphy to show up. You are stacking the odds heavily in your favor. Just a thought. Hope is not a strategy
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