I had an interesting run-in over this holiday weekend. It was a great reminder of everything you SHOULDN’T do. Travel in the wilderness, especially in high-altitude mountains, requires a certain respect for mother nature. You never know when she will turn on you and you should always be prepared for her to do so! In the outdoor world, it’s known as Wilderness Risk Management. Plan for the worst. 99% of the time, you won’t have to deal with it. That 1% though, you’ll be prepared to handle and you will increase your odds of surviving exponentially.

I recently read in the Summit Daily, that Quandary Peak sees the most rescues of any mountain in Summit County (which is full of 14ers). Why? Because it’s relatively easy (again – for a 14er) and it sees a lot of unprepared tourists who don’t know much about travelling in the wilderness. Brian and I had been out hiking in Breckenridge earlier in the day, but the weather was alternating between a cold breeze (40s in the valley), snow, rain and occasional peeks of sunshine. The valley-bottom trail was still 70% snow-covered and the rest was mud.  Not surprising after a record late-season snow year! Really, it was just kind of a nasty day to be out. So we threw in the towel after a couple of miles and headed back to the car. What to do with our day then? We have been looking at buying a house in our new-found home of Summit County and there were several cute properties in Blue River, including a really cute one right by the trailhead for Quandary Peak. So we went for a drive to check them out!

We stopped off at the Quandary Peak house and poked around the property for a bit. On the way out of the drive, we noticed a wet, bedraggled hiker with a full pack, old Atlas snowshoes and a bit of a desperate look on his face. He was thumbing for a ride at the trailhead and no one else was around. There weren’t even any cars in the parking lot. Of course, in the middle of Nowhere, CO, if someone looks like they need a ride, you help them out! So we stopped to pick this young man up. Let’s call him “R.”

R hopped in the car and started talking and sounding very relieved. Slowly, we assembled the jigsaw of his story. R was visiting from Michigan, as he does every few years. He had flown out with a group of friends only a day before. They all decided to try to summit Quandary Peak. The group got an early start; R was equipped with snowshoes, gaiters, hiking pants, a puffy jacket, scarf, beanie and tennis-shoe-style light-hiking shoes. It wasn’t long before R was going too fast for the rest of the group to keep up. He said “they were too slow and couldn’t keep up.” He didn’t slow down for them because he really wanted to make the summit. They turned around at some point and he kept on going it alone. The weather was ever-shifting, but several small snow-squalls moved through the area. There was also a layer of fresh snow, deposited overnight. R had his snowshoes, but still was breaking trail, which is a lot of hard work. He made the summit, then turned and immediately started descending. It turned to heavier snow and wind as a bigger storm-cell moved through. R got a little scared on the way down by the sketchy terrain and conditions. He knew if he was off the mountain by 2pm, he would be safe, because that was what all the guidebooks said. When he got back to the trailhead, his friends and their vehicle was gone. No one else was around. R waited around for over an hour before we came along and picked him up.

Now, I don’t want to judge anyone based on their gear or experience, but if that story didn’t set off some alarm bells for you, then you shouldn’t be travelling in the mountains. R managed to do almost everything wrong from a Wilderness Risk Management perspective… or even a common-sense perspective! He is so amazingly lucky to have come through that whole experience unscathed. Let’s start from the top: R didn’t give himself much (or any) time to acclimate. No, you don’t have to, but geez it sure helps when you are going from sea level to 14k ft! He wasn’t equipped for the deep snow conditions that were present on the mountain. Yes, he had a puffy jacket and snowshoes, but he was wearing tennis shoes. Those won’t help save his toes from frostbite in the snow. No shovel or beacon (not that it would have helped when he was travelling alone). They decided to hike on what was a decidedly sketchy-weather day. Yes, there were pockets of fair conditions. But there were a LOT of storm cells moving through. And if it’s nasty on the valley floor, you can bet it’s a million times worse on top of an exposed ridge! There was also a strong potential for thunder-snow (we’d been having it all week) and being up high on a 14er is not a good place to be when there’s lightning around. Plus, snow had been falling consistently all week long. I’m not an avalanche forecaster, but I can bet that avalanche danger was at least moderate, if not high.   After this fine start, R decided not to wait on his group. I get it… we all hike at different speeds. But moving into potentially life-threatening conditions? Not smart to go it alone. Even worse, his group turned around and had no plan to meet up with him later. They had no meeting time or place. He had no turnaround time from the summit. In fact, his friends got back to the trailhead and left for town and planned to come pick him up in the afternoon. There wasn’t any cell reception at the trailhead, so he couldn’t even contact them to let them know he was finished and freezing. Amazingly, R made it up and down without incident (other than being cold and wet when we picked him up), but many, many things could have gone wrong. Avalanche, slips and falls, getting lost in the weather, hypothermia, frostbite… he was quite unprepared to deal with any of them. And worse, no one knew where he was or when he would be back. A guy named Aron Rahlston did that in Utah and Hollywood ended up making a popular movie about his near-death experience and miraculous self-rescue when he cut off his own arm. I don’t know about you, but that is NOT the reason I want to have a movie made about me!

This is a case where common sense seems to have gotten lost in the thirst for adventure and “summit fever” set in. R was a lucky guy. We took him back to where he was staying and he finally got a hold of his friends to let them know he was ok. This case was a stunning reminder to never underestimate travel in the mountains and to always have a plan to deal with the worst. If you don’t know what you are doing, takes some classes, do some homework and or bring along someone who does. Best-case scenario for R was that he should have stayed with his group and turned around with his friends. Worst case? He could have died up there or gotten trapped or lost and put a mountain rescue team at risk when he didn’t show up. Friends don’t let friends climb alone in bad weather, totally unprepared! So take a lesson from our friend, R, who perhaps got a bit lucky and will likely repeat the same mistakes because of said luck. Identify and manage your risks, before heading out into those beautiful mountains. We all love to be out there in our Mountain Happy Place, skiing, hiking, snowshoeing; but we need to keep our common sense firmly in place!