Hiking Whoopsies!

[Sierra Echo]

Two years ago while hiking in vt, I was spending the night at goddard shelter on the side of glastenbury mt . I arrived there with just enough time to settle in and make a quick cup of coffee,and then head for the firetower on the summit to get some sunset pics.
Fast forward an hour and a half, and two rolls of film, now it is well after dark. I had stayed on awhile talking to a couple of thru hikers
that were going to stealth up top. As we went to climb down from the tower, it was then i realized in my haste back at the shelter, i had forgotten to grab my headlamp. the best part was the ribbing i got from other hikers upon my 10:30pm arrival back at the shelter.
A few hikers had stayed back at the shelter when i went up to the tower earlier,but by the time i got back there was at least six or seven more. Everyone at the shelter had spent at least an hour wondering what the bright flashes of light were, that were slowly advancing down the mt. toward the shelter. They all had a grand ole time laughing and teasing me in turns, here i was, snap a flash of my camera walk a quick few feet stop wait for flash to recharge , snap and walk ,snap and walk.

That hilarious!

[BrianLe]

"had my hammock hung in the little pavilion at port clinton one january night ..."

Hammocks definitely provide lots of opportunities for in-retrospect-funny issues. I wonder how many hammock hangers have inadvertently hung on a dead tree only to have the tree start falling towards them as they climbed in? (my hand is up ...)

[map man]

I was hiking in the Wind River Range and responded to nature's call. I was careful, like I always am, to get comfortably off the trail, facing away from the trail with some undergrowth shielding me from sight. When I was just finishing up I looked up and realized that there was a campsite I didn't know about just 50 feet above me and there was an amused couple peering down at me. I've had other close calls of this nature that involved trail switchbacks. I bet I am not alone on this one.

[Sierra Echo]

You aren't! I was up near Millers Gap on a work trip. I head off to go pee not realizing the trail had a big horse shoe bend there. I have my pants almost down to my ankles when to men hiked almost twenty feet right by me. They didnt see me thank goodness. Its astounding to know how unobservant some people are. Since then, Ive always made sure to wear a rockin' pair of knickers when I hike!

[Hikerhead]

Hammocks definitely provide lots of opportunities for in-retrospect-funny issues. I wonder how many hammock hangers have inadvertently hung on a dead tree only to have the tree start falling towards them as they climbed in? (my hand is up ...)

I had a small one fall over on me from the head end near Stan Murray one night. Another time the rope on the head end came loose in The Mt Washington wilderness and I hit the ground after a long long day. One time I flip over the back side and my supper landed on my chest when I sat down too close to the end of my hammock.

[stranger]

Here is mine...so I'm climbing out of Lehigh Gap in 2001 heading northbound, the trail follows an old woods road for some time up on the ridge, so I'm walking and walking, just cruising along and miss the trail leaving the road and entering the woods to my left.

So I keep walking down the woods road and because I assume I am on the trail, when I notice the trail entering the woods on my left, I turn and follow the blazes into the woods. Because I thought I was on the trail, I never thought to look right...if I had, I would have seen that the trail 'crossed' the woods road, thus assuming I had missed the turn and would have followed the trail to the right, which was downhill.

BUT because I thought I was on the trail to begin with, I just followed the first blaze I saw. Which meant walking south on the AT, back to the junction point where I originally missed the turn off, walking back out onto the woods road and back towards Lehigh Gap!

I remember feeling like it was wrong, I kept thinking "I feel like I'm being turned around", then I saw a trail friend coming 'the wrong way' down the trail, it was amusing to say the least.

[nox]

On a 3 day trip from car A to car B my friend realized as we were in sight of his vehicle that he put his keys in my glovebox... luckily someone pulled into the parking lot while we were discussing who was walking all the way back.

[beakerman]

YEah I've done the "I've hike far enough off trail to do my business" thing only to have the trail just feet from me quite a few times. Most of the timie I find out when I hike back to my original point and start down the trail and I start recognizing trees I was looking at just moments ago...or worse yet when another hiker passes me while I'm busy. I'm glad I'm not the only one that has this happen. Of course the same thing happens with camping as well. That's not quite as embarrassing.

[louisb]

One time back in my scouting days we were up at the Little Grand Canyon in GA learning how to use a compass to navigate through the woods. I have never been very good with a compass so needless to say we got hopelessly lost. This was about 10 am and being the smart kids we were, we decided that the sun had to be in the east since it was still morning, and since our camp was supposed to be east of us, if we headed towards the sun we should hit the camp, more or less. Well four hours later we were still following the sun, see the problem yet, when we hit a paved road that looked familiar. That is when it dawned on us that we had done a quarter moon shaped crescent and ended up almost exactly back where we had started. We got more than a little bit of razzing for that when we finally staggered back into the camp later that afternoon.

--louis

[Farr Away]

You aren't! I was up near Millers Gap on a work trip. I head off to go pee not realizing the trail had a big horse shoe bend there. I have my pants almost down to my ankles when to men hiked almost twenty feet right by me. They didnt see me thank goodness. Its astounding to know how unobservant some people are. Since then, Ive always made sure to wear a rockin' pair of knickers when I hike!

They may have just been pretending they didn't see you - being polite. Happened to us one time (in the Smokies). We came up on someone doing their business; we just kept walking, and pretended we didn't see a thing.

-FA

[Blissful]

Going the wrong way down a mountain in MA (just before Mt Greylock) on my SOBO. I was down a half mile, saw this large tree on the ground and thought wow did I just pass that going up? Uh yeah... I was very angry with myself.

[kayak karl]

throw my pack down a cliff in NH as they yelled "the trail goes this was" i climbed down. got it. climbed back up and followed them down the trail which switchbacked to where the pack had landed

[Kerosene]

They may have just been pretending they didn't see you - being polite. Happened to us one time (in the Smokies). We came up on someone doing their business; we just kept walking, and pretended we didn't see a thing.

Similar to my experience. I was cruising around a corner in Georgia in early April before the trees had leafed out. There was a "gap" perhaps 100 yards ahead with a handful of people standing there, with a woman walking away to the left across the trail. She promptly squatted down to relieve herself, while I'm now perhaps 40 yards away. There wasn't anywhere to go, so I just kept walking with my head down until I got to the main group. She was very embarrassed.

[SouthMark]

Well mine is also a hammock story. Before doing Katahdin and the 100 mile wilderness I decided to make a modification to my small ultralite hammock to make it "better". It was a Hennessy Adventure Racer which has one hole in the gathered end for the suspension to pass through. Well I decided that since I had added new suspension that two holes in each end like on the regular Hennessy Hammocks would be better. Third night out at Abol Bridge, before even starting the 100 mile wilderness, 2:00 am I wound up on the ground. Landed pretty hard on my back. Here I am at 2 in the morning improvising by whipping that end and turning it into a gathered end hammock but know shorter. It held up through the wilderness.

[RWheeler]

I forgot my tent poles at home once. It was a dry night, though, so I didn't learn my lesson completely.

[rocketsocks]

Got on the trail at 3 after 2 days of driving... it was late, but I wanted to get a couple miles in anyway. Headed back to the truck to ditch some 'extra' gear (most of my cold wx gear... before the early snow back in Nov)...

... finally got back hiking an hour later. The sun set, and I was planning to make the couple (few) hours to the shelter and was not finding any good places to camp. After I ran out of daylight, I dug in my pack looking for a headlamp... which appeared to be missing.

I hiked for 3 hours in the dark, no moon, no flashlight. Stumbled, fumbled, and groped my way to the shelter, and settled in for the night in the dark.

Of course I found the headlamp first thing in the morning...

not a bad ending ...I thought you were going to say you found it ....on your head!

[bamboo bob]

My very first backpacking trip ever was as a NOBO on Springer Mountain. What a doofus right? My "plan" was to hike as far as a could every day and then tent. I managed to get to Horse Gap ten miles in. I started setting up my TWO person Kelty Vortex tent, a four plus pounder, and could NOT find my tent stakes. I had of course packed and repacked everything many times. I tore everything apart but no stakes. Bummer. (In reality this was a free standing tent) It started to rain and blow so being a resourceful THRUHIKER after all I put some softball size rocks in the corners of my spacious tent and had a nice night watching the lightning and no being too scared. The next morning I packed up my TEN days food which I had hung and everything else and and rolled up the tent. There under the groundcloth in a neat little bag of there own, were my tent stakes!

[blackbird04217]

I've certainly fallen victim to the "I've walked far enough off trail..." Go about my business. Walk back to the trail and then notice, I was within feet from the trail as it switched back around, or an intersection etc.

But my whoopsie started as I walked into Hot Springs. Bought all my food, and an extra food bag to fit the food in. Then an urge hit me as I'm walking in the middle of town. I look left, buildings. Right, buildings. Everywhere, there are people and buildings! Oh-no! I had to go into some little restaurant to use the bathroom, and decided it respectable to order 'something'. From that point on, I made note before entering a town, unlike the trial you can't just walk off to the side when the urge hits...

[Sierra Echo]

Yesterday doing trail maintenance I was watching a sapling being cut down. I figured I was far enough out of the way. On its way down it bopped me in the nose and snot shot out. Oh well now I can say I've literally had the snot knocked out of me. Am I a total mess or what!?

[MuddyWaters]

My 11 yo son and I had hiked in the day before, and camped overnight on a bluff, and on 28F next morning were looking for the trail down to continue a loop trail we were hiking. We followed an obvious heavily used trail down and into the brush below , and it dead-ended. ***?

We followed several other less obvious trails at different parts of the bluff down and they dead ended too.

I did the first trail down AGAIN by myself to save him the climb back up , and laboriously searched for a way forward at the bottom, but there was nothing, just impenatrable brush.

I Went back up this bluff for about the 4th time that morning , looked at the trail markers AGAIN , There were ones pointing in oppposite directions, including two that were pointing in opposite directions on on a single tree!

Scratching my head after over an hour of searching for the trail forward , I told my son " Well, we cant stay here, and we cant find the trail forward, we will just have to backtrack". I said some choice words about the forest service and the quality of trail marking.

Then my 11yo shows me where the trail forward is. He reasoned that we should go back to the trai we ascended the bluff on, and only pay attention to the marker visible to us at that point. Then go that direction and keep going . We did and promptly came to the correct trail leading forward.

In my own defense, lots of others had made the same mistake, thats why there were heavily used false trails that deadended.