PDA

View Full Version : The LEADING KILLER of OUTDOOR ADVENTURERS



Ridge
12-25-2004, 13:04
is HYPOTHERMIA. Not the water you worry about drinking, falling, snakebites, bear attacks, alien abductions, dog attacks, murderers, driveby shootings, hunters, car/truck accidents, food poisonings, hangnails, chaffing, black flies, ticks and flees, mice in shelters, starving, lightning, dehydration, moonshine, hot beer, bee/hornet stings, fires or burns, trees or limbs falling on you, suicides, terriorist attacks, other miscellanious animal attacks, general exotic diseases, and a lot more things. ITS HYPOTHERMIA Lots of good threads on WB covering this subject see "Hypothermia" I just wanted to reiterate the importance of how serious this is and how important it is to learn how to AVOID it and should it happen, what to do. This is the LEADING KILLER OF OUTDOOR ADVENTURERS....PERIOD

SGT Rock
12-25-2004, 13:08
I agree. Great point.

chris
12-25-2004, 18:09
Hypothermia is 100% preventable, and so isn't a big concern for me when I go out. I can, generally, control the conditions that make this such a killer, starting with knowing risks, taking proper gear, being reasonably fit, having an escape route, etc. I'm much more worried about things that I have great difficulty in preparing for or preventing. The top two that frighten me are rock fall and river fords, neither of which appear to any great degree on the AT, although there are a lot of nasty river fords (dangerous!) in the Smokys off the AT. I can avoid, or battle off, hypothermia, but there is little to be done about a rock falling from on high.

tlbj6142
12-25-2004, 22:02
I don't know. I'd rate chaffing, and its cousin Monkey Butt, knee pain, blisters and pack weight as the top means of killng adventures.

I'm not to worried about dieing on the trail. Just suffering.

rickb
12-25-2004, 22:11
In the Presidential Range...

http://www.mountwashington.org/visitor/surviving.html

minnesotasmith
12-25-2004, 22:33
"Falls represent the direct cause of more deaths in the Presidential Range than any other single factor. Some fatal falls include plummets over the rocky crags which dot the landscape, others are long slides down snow and ice or rock- strewn slopes. Falls on Mount Washington have taken the lives of skiers, rock and ice climbers, off-trail scramblers and winter hikers. Fatal falls by summer hikers who follow maintained trails are thus far unknown"

orangebug
12-25-2004, 23:32
I disagree that hypothermia is 100% preventable. There are many ways of getting wet, falling, getting stuck in nasty weather and other things that are outside of our control. One can plan on dealing with hypothermia, especially by hiking with a buddy in winter weather.

Peter Mossberg
12-26-2004, 00:39
The leading killer of outdoor adventurer's is old age.


Ski fast, take chances.

SGT Rock
12-26-2004, 08:40
I don't know. I'd rate chaffing, and its cousin Monkey Butt, knee pain, blisters and pack weight as the top means of killng adventures.

I'm not to worried about dieing on the trail. Just suffering.

Those are all just things to suck up and drive on.

Hypothermia is 100% preventable, but it is the one thing that a lot of people underestimate until; it is sneaking up on them.

neo
12-26-2004, 15:08
to much overtime killing my outdoor adventure,i am almost finished with my 3rd 16 hour shift christmas weekend,have 3 more 16 hour shifts ahead of me,i work in a power plant,cold weather intensifies our work load,was still hoping to make it to springer for newyears eve.:sun neo

Pencil Pusher
12-26-2004, 17:55
The leading killer of outdoor adventurer's is old age.

I was thinking the same thing as I read this thread!

highway
12-28-2004, 08:28
The leading killer of outdoor adventurer's is old age.


Once you approach it, just change your definition of it....and, keep moving! So far it's worked/me.

Pjter
12-28-2004, 12:18
Civilization and it's life-draining responsibilities.

I long for the day I can stand up and walk away and never return.:jump

-PJ

minnesotasmith
12-31-2004, 08:10
http://us.st5.yimg.com/store1.yimg.com/I/demotivators_1821_14533808

weary
12-31-2004, 12:57
Well, OB is certainly right. Hypothermia is not always preventable, though so far I've managed to avoid the fatal kind. The outdoors is inherently dangerous, though certainly not as life threatening as staying home and spending ones leisure hours vegetating on a couch.

The more protection one carries, the easier it is to prevent hypothermia, which has been my technique and why my knees creak and groan more and more as the years roll on. I suspect hypothermia deaths will increase as the ultra light fad evolves from the young and vigorous to older and less fit.

I'm still testing that bit about old age killing adventures. I understand it ends with one of life's two inevitable adventures.

Weary

weary
12-31-2004, 13:01
Nay. MS. There are many far worse ways to end.

Weary

minnesotasmith
01-03-2005, 01:01
The meaning I attempted to convey was a visual representation of how a long journey for the best of motives (and with maximum possible preparation) may still go horribly awry. That was all that was said there. Of course, there are worse places to die than on a journey; on soiled sheets in a cut-rate nursing home choking on your own phlegm after a purposeless eventless life comes to mind.

Freighttrain
01-03-2005, 10:58
The LEADING KILLER of OUTDOOR ADVENTURERS

is a JOB

art to linda
01-03-2005, 19:41
The leading killer of any type of ADVENTURERS is a closed mind..... ;)