tell us about a backpacking trip where things went wrong and what you learned from it

[DavidNH]

Tell me/us about a backpacking trip you once did where everything (or at least a lot of things) went wrong and what you learned from it. Let's have some fun here. Not all backpacks are successful especially when one is just starting out.

I once had my whisperlite stove flare up in a big inferno that destroyed the pump. Fortunately I was car camping at the time but still!

[Mags]

My first backpacking trip was a bit of disaster. :)

http://www.pmags.com/big-knife-too-much-food-out-of-shape-my-first-backpacking-trip

[Tom Murphy]

Hiked into Black Mountain Pond from Bennet Street trail head [Sandwich Range, NH] knowing there was going to be rain.

My old AMC guide said there was a shelter up there, there wasn't anymore. Oops. Experienced my first real big thunderstorm in the mountains WOW, just WOW. Scary at the time but in retrospect a lot of fun.

A big adventure trying to get back out of the mountains. Forded a few stream, bushwhacked to a swampy area to cross the last one. The Beebe river was overflowing its banks and up to my waist but a lot less velocoty than the earlier crossings.

Finally stopped by the Cold River; high bankings and a narrow V shaped stream bed made for white water; after long bushwhacks up and down the hillside to find a crossing, I finally walked out to in the opposite direction from my car to Sandwich Notch Road to Center Sandwich. About 7 extra miles. Got a hitch for the last 12 miles though.

[barf_jay]

Hiking from Deep Gap, NC to Winding Stair Gap and got the worst case (my first case) of jock itch! Ouch! Hiked around 18 miles with it flared up, and finally got my wife to pick me up in Franklin to go home an recover. My lesson learned, never hike without powder and athlete’s cream. Always bring it with me, never had a problem since. Was more embarrassed than anything to have something like that force you off the trail.

Came back and finished all the way up to Fontana Dam....so overall success with a little layover at home.

[HooKooDooKu]

Two stories come to mind:

1. Have you ever heard quite... I mean complete and total quiet. If you take a moment and pay attention around you, there are likely many noises you can hear but just don't pay attention to. Perhaps it is the sound of traffic outside, the furnace blowing, the refrigerator running, or a dog barking outside.

Well many years ago I planned a camping trip that would take us to a shelter in GSMNP. The forcast called for rain. Not knowing how water tight these shelters were, I carried a pair of tarps in place of my heavy tent. But when we got to GSMNP, we discovered the shelter had been torn down the year before. We used the tarps, some sticks, and some rope to gerry-rig an open side tent. When the rain came, I desperately wanted to be snug and warm back inside my car. But fortunately, there weren't strong winds associated with the rain and the tarps kept us dry.

But then, in the middle of the night, I woke up and needed to take care of some business. But I noticed that there wasn't a sound in the woods. The rains had stopped. There wasn't any wind to shake water off the leaves in the tree. There wasn't a single cricket chirping or any other animal making any noise what so ever. The only sound I could hear was a loud "wooshing" or rumbling sound. But I soon realized that the sound wasn't really loud at all. The sound I was hearing was the blood flowing in my own head. With nothing else to compare the sound to, the rumbling of my own blood flow sounded like a cacophany of sounds. I then truely understood the phrase "the silence was deafening".

2. A two night trip planned for the GSMNP. We hiked in some hotdogs to cook for dinner the 1st night. After everyone had thier 1st hotdog, we were ready for round 2. But the package of hotdogs was no-where to be found... no-where that is until I stood up (yea, the hotdogs had been sat on).

However, that night as we retired to our tents, we soon noticed a strange light round our tents. When we investigated, we soon learned that we were surrounded by syncronous fireflies. The Elkmont area of GSMNP is known for its syncronous fireflies, but they weren't expected for another week... and we were on the other side of the park from Elkmont. It was a wonderful suprise and we didn't have to share it with the hoards of people that go to Elkmont.

It wasn't until the 2nd night, when we went to start cooking dinner, that I realized I left my stove fuel in the car. But we didn't have any hotdogs this time. Dinner was supposed to be rice - and that ment I HAD to boil some water. Luckily, I managed to find a stick with a nice Y shape. I was able to sit my pot in the crook of the Y and get my dinner. But I don't think I ever finished cleaning all the soot off that pot.

[Deadeye]

No real disasters, but a couple things come to mind...

I almost got peed on by a scout leader. I was napping a few feet off the trail at a junction when the troup came by with all the racket a troup can make. The leader walked a few feet into the woods and was in process of retrieiving his equipement when I gave him a hearty "good morning!" He's lucky he didn't get caught in the zipper on his hasty retreat!

I've also planned on staying at shelters, only to find them burned down or being rebuilt - never go out without your own shelter.

Had a great trip planned in the Whites last year, but most of the route had been wiped out by hurricane Irene damage, which I didn't find out until half a day into the woods. Re-routed and salvaged a pretty good trip -couldn't have done that without maps.

[Hosaphone]

One of my first trips I went on in southwestern MA... Did part of the South Taconic Trail and looped around northbound on the AT (near Sages Ravine area). No major disasters but funny to look back on, I guess:

Due to traffic, getting lost, etc, got to the trailhead after dark on Friday night. It was a bit creepy driving through the woods by myself at night to the trail head. Didn't see any other cars or people or anything for like 20 minutes - just trees and darkness. For some reason that kind of got to me a bit and I was kind of spooked. Turned up the radio with happy songs.

So it's my first time backpacking by myself, and I pull up to the empty parking lot after dark. Put on my headlamp, put my pack on, and start walking into the darkness. Really weird feeling.

Trail is easy enough to follow, I have a good map. First time night hiking and I'm by myself, still kind of creeped out and scared. I'm aiming for a campsite a few miles in on the map. Every now and then I see those little reflector things hunters put on the trees so they can find the way to their tree stands. But every time I see them I kind of think they look like eyes, and I get more creeped out.

Eventually I make it to the campsite. Pitch my tarp, then go to hang my bear bag. Takes like 20 minutes to untangle the 550 paracord... The woods are completely silent and I'm still feeling nervous for no good reason while I'm fumbling around trying to get this done as quickly as possible. I remember looking down at my hands trying to untangle it, and then looking up and looking around periodically.

Get everything set up finally and go to bed. Heard tons of coyotes all night long, but nothing too close for comfort. I actually really enjoyed hearing them.

Next day is pretty uneventful. It rains all day but my rain gear and trash bag pack liners do their job just fine. When I go to cook dinner, I find that my fuel bottle leaked and I don't have any alcohol left! (Don't know why you'd ever store a bottle of alcohol upside down anyways? What an idiot) Started a fire and propped my pot up over it with some rocks. Great success. I was feeling like a resourceful mountain man super-hiker after that, until I noticed I had gotten soot all over EVERYTHING. Doh.

It continues to pour all night. I discover that I've set up my 8x10 tarp as a 10x8 A-frame. That is, it was 8 feet long and 10 feet wide.... This wouldn't have been such a problem if I hadn't also set it up on some hard packed dirt. The rain splashed up at me all night and got me kind of wet. Not a big deal, really, but a learning experience.

Pack up in the morning, do rest of the hike in the rain. Don't recall seeing another person on the trail the whole weekend.

[FatHead64]

In scouts, we were all out in tents when a tornado went over. Knocked them all down AND rained through them. At the 79 National Jamboree, had a lot of rain also. We had to dig drainage ditches around our tents. Routed them under asst. scoutmaster's tent. That one was worse for him than us...

[Omaha_Ace]

Two years ago I took a friend who had only car camped into Buffalo Nat'l Wilderness in North Arkansas. We hiked in 7 miles in the rain and discovered the river crossing we planned was too swollen to cross, so we set camp about 200 feet (and plenty elevated) from the Buffalo River. My tentmate for the trip was diabetic and the hike in was a little too much for him so he had to eat fast and take a rest. Camp not pitched, I cooked pork chops in the waining, raincloud filtered daylight on my MSR Whisperlight which was hissing like a barncat from the raindrops splashing it. Fed my buddy, pitched the tent in the dark and settled in.

Then the heavy stuff came.

Lightning, thunder, nickle size hail, winds strong enough to lay the tent flat and whip rain through the fly and tent body. The river sounded like an old, angry god. Buddy asked what should we do - answered go to sleep and see what survived in the morning. Lightning in a dark tent 7 miles from a trailhead was arguably the freakiest thing I ever camped through. Morning came, river still raging, trees and limbs down everywhere, and our kitchen, which I had secured with a staked US Army poncho, was askew and scattered - the wind had ripped the grommets out of the poncho. All in all, everything important survived and was recovered and the rest of the trip was amazing. Only three days later when we could finally get radio again did we discover that our storm had spawned a tornado that levelled a town less than an hour southwest.

[GoldenBear]

http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?27679-Lost-on-the-AT&p=407637&highlight=#post407637
http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?37995-Major-medical-emergencies-on-the-AT&p=644837&highlight=#post644837
http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?49423-Confess-your-newbie-hiker-blunders&p=825645&highlight=#post825645
http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?86323-What-piece-of-gear-did-you-leave-behind-and-wish-you-didn-t&p=1316210&highlight=#post1316210
http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/entry.php?583-Based-on-my-choices-from-a-week-ago-I-nominate-myself-for-quot-Bonehead-of-the-Year-quot
http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?90645-What-are-your-Bad-Hiking-Habits&p=1377807&highlight=#post1377807

What did I learn from each mistake?
1) Learn to follow the white blazes and/or a map.
2) Carry a cell phone if you hike alone. I'll gladly be a living wimp rather than someone who is praised as self-sufficient and daring at his funeral.
3a) Check the mileage on the map!
3b) Use ANYTHING but a kerosene stove to purify water.
3c) Check your equipment BEFORE leaving.
3d) Carry more than one spoon.
4) Carry a pair of scissors and a knife.
5) Remember that it might rain at night, you moron!!
6a) Don't bother taking photos for anyone but yourself.
6b) Not sure how to avoid forgetting my hiking pole.

[wren again]

Jerry's Cabin to Hogback Ridge Shelter: On our first section hike, having started in Hot Springs, we planned this to be our first "long day", 14.6 miles. Early in the day I slipped when crossing a stream and saw stars for a while. We (group of 3) had to stop for about 1/2 hour till I didn't feel faint anymore. Then we got off of the trail by following a mowed path and missing a turn, then retraced our path till we found a blaze. Finally, when climbing Frozen Knob, we encountered a powerful lightning storm and descended back southbound out of the worst of the storm. When the storm abated, we ascended and crossed the Knob as the sun was setting. It was nearly dark as we approached Hogback Ridge shelter. We were exhausted, but learned a lot, and count that as a very memorable day.

[coolness]

On my first backpacking trip, from Bearwallow Gap to the James River Footbridge, our 2nd day was amazing..... We came down Apple Orchard Mountain to experience trail magic - a group of ladies and a man (all previous thru-hikers) had amazing food and drink for all. Casseroles cooked in Dutch ovens, fresh fruit, sodas, wine, cookies, apple crisp, chips, M&M's, candy bars, etc. What a meal!!

We planned on staying / tenting at the Thunder Hill Shelter but it was full and there were limited tenting spots. We decided to keep going but found nothing before dark. We had already hiked 10 miles and had to keep going in the dark down a mountain of all switchbacks. My knees were so painful that I could barely walk and had all I could do to drag myself down the mountain. We finally came to Petite's Gap where we found decent tenting spots. We had hiked 15 miles total. I was hurting big time and almost gave up. With rest and meds I finished the hike..... I was not in hiking shape and with arthritis it was too much. Since then I have had no trouble with my knees.

Moral of the story?? Get in hiking shape and shelter wherever you can, if possible.

[RodentWhisperer]

A while ago (2003), I went into Rocky Mountain National Park's Wild Basin region. At the end of the Bluebird Lake trail, I began bushwhacking up to the summit of Ouzel Peak, and then (eventually) down into Indian Peaks Wilderness via some rock-hopping. I chose to set up camp (stealthily) the first night, right at the base of the final 1/4 mile scramble to the summit. There was a small, trickling brook just to the East of where I'd camped, so I thought all was well.

When I started making supper, the stove ran out of fuel. Oops. I needed to buy a new canister. "Oh well," I said, "looks like I'll be eating cold, crunchy food for the next couple days." Lesson 1: keep track of how much the canisters are used.

Just before nightfall, I sipped the last water out of my Nalgene bottle, and went off to the brook to refill. At the time, I used a PUR filter to purify my water. Oops again... the filter failed. For some reason it was unable to suck up water from the brook. I opened up the filter, carefully cleaned it, etc. No better. Lesson 2: take chemical treatments so as to eliminate the risk of mechanical failure.

So in the morning, I drank unfiltered water, ate freezing-cold, half-rehydrated oatmeal, and promptly hiked back down to the trailhead.

[Praha4]

This was my worst backpacking trip in memory. I was overweight and out of shape. Carrying some old Army rucksack gear, canteens, mess kits, heavy sleeping bags. Using only the NPS GSMNP Trail map (no contour lines), my wife, 16 yr old son and I did a 2-day overnite "loop" hike in GSMNP in early August, 1996. Left the car at Clingman's Dome parking lot midday and hiked down the Forney Creek Trail, camped at site #69 late in the afternoon. It was great that first day, nice sunny day, all downhill, trail adjacent to a beautiful creek, ~ 3000' drop in elevation that first day. That first afternoon we met some other backpackers struggling uphill back toward Clingmans Dome, gasping for breath, collapsed on the ground with large packs. And I was sure that would not be us, we were too well prepared!.... or so I thought.

Next morning my hiking companions laid around in their sleeping bags late into the morning, we didn't break camp til almost 10 a.m. We condinued down Forney Creek trail to the junction with Jonas Creek Trail. That trail starts back uphill about 4 miles to the junction with Welch Ridge Trail. Temps were in the high 80s, very humid day, and we all ran out of water by the time we got to the Welch Ridge Trail. We stopped many times to sit on the ground gasping for air. My quads were cramping up. Now I remembered those struggling hikers we met the day before. It's another 2.5 miles to the intersection with the AT just east of Silers Bald shelter. We hiked west toward Silers Bald shelter with our canteens looking for the spring. We arrived and met a few other hikers who pointed us toward the spring. It was a mudpuddle. All we had for water treatment was iodine tablets. We were so dehydrated we didnt' wait for the iodine, we all started drinking that muddy water. We headed back east on the AT for the long climb back to Clingman's Dome. By this time it was almost sunset and a bad thunderstorm hit. All we had were cheap vinyly ponchos. Gale force winds, thunder, lightning, driving rain, and the trail turned into a waterfalls. What fun it was hiking back up hill in those conditions after dark to finally arrive back at the Clingmans Dome parking lot around midnite.

Lessons learned were too many to mention in one paragraph. Poor planning, not seeing the elevation drop/rise in our planned hike on a contour map. It was over 4000' climb from bottom of Jonas Crk Trail back up to Clingman's Dome in one afternoon. Not carrying enuff water, only iodine tabs, out of shape for such a hike. And 2 of us got very sick from drinking that muddy water that day. Dehydration, etc. not fun at all.

[q-tip]

Took my UL kit into the Whites this summer.:

Got soaked in my tarp in 45 d rain.
Alcohol stove took 20 minutes to boil water.
Took only half the food I needed-burned 6,000 calories the second day.

Back to my lightweight kit for longer hikes......

[Feral Bill]

1. In Jasper NP, Canada, a friend and I took an off trail route suggested by a ranger. We were lucky to emerge alive, due to crossing a glacier and very steep scree slope. lesson? Verify peoples personal experience with routes, even trusted authorities.

2. After a couple of glorious days in the Whites we were camped just below the ridge north of Mt Washington. (it was legal, then) A storm blew in that night resulting in great wetness in my then stretched out of shape tent, and a retreat down a trail transformed into a knee deep creek/waterfall. It's been years, and my socks are still wet! Lesson? Not a good place to camp, rules or not.

[pyroman9]

When I had just started hiking on my thru hike this past year I made a fun mistake. I had hiked a long day and made it to Albert Mtn. The view as you all know is one of the first great views on the trail. There was a small spot to pitch a tent so I decided to sit and watch the sunset. Mind the shelter not far down the way was empty and down a very easy stretch.

Clouds rolled in and the sunset was not there... I figured eh at least i got a relaxing night with a campfire and got to just be and away from others. In the middle of the night I woke up to rain and thought at least i was dry...

I woke up in the morning and was very confused.. i heard splashing... the rain from the rock where the firetower is on drained straight through my tent.... i had quite a bit of water in it and was VERY wet... my tent was in a low dip and that was full of water. OOPS! My down bag was soaked along with my gear.. I just started laughing. All the time that shelter had only one or two people there! Fun times and lesson learned - never made that mistake again.

[WalksInDark]

My older sister is a big fan of Seashore State Park outside of Virginia Beach, VA. While I have many memories of camping in the sand dunes and enduring the high heat and humidity that means summer in Virginia; my fondest memory is one particularly funny morning.

Due to the high heat all of us were tent camping with no rain covers on, just leaving the bug netting up. Just after morning broke, I was awoken by the sound of my sister screaming as if she had been physically attacked. I raced over to my sister's tent just as she was emerging....covered in white down one side of her body. Before she spoke, I noticed a really strong smell of dead fish.

Turned out that my sister's tent entrance was directly in the flight path that recently sleeping sea gulls used to head back out to the sea. For those of you who (like my sister) don't know: while sea gulls ---and most other birds as well--- are sleeping they do not void any of their bodily wastes. However, shortly after the sea gulls wake, they make a "direct deposit" which is roughly 5-10s larger than their normal daily droppings.

What had happened was that one gull pooped into my sister's tent...and before she could get out of the tent...several more gulls pooped on her tent as well.

After having a good laugh at my sister's expense...I went back to my tent and promptly fell back asleep.

Within minutes...I awoke again to my sister's loud screams.

What had happened was that while my sister was cleaning her tent's bug screen....yet another gull dropped a load directly onto her face and into her mouth.

I am sure that my maniacal laughter did not make my sister feel any better, but the whole disaster taught me one good lesson: always be sure to put your tent and/or campsite somewhere that the birds don't regularly roost.

[Another Kevin]

Hmm. Last summer I had one of those trips. Was off for a bit of no-blazing with my daughter. We wound up getting started about 1.5 hours later than intended, and the route was very slow going because there was a tangle of red spruce, blackberry, stinging nettle and viburnum everywhere. We climbed up into the clouds, so there were no views and everything got gradually soaked.

We bagged the peak we meant to bag - and it took nearly an hour to find the geocache on the flat summit. Then on the way down, we wandered a little bit off the ridge we were following into a tumble of steep ledges. We wound up sleeping on a 5-foot-wide ledge because it was getting dark, it was the flattest spot I'd seen in the last half hour, and I didn't feel safe hiking by headlamp in that terrain. We spent the night in a camp without a water source, a screech owl kept us awake half the night, dozens of slugs crawled into the tent leaving slime trails on all the gear, and a porcupine made off with my skivvies (which I had hung out in the tent vestibule trying to get them dry). There's nothing like a good night's sleep - and that's exactly what we had: nothing like a good night's sleep.

Then in the morning, the waistbelt buckle on my pack broke. We were both scratched up, we were both a little sore from having taken a spill or two, my shoulders were killing me from the weight of the pack, and I was getting chafed on my you-know-whats from going commando, so as soon as we got down to a stream and had breakfast, we decided to call it quits on the weekend, headed downhill to the nearest trail and hiked back out to the car. (I came back a month later to bag the other two peaks that were on the planned itinerary. That trip went much, much better.)

There was no big mistake, just a run of little miscalculations and pesky bad luck, and we were in no real danger, just discomfort. The real lesson learnt was that my daughter could handle all the nasty stuff and still look back and say it was an OK trip. It really helped her a lot when Hurricane Sandy hit her campus during her first semester of college. She could say, "I've been through worse - for fun!"

The minor lesson was the route up that particular mountain. If I were to do it over again, I could do it in a third the time and have no trouble with running out of daylight, because I'd do a lot less pushing through vegetation and a lot less circling to find a hikable route. But that's part of the fun of bushwhacking.

Some pundits would say that we should have learnt to turn back sooner - that "get-there-itis" had got us stuck on the mountain. But I say that we were prepared to spend the night, we just spent it in a different spot than we'd planned, so what was wrong with pushing forward? My mental contingency plan was, "camp at Robb shelter. If we're way ahead of schedule, we might drop packs and make a side trip to Colonel's Chair. If we're late, we'll probably still be up on Rusk Mountain, and we'll just find a spot to crash somewhere up there." Which is what we did. It wasn't the most attractive campsite, but it worked.

[starbright]

Two trips come to mind.


1. Our first hiking trip it Two trips come was only about 3 miles total because my kids were so young at the time. We were about halfway which is where we planned to camp that night and dicovered that that my son, my self and our dog had all gotten into a nest of seed ticks. We were too far to get back to showers as the kids at that time were only 6, 5, and 2 and hiked as far as they could at that time.
That is one that will aways be remembered because I just knew that the kids would never want to get out of the house again. So glad I was wrong they couldnt wait to go again.

2. Was the second time that we hiked in the mountains. We were about a 1000' up when my knee came out of place and I started to roll down it like a snowball. My daughter fell on me and finially I stoped moving down hill. The problem was that the only way back to the car was up the mountain. I had 5 kids with me and two of them hiked out to see if they could find some help because everytime I put weight on it, it would come back out immediatly. The help they found called the parimetics and they put me on a back board determined to carry me back out. Only to drop me on my head.

Lessons learned 1. always take duct tape works great with seed ticks. 2. Never I mean Never let them carry you on a back board if they are tall and look strong. Oh and always have an ace bandage with you.

[Mountain Mike]

Many years ago when I was in late teens decide to do a New Years hike in the Whites. Hiking/camping in MA with scouts me & my friend thought it was doable. My mothers boyfriend loaned me his crampons & Ice axe. Only problem they were to big for me. So friend got crampons & I had to buy a pair. I also bought all the fd food for the trip. Due to emergency at work long drive started late & we didn't get to trailhead till well past midnight. Decided to sleep in the back of his Sunbird wagon. Woke up cold with 0 degree bags. hat was left of my friends soda was frozen solid. We ended up starting the car up to thaw boots out while I cooked some oatmeal up outside the door.

Game plan was hike in 1 hr & see how we felt. If not 100% turn back. 45 minutes in I was feeling great & taking layers off. Asked E how he was doing. Said his toes were cold. Decided to go to 1 hr mark. When we reached it I asked him how he was doing. His response was would you put the ice axe down first? He couldn't feel his toes. Although we did a check & I saw no signs of frostbite for years laters his toes were sensitive. We turned around right there & back at the car, in the sun according to a zipometer it was -15.

[Miami Joe]

I've done that hike. It's a bear even if you're in OK shape. Literally sat down about 3/4 of the way up and dozed off sitting straight up.