Trippin'

[Bloodroot]

Here I am, the great backpacker. I have legs as strong as a mule and can cruise trails at 2mph. Nothing can get me down. I have a the pace set for a good twenty miles today. So I'm hiking along, taking in all the splendor the trail has to offer. I hear a Pileated off in the distance while admiring the Laurel in full bloom. Suddenly, to my suprise I am struck! This tree root jumps up at me and completely takes me off my feet! I fall foward, struggling to gain my balance as my momentum carries me away. I think I have gained control of the situation, but to my despair the rock I stepped wasn't flat after all, it was a fulcrum. In order to save my ankle and prevent my knee from blowing out, I take the fall. I roll off the the side of trail and down the steep embankment. Appearing to many as a double-black slalom skier who took a gate way too fast, my poles are flying around in all directions. I roll and roll and........ finally I stop. I open my eyes, praying that I didn't break anything. Thankfully, the only thing hurt was a bit of my pride as a group of hikers heading south stopped to view the carnage as I sifted my way through a bed of Multiflora Rose.

The moral to the story is, it happens to everyone. I know you hikers that have hundreds, thousands, and some ten thousands of miles under your belt have some classic spills. Do share.

[Brushy Sage]

I guess I have learned a couple of things from my falls with full pack. First, some of them happen so fast there is no opportunity to adjust physically or mentally. Second, after finally stopping, and realizing I am still alive and apparently not seriously injured, the next thing to do is unbuckle the pack straps -- because there is no way to roll over or get up with that weight holding me to the ground. This is especially true when I have slid on my back, uncontrollably, down the side of a steep incline (my equipment usually digs in within a few feet, maybe 25 ft max). Actually I have had very few falls -- just seems like a lot!

[Lion King]

oh yeah.
How funny it is to be walking along singing a song, or deep in thought and spaced out and the miles are dissappearing under your feet and the sun is shining and the day couldnt be any better and the smells fill your senses with joy and your heart is light as a feather when all of a sudden BAM!!!!!!!

Hikers Tourrets---You know

"F*$%#!!!!!!!! SH*&!!!!!!!!!! DAM*!!!!!!!!!! FU&%!!!!!!!!!!!"

Out of nowhere the curses sound when your foot hits something and bends backwards into your knee.

my least favorites are when you are having the same kind of day, and all of a sudden you go limp, thunder rips through your body, and you are face first into the ground because your body gave out by way of the intense pain from your ankle rollling.

Funny though, after it happening so many times, my body compensates for it, and relaxes now in the right places to avoid the ankle fully rolling...I was amazed at this the first time it ever happend. The body do take care of itself, no matter how we insist on hurting it.

[Kerosene]

#3: Crossing an easy blow-down at the base of Three Ridges. No big deal. I do it all the time. It's even a low-mileage day. Somehow my foot or pole or something catches on a stray branch, sending me down the hill head over arse. No injuries, but I almost bent one of my expensive titanium hiking sticks.

#2: On one of the few dry section hikes I've experienced I came to a puddle in the middle of the trail just south of Bears Den Hostel, with a small branch in the middle. Not wanting to slow the pace I attempt a graceful leap over said puddle and branch, catching my toe on the branch, stepping in the puddle as I was arrested from flight like a Navy F-18 landing on a carrier, and then squirming to avoid falling into the puddle and pulling my hip flexor slightly. Not very ballerina-like. Fortunately I was able to apply ice at the hostel accompanied by a handful of ibuprofen so I could keep going the next day.

#1: But by far my best fall was walking through Sages Ravine SOBO in March 1975. The creek was a torrent with all the snowmelt, but the trail was a bed of ice since it was so early in the year. We were greatly relieved to get over the creek on a very thin and slippery tree trunk. As we were paralleling the creek before heading out of the Ravine, I slipped on the ice and turtled down the icy slope toward the raging waters about 20 feet away. I was able to stop myself by lodging a foot against the trunk of a spindly bush about 5 feet before I would have hurtled into the water. Now that got my heart going.

[wacocelt]

In 2000 I was climbing a rather slick, rainy incline, leading with my walking stick for leverage. I slip, the stick catches between a rock and a root, as I fall forward my stick slings back catching me right square in the middle of the face. My nose popped and clicked for the next few weeks, one of a few dozen times I've broken my own nose, just lovely I tell you!

[Tha Wookie]

This is not really funny, but in the 100mile wilderness while I was passing through in 2001 I heard about a guy who had made it almost all the way before he tripped while passing another hiker, landing his crotch into a rock. He shattered his hip, and had to quit his hike.


"Bad Trips make good stories" -Guy Waterman

[grizzlyadam]

last night we were hiking through the grayson highlands by the light of the moon, in snow and ice. i slipped on a patch of ice and went down. my right knee and elbow were the first things to hit on a rock. i laid there for a few seconds, my buddies standing behind me in complete silence, before i let out a laugh.

i fall all the time. almost as if it is my job. but, i always get up, brush it off, and keep trucking.

it wasn't until later that i looked down and realized that my knee was busted open and bleeding. it was so cold that i didn't feel it at the time. it was about 12 degrees and snowing in the highlands last night. fun times.

[TDale]

My worst fall this year wasn't a fall, at all. I had a few of those, including the obligatory face plant in the river while fishing.

I was on the trail, between pools, when one of those eye-level windfalls appeared across the trail before me. Still eyeing the river for the next access point, I casually ducked under it. Only to raise my head into it's hidden twin brother. I dropped to my knees and admired the stars and birdies flying around my head.

[FatMan]

I'm glad to know it happens to others. I thought it was only me who fell all the time.

[weary]

Here I am, the great backpacker. I have legs as strong as a mule and can cruise trails at 2mph. Nothing can get me down. I have a the pace set for a good twenty miles today. So I'm hiking along, taking in all the splendor the trail has to offer. I hear a Pileated off in the distance while admiring the Laurel in full bloom. Suddenly, to my suprise I am struck! This tree root jumps up at me and completely takes me off my feet! I fall foward, struggling to gain my balance as my momentum carries me away. I think I have gained control of the situation, but to my despair the rock I stepped wasn't flat after all, it was a fulcrum. In order to save my ankle and prevent my knee from blowing out, I take the fall. I roll off the the side of trail and down the steep embankment. Appearing to many as a double-black slalom skier who took a gate way too fast, my poles are flying around in all directions. I roll and roll and........ finally I stop. I open my eyes, praying that I didn't break anything. Thankfully, the only thing hurt was a bit of my pride as a group of hikers heading south stopped to view the carnage as I sifted my way through a bed of Multiflora Rose.

The moral to the story is, it happens to everyone. I know you hikers that have hundreds, thousands, and some ten thousands of miles under your belt have some classic spills. Do share.

A good friend of mine, an immigrant from England and a half dozen years older than me, slipped on the ice in Boston last winter while leaving a sales conference, He quickly rolled over, and ended on his feet. His companions checked his condition and then broke into applause, which embarrassed my friend no end.

He had come to this country in the 40s to train American paratroopers, and never left. But he still has things to teach us. Serious accidents mostly result from a lack of proper training.

Weary

[Bloodroot]

A good friend of mine, an immigrant from England and a half dozen years older than me, slipped on the ice in Boston last winter while leaving a sales conference, He quickly rolled over, and ended on his feet. His companions checked his condition and then broke into applause, which embarrassed my friend no end.

Now which is more embarrassing?

1. Someone who busts their arse and accepts it as a blunder.

2. Someone who busts their arse and tries to play it off.

Jason

[minnesotasmith]

From www.darwinawards.com :

Shortcut Cut Short

2003 Personal Account (Summer 1990, Canada)

"Although this story does not qualify for a Darwin, I'd like to share the most spectacular case of extreme stupidity I've ever seen. I was a soldier of the Lord Strathcona's Horse, an armored regiment stationed in Calgary. We were hosting elements of the British Army at Canada's main training center in Wainwright, Alberta.

We took some of our new British friends to town, to party at the Wainwright Hotel bar. Around 1:00 AM, we decided to save cab money and walk back to the base. This was a trek of about three miles, because one must detour around a large, fenced pasture to reach the front gate.

That pasture holds some of the last Plains bison in Canada, a herd of about 40 animals. Bison are not the friendliest ruminants on the planet. Safety signs are posted every ten feet along the fence, and warnings read, "Unless you can cross this pasture in nine seconds, do not attempt it. The bison can do it in ten."

We reached the pasture and started to walk around it, but one of our drunken Brit companions decided that the warnings were fake. "Real, live buffalo don't exist!" Despite our protests, he opted for a shortcut. He hopped over the five-foot fence and disappeared into the dark field.

We watched and waited.

Seconds later, a high-pitched and very un-British profanity was heard from the pasture, and our friend came tearing back towards the fence at a speed that would have done credit to Donovan Bailey, the fastest man in the world. A fully mature and quite unhappy Plains bison thundered behind him.

The only reason the young gunner survived was sheer, fear-induced acceleration. He vaulted the five-foot fence without breaking stride. His rear foot caught on the top rail, sending him spinning into the grass on the safe side, half a second before two thousand pounds of extremely unfriendly hamburger smashed into the fence at full steam. The fence is constructed of extremely solid steel pipes, yet the two-foot dent made by the bison remains to this day. The animal staggered, snorted, shook his head, and rumbled off with a splitting headache. Our friend escaped with a broken ankle, moderate concussion, dislocated shoulder, and a great deal of bleeding from his uncontrolled landing. Had he not cleared the fence, he would have been pile-driven to smithereens by the huge bull. Fear had drained the alcohol from our systems, but we were still laughing too hard to be too sympathetic as we gave him first aid and summoned help."
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[LIhikers]

Now I'm not going to admitt to falling down a lot but I've taken multiple spills while hiking with one particular friend. So many that my friend gave me my trail name of Falldownalot

[LIhikers]

that should be Fallsdownalot in my post above. I guess I shouldn't try to type this early in the morning.

[ffstenger]

I'm not the fall guy in my usual hiking group, but I have my share of near-misses. After one of us goes all the way to ground or has a big stumble the
rest of us give the effort an olympic style rating. If I get good style points I can usually get at least a 4.5 Showme