Thank you for joining us for another nature Alliance media podcast. We are adding sponsors and affiliate Partnerships all the time. So be sure and check our website for an updated list going forward. We need your help be sure and like and follow the podcast give us a great review share with friends and family and consider becoming a monthly sponsor. If there is a topic you wish for us to cover, please send us a message. Hey everybody, welcome back to another nature Reliance media podcast. This is part 2 of 3. We're we're talking about common mistakes that we've come across. I am Craig coddled and I am tracing and we are here as your lovable huggable co-host for nature Alliance media we've had for those that might be finding us for the first time go back and listen to part 1 Because what we've broken this down into is the common mistakes that we've seen over the years number one being before people hit the trail. Number two being those things that are common mistakes on the trail and number three. We're going to talk about some comments steaks at camp. That way we're doing everything we can to help you be better prepared so that you know how to handle yourself, you know, I want to stress this out real quick is that this list is not all-inclusive. There's a lot more information that we could put on here Craig and I were tossing Talking before we even did part one of things that we could add to this and expand out. So maybe in the future we might do version 2 of mistakes. If you're listening to this, especially if you're following us on Facebook where you can leave a comment go ahead and put mistakes that you've made or that you have seen other people make and we may collect those and add them to a new version 2 of this in the future. How about them? Yeah, that'd be good one if we can have a user-defined one. Yeah. Oh that gets. The feedback. Yeah, so leave leave comments mistakes. You've made mistakes. You've seen other people make if you're embarrassed to say that you made it, you know, make up some name and put in there. I do ride time with Craig Craig did is we have to really make man dude. I have made some mistakes now. Oh my gosh, that's why I tell everybody. I'm an expert survival instructor because I've done everything wrong for a long time. And you survived. Yeah. Yeah exactly. Oh, we always every time we go out every time we have a class every time. We go out exploring doing something. It's always something that you know pops up and we laugh about it and go on some but today's episode episode number two of looking probably three total is on the trail. The first one was before you get to Trail. This one is going to be on the trail some common mistakes that we've either experienced or seen some common mistakes that I've seen out search and rescue that we have to go in and get people The first one let's knock it out real quick where it Craig because we touched up at touched upon it in episode 1 and that is using water bladders in the cold. What could possibly go wrong with that gray several things there's one is the bladder itself as we mentioned in part one if there's a lot of water in the tube on the actual straw of the water bladder if it's extremely cold and there's no insulator on there. Then you can get the tube that's frozen up and then you can't get water and maybe the pieces and parts of it bust. So that is something that is a common mistake. Number two, if something happens with the bladder whether the mouthpiece is pressed open or you don't get everything screwed tightly you can get water on your back and now you're wet and now you're cold or colder. Just because you've got so much water that's on your back. So those are a couple big things that you know, the way we prevent these things is you have an insulator like you can use a piece of duct tape and use one of those hand warmers tape it right to the junction where the straw comes out of the water bladder. So the water is not necessarily cold. You can I've gotten into the habit of instead of running my water bladder straw up and over my shoulder. I run it underneath my arm and have it come up and attached to my shoulder strap underneath Arm so that the straw is between my arm and my body as I'm hiking. It doesn't cause any friction or problems like that, but it also utilizes my body heat to keep it from freezing up here very good nice little addition and that's very good and you can also purchase tube insulation and I've got it man. I just the, you know, even that time that we had we talked about part one I had insulation on mine down in Louisiana and it froze up, but all it takes is that little exposure ER somewhere to freeze up and once it's froze up the whole tube is gone and that's why I don't really carry though your bladders anymore. I'll pretty much stick with water bottles. So we've talked about that quite a bit. Let's move on to the next one. So a big one for me is not paying attention to the weather changes while you're out a lot of people know, obviously that they a lot of people disregard the weather before they go out. That's crazy. You should also Be paying attention to changing weather patterns while you're out man, and I know this is for Mountaineers and I'm not one. I read all these stories about people that have gotten stuck on mountains because on one side of the mountain this weather pattern happened and the other side of the mountain. This happened not paying attention to those things will get you in trouble really quick here in this country. When I say this country this far the world here in Kentucky. One of the things in that you can run into is just fast-moving storms where now you're out and you're on a ridge line and Now you've got lightning all around you. If you haven't been paying attention, then you're stuck on a Ridge Top worth a bunch of locust trees than your you're sitting in a lightning magnet and you've got to pay attention those kind of things. Yeah, you do. It can change fairly quick especially during the stormy times of the year. But one thing I want to throw out is how do you monitor the weather changing while you're out on the trail? We all have phones we all take them we all have Other alerts that can pop up you need to activate those especially for the area that you're going to be in so that if something does change you at least get a weather pop up on your phone. The other thing is if you're going to be out for several days on an extended hike an option that a lot of people don't think about is ham radio and I'm getting ready to do a podcast specifically on ham radio so we won't go in great detail here, but the short of it is Is NOAA weather puts out across the entire United States? They put out seven channels on a particular frequency set that you can get anywhere. I've never been anywhere that I haven't been able to hook to hear one of those particular frequencies and they are tailor-made to very specific regions. So that's that is a good way to do it. And then the ham radio also serves a different functions be watching out for At podcast coming up and we'll get it out ham radio and Hiking. Yeah. I wish people would take more advantage of ham radios. It's not that hard to do you all it's a quick test. It doesn't you can study with an app on your phone. That's how I did it. I'm not incredibly technologically advanced and the test was you know it teaches you skills. So it's not like it's just a cakewalk. I mean you learn a lot of stuff and it's important to learn those things very important, but ham radio just opens up so many different opportunities. For you it does and it expands well beyond just hiking and Outdoors and camping that that way as well. I have a radio in my truck and it's come in handy a few times out traveling. So so we'll move on to the next category Craig we deal with this quite a bit in a year's time on their search and rescue and that is hiking party separating while they're out. And here's what I would tell you if you go back to I think the first Topics that we talked about in part one was planning and if you have a group of hikers that's going out for going out for even a Day hike or you going out for the multi-day hike and Camp. You have to plan to somewhat the weakest link in your party and it's frustrating whenever you want to pick up the pace when you want to get to that hot spot and there's one individual that's kind of pulling you back or holding you back. The worst thing you could do is separate well, Is going to go on up the trail will stay at their you all you all just catch up what typically happens is somewhere between that point and feature that you're trying to get to whether it's overlooked or an arch or something like that. There is a trail that leads off the main trail and man those second group will take that off to the left or right and now you're separated got some cliche wisdom to throw down right here lay it on us life is a journey not a destination. So folks if you're going Outdoors to hang out with some Friends and hike with them why not stay with them. I mean, it's one of those things that I just don't understand. I mean, it's people get out and they get on a trail and they want to get to set location. I understand you might want to get to a particular overlooked and that's where you want to set up a camp or something that nature. I do get that. I'm not saying I don't understand that. But if you're going out to be with your friends in the outdoors, then you know, whatever that weakest link is then stay with them. I'm not saying you shouldn't push them a little bit because if you do push them Little bit and they'll grow and maybe they'll be able to hike a little bit stronger with you. But at the same time hanging out with them, that's what it's about getting outside with them. You don't necessarily want to put the speed demons out there in front the ones that are walking really fast right out front and you don't want to put the people that are the slowest right out front. You want to have somebody's going to keep a solid moderate Pace. Would you agree with that by saying that the way you would agree with or no? Oh, yeah, if you do put a speed demon out there and these would be someone who is aware of their surroundings and able to walk and keep the group together best advice I could have for a group and if you have I don't know four or five people six eight people we've seen as many as trying to think what's a biggest group probably about 12 or 15 people in a group you're going to you're going to have distances in there. You just can't keep 12 14 15 people together, but one thing that you can do as a group have the understanding that you're going to stop at every Trail. And to make sure everyone's together. It's Craig preaches to us in the class all time. Do ahead Camp if there's eight and group stopped at that trail Junction, even if you're not turning on the trail Junction the trail may go straight ahead. But if there's a trail that that veers off to the left and right someone coming up behind you. They may think that's the main trail. So anytime there's a trail Junction stop gather the hacking group together do a quick head count and then head on. Hey, let's make sense. Yeah, it makes Perfect sense let me throw something in there to add to your your comment about counting people. It seems like a simple thing to do but it is one of the most aggravating things that I've seen I get a chance to train a bunch of different people ranging from Girl Scouts brownies. I mean little girls eight nine years up to high speed military people I get a chance to do all kinds of stuff. And Counting people seems to be one of the hardest things that has a standardization. Here's what I would love to see the standardization be everybody in the group gets counted meaning there's not hey, there's a leader that's person that doesn't get counted and you count the other people. They're just count everybody. They're the reason I'm making that suggestion to everybody that seems to be what happens as far as a problem. Is that when everybody starts getting tired and you Forget is there ten people here and one leader or is there 10 peeper here total? Then it can get confusing and if you just count everybody their kids adults leaders non leaders, everybody just counted then, you know real quickly that hey not everybody's here kind of things that make sense what I'm saying? Yeah, it makes perfect sense and that in my opinion. That's the way to do it. There's I've been out and about and especially in search and rescue groups different areas different counties and such and they have different ways of counting. But if you count everybody you you just don't there's no way to messing up right? You just count everybody and we've had people where they forget to count their selves. Yeah. Oh, we're one short who's missing who missing, you know that's happens pretty much every time but count everybody keep track of it. We will typically have two people. Count not say anything until they're done counting and then if they're match of them will go to go and when he says match up everybody another thing that we do it, I don't know if y'all doing search and rescue but one thing that we do a lot with our classes is I will go when I asked let's say I'm doing this with Tracy I'll say Tracy. How many did you get? I won't say I got 11. How many did you get and I know Tracy would do this, but only use him as an example. What Tracy will do in his head if I have 11, and he actually got 10 And then it might be that he's counting 10 and not counting himself for me or some variation of it. And that makes the 11 up whereas again if everybody is just counted and if I don't tell him what to think and just allow him to tell me what he says then then we can come to a firm conclusion that oh man. We got a different number if we got different numbers. We need to recount and it seems like it's such a simple thing, but it is not it is simple but not easy and that's a good way just better ways than yeah, but it is Of them that that you need to be aware of especially if you're organizing the hike designate some people and keep good quality people out front good quality people behind and everybody else in the middle. I remember we talked about this last class story again, dude. Sorry, I'm not sorry Laden hashtag. Sorry, not sorry are you know, one of the things that a lot of military organizations do is they have what's referred to as a battle buddy? And you just don't go anywhere without your battle and we were in a class Tracy and I ran A class down in Louisiana few years ago a man tracking class and there was a guy in that class on I can see this guy right now doing this. He had he pooped I bet that cat pooped 10 to 12 times a day every day and you can't when you're out on a man track and you got to go poop. Well your battle goes with you while you poop. Oh boy was you know, the way they the way he did was pretty cool. I'd never seen this before remember this he would take his what's the little shovel called? See military shovel. What's it called? Entrenching tool? He would basically, you know, take his intent wrenching tool dig a cat hole sit it down and then sit as but down on his entrenching tool. That was his toilet seat take a dump, but he had to I mean, I remember his battle buddy going damn dude is all you do is poop every day, but what's important is that it would be easy for a person to use the bathroom Go off into the woods to get their privacy and if he doesn't have a battle, buddy, Then forget that he's there and then walk off and leave him so realistically that's another methodology that you know, we use sometimes for different classes particularly. We're doing stuff at night for nature Alliance school people have a buddy a partner that they're accountable to it's good stuff. Oh, I think that's critical actually, especially in large groups. It's just such an easy way to not get separated. You just don't go you have to people everywhere you go. So you need to lock that person. Hey, I'm sitting here thinking about another story to Tracy and this brings up a good point. I'm I think it was Steve garland that told me this Steve Garland's one of our nature line School folks and he took a bunch of scouts out to know it wasn't he was telling me the story. Somebody took a bunch of scouts out to that big place out west. What is the name of that place where they take the Boy Scouts hiking all the time, but the scout leader son was a high Functioning Outdoorsman really good and when they divided all the scouts up into battle buddies and groups. There was a it wasn't an even number and so the scout leader thinking has his own Sons high-functioning don't have to worry about him did not have the the it was his battle buddy the scout leader. And so the scout leader was his son and the sons battle buddy was his dad. Well this kid went Off to use the bathroom one time and they literally did exactly what I just described which they walked off and left him because the scout leader the dad thought he didn't concern himself with his own son. He wasn't concerned with him because he knew he was good and what it wasn't that the kid wasn't good. It's just that he had walked off and his dad didn't realize it because he wasn't concerned about him. Boom left him behind. It took him like two days to find that kid. Wow Philmont. Is that it? That's it Philmont. That's it. I can't remember who told me that story. But it's just another indicator that you just even even the people that are highly accomplished are a Cena when Tracy and I are teaching a class. I mean, we're the teachers were the ones that know what all right not really, but you know what I'm saying? We're the ones that should know everything when I go to the bathroom, I tell Tracy hey, I'm going over to go to the bathroom. I mean, he's my battle buddy. We keep up with each other. I know where he is. I am going to my truck to get some more water. Whatever. I mean we keep up with each other. It's important something definitely consider. That is great advice. How about the next one? We deal with this a lot here in the Red River Gorge because we have a lot of cliffs overextending yourself and getting cliffed out which means that you're hiking long. You may get off of the main trail and you start climbing climbing and then you turn around and you say I can't go down that and you're pinned down then it's a nine one one call. If you get to a point to where it just doesn't seem right, it's probably not right. The other thing is and we talked about this a lot is as you're hiking you need to turn around and look behind yourself. Absolutely. Look at that trail that you just came through in case you have to go back and everything looks different. If you are in difficult terrain, you need to look around and look behind all the time. You got to make sure that you can go back the way that you came. We had a lady in the gorge and this has been probably two years. Go Chad Conway was with me and I can't remember the other we had three people and she was trying to find a way where else actually got way off the main trail just way off and there was a user trust so she just kept climbing and climbing and climbing and climbing until she got to the point where she could not go and how she got that 9-1-1 call out was a miracle the we end up finding her stuck up on a cliff in a little hole. She had leggings on and it was a zero degree night. He got down to zero degrees. I think it's 4 degrees and all three degrees gosh took off. She had tennis shoes and leggings on she had a good coat on but she probably saved her life. I wish she was stuck. I mean ya know like she didn't have a light and for me to get to her I had to walk a ledge probably looking back. I probably shouldn't have went over but I went over and tied a rope. And then I was safe, but you know, I had to tie rope for her to hang onto to get back over cliff and out is a big issue. If you're around that type of terrain any time that you get in position. That's tough terrain look back and make sure you can go back the way that you're going in make sense to explain that well enough. Yeah, I think and I think for people it's important to as far as just looking back build on what Tracy said is that and he's got a comment here that I love what goes up may not come down as easy. So looking back on. Trail to know what it looks like when you're going back the other direction and if you're getting ready to climb something to heal or whatever then assess it and go. Can I come back down that if I go up that do I have the mindset skills tactics and gear to be able to do that. And if not, then you probably should find another route. Moving on let's say oh here's a good one. I love this. I use one of your phrases in a Land Navigation class that we were conducting with search and rescue team in our training weekend. And you said one time the best way not to get lost is to not get lost. Remember saying that you know me. Well you said it and I thought well, that's why second that does make sense. And and here's the way I explained it. Do not take a step until you know, where you are. And if you always know where you are, then you're not going to be lost in our show notes. I had not double-checking your position and or not verifying with others in your party. Don't put 100% of the responsibility on one individual for location and Navigation always because we always make mistakes. We're humans. We're going to do it always have at least one other person in that party. That can do good Land Navigation and have it double-checked. One of the things that we used to do before we went with guy a GPS on our phones was we would take a map if we had the coordination that the coordinates for the Tigers. We would put one person at one end of the truck and one person at the other end truck and let them plot those coordinates and then come together and see if they matched up that way. You didn't influence one another but always double-check your position a map. Not something you stick in the back of your backpack. A map is a tool that you have hanging off your chest on in the in the top of your pack so you can reach and get it. It's in like a cargo pocket. It's a map is a tool that you're going to have you should pack in such a way that you can pull it out and look at it on a very regular basis. It's just it was one of those things that it's in one of the I remember I can still visualize this Tracy. You teaching me this long time ago because I would have the tendency to not pull my map out very often, but I can see us now walking the trail and you were teaching me some things and we came to a creek and it was just the trail was fine. Everything was cool with the trail. I could see it for forever and you just stopped and verified that because it was the trail crossing a creek and you pointed out. Hey, we're right here, which is just associating myself to the train and I should do that over and over and over again. That's what Thinking is very important for people if you're if you're new to land nav that map should be in your somewhere. You can get to it easily. Everything you said was 100% Correct? One thing that I introduced to a few people on this last navigation training day was thumbing meaning that as you're walking this Trail. I keep my thumb. I fold my map up in such a way that I keep my thumb on that trail and as I come up to a say a draw I can verify that that's a on the map. I just move my thumb up to that draw if I cross a creek. I move my thumb up to that Creek if I heading downhill now, but now I have reached the low point on that trail. I move my thumb up to that low point and so on it's called thumbing and you just you always kind of have your location with you as you go forward like it pretty pretty easy thing to do. But yeah, not not double-checking your position and not verifying with others in your party has gotten a lot of In trouble and now a word from our sponsor. Hey you yeah you I'm talking to you. He liked his podcast don't you and you're thinking about doing a podcast yourself. Let me tell you how easy it is to do this with anchor first off the money's right? It's free zero cost. Secondly, there's creation tools that allow you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer. Anchor will then distribute your podcast for you. So it can be heard on Spotify Apple podcast and many more bonus. You can make money from your podcast with no minimum listenership. It's everything you need to make a podcast in one place download the free anchor app or go to Anchor dot. F m-- to get started next one. How about trusting your pack cover man? I'm a Fan of bags inside my pack anymore more than anything you pack cover is going to shed a certain amount of water. But any water think about it the unless your pack is completely enclosed by that cover any water that hits your shoulders or your hood on your jacket runs down your back which runs into the back of your pack just do two soaking. So I've gotten in the habit of you know, the poor man's way of doing it because I did this for a long time was just have a garbage. Bagby the inner capture for everything I put in my pack. So everything that goes in there is in a waterproof container super simple super cheap doesn't carry. It doesn't add much weight everything in there is dry. And then you also have the trash bag that you can use for other things if needed absolutely man. Absolutely out of I love trash bags. I talk about him all the time. I don't think you can you always have to have them with you. I know I keep because we're talking about a lot of gear stuff in these podcasts but ultimate Wilderness gear my second book. Got a whole section on different ways to use trash bags. It's just it's just a vital piece of equipment. If you want to then you can buy a c line bag or like I have a snug pack bag. Now that has a roll-top tight on it a roll tight top on it. It's a little bit harder than a garbage bag, but I have it because they sent it to me for free. I wouldn't have bought it because I just use a garbage bag. So if you want to go that route then go that route to they're a little bit harder Yer you know what I used to do that quite a bit when I was canoeing a lot which I don't do very much at all. But I had a sea lion backpack that was you know, I could when I needed to Portage, I kept all my gear my C line bag and then I just throw the backpack on and Portage and then get back in my boat. The pack covers are good. And there's a good quality ones out there, but it's just like a rain rain jacket you have to treat it and if you put that cover in your Origin your house and you don't get it out for six eight months nine months. It's probably not going to be much of a rain cover trash bags are fantastic and they're cheap and they work Ziploc bags to keep maybe some of your smaller stuff in double double back on that kind of stuff a lot of options out there, but don't go out and just simply trust your pack cover. It will eventually get you into trouble. What's next gray. Next would be just blindly going forward. Without knowing where you're headed. I mean life is a journey not a destination, but it's journey and a destination. He's you should know where you're headed. If you just keep going just over this hill or around this next bunch of trees up here. And when you get to the other side of the field, they really don't have any idea where they're going. And so it's good to do pre-planning. I was working with a guy yesterday on teaching him how to pre-plan as hikes with topo maps because he's new to Topo maps. One of the things that Tracy and I talked about and in essential Wilderness navigation is stopping features and handrails. You can still Adventure into a big Hollow or Valley or Ravine or something that nature and know that hey at the end of this is a lake or at the end of this is an open value with a big river in it. And when you get to that point now, you know that you've at least reached that point just do something where you've got some recognition of where You're going instead of just blindly going in there. And again, I'm a big adventure. I love to go out and just wander I used to use the term. I like to go out and get lost. But I quit using that term because I think it gave a false sense of what I was actually doing. I was going out and enjoying nature without a preconceived plan. But with that said, I still had a plan of where I was going to come out and things like that. So I gave a false sense of what I was doing out there. It's not good to go out and not have it at least a Generalized plan and have also toad someone before I went out what that General plan is if that makes if that makes sense it sure does it just you were venturing, but you were adventuring in a controlled environment. That's the way it needs to be done. We pick up people all the time Craig on the trail that have walked for Miles because they knew that trail parking lot was just up ahead and it's not well. Well, oh my gosh it well. We're heading downhill. So it has to be down the hill and they get down the bottom heel and heel goes back up. Right so blindly going ahead is it will most of the time get you in trouble boy? Here's one. I know what this is hit me before many times ignoring hot spots on your feet while hiking as soon as you feel that hot spot you've got to stop and I've stopped and taking my shoes off put them in Creeks before especially during the You know little dangle into that cool Creek taking an extra pair of socks with you so that you're not hiking in wet socks is great. You have to carry some type of mold skin or duct tape something to help you along on those type of issues. Yeah. I'm all about it man. Most Skynyrd, like you said most introduct eight is absolutely unnecessary piece of that first aid kit. We were talking about in part one. It's got to happen. I mean when I used to do A lot of and I've got issues with a certain pair of boots. I've got mud boots that I wear almost all winter long anymore. And I can't do a whole lot of up and down hiking in those boots. I can do some casual flatland walking. I'm telling you man. If you don't take care of your feet, then you can't you just it's just you're not it's not like you're trying to be a Navy SEAL or Army Ranger out there. You know, it just debilitates you and it doesn't make a trip very enjoyable at all. So take your time fix your feet. Hey Craig here is one that I can't talk about but I think you can and I'm getting to the point where I'm about ready to purchase me a set and that is hiking poles hiking pose a level man. I was talking to somebody the other day. I probably you know, I avoided them because I felt like it was an old person thing that I felt like I was giving up on my youth and you know, I would rather work out and get Longer but I just quite frankly if found that with some of the injuries that I've had over my lifetime where I've got a couple little issues that just simple stability of hiking poles has just put me out a lot more than I was going. There are a lot of things that I wouldn't do that I now do and I spent a lot of time Outdoors just because I have hiking poles now because they do provide quite a bit more stability for me and I wrote about these and ultimate Wilderness Q2. I can't even remember the percentage. Remember contacting tally hunt and she turned me on to a study on this but there's a study on how much more efficient you are as a hiker. If you use hiking poles and this some sort of number like you save x amount of energy on your legs by using hiking poles. Got to get them. They're fantastic piece of equipment. Yeah. I've talked to several people that has done the St. And they every one of them says, oh you got to have polish got to have poles. So they're quickly turning me. You turning me on to the holes? Yeah, you like them. Yeah, here's a quick one and we run into this quite a bit as well treating your cell phone as a Lifeline. I think we mentioned earlier either in part one or this one about using ham radio out while you're hiking we always hear this little added, you know, two is one and one is none. So if you're using and relying on your cell phone as a Lifeline in The only Lifeline you have then you have one which is known in adding ham radio into it as cheap and easy it is to get into it will add a second life line while you're out and about absolutely man it and I'm not saying people have certain age group and knocking kids but so many kids are used to using phones that they just think they're going to work all the time and they just quite frankly. They don't work all the time. There's so many problems E. I mean even from the simple perspective of eye view. Realized my phone as my GPS device to which is nothing look in the description below you all use Gaia GPS, you can get a huge discount. Thanks to Tracy and me that we secured and we had to get in this big War battle and fight and they gave it to now. I'm just joking. They very happy to work with us and we're happy to help promote them because we use it all the time, but think about this if if I utilize my guy a GPS as my go to land navigation tool and I don't have a backup for with it, which is I always take a map and a compass. Yes, Dan. And obviously it could run out of battery. I think that's obvious. But the other thing is it could break I could fall and hit that on a rock Drop It crack the screen and now it doesn't work anything electronic for that matter. I just never want to put my life on. You know, I'm going to have a backup for that next is getting dehydrated. And we always we always have one or two events a year during the hot summer where people go in and they have either on the verge of a heat stroke, but they're definitely in that heat exhaustion area. I think we got two people out this year that had to deal with heat issues and being dehydrated. Yeah. It's one of those thing and I man, do you like drinking water? I actually do yes don't actually I drink more water out in the woods than I do at home. I don't shame on you it I know it is one of those things that I have to make a calculated conscious decision that hey I'm going to spend time outside and I'm going to drink water now now with that said there are times where I know that I'm going I keep water in my truck and I do try to stay hydrated because I don't like doing it but I do it anyway, but when I'm going hiking right before I go into the woods, I will drink a full, you know, 16 ounces of water before I go in so I know of at least got that in me and I I should be hydrated. Anyway, I do everything I can to stay hydrated and I don't like it but it's that important. I've been dehydrated before and that's the reason I stay hydrated. You do not want to be in that position. I've been in that position where I would have died if I had not had somebody with me at the time because I got into the point where I got so cramped up and I'm talking my finger started cramping and I knew they were hurting in my feet were cramping and I knew they were hurting from dehydration, but I Toughing it out, right and then I sit down to take a break and could not get off the ground my body. I seized up in the fetal position not from I'm scared. Oh somebody love on me my body shrunk up in the fetal position due to contractions of my muscles and I couldn't move if you've ever experienced anything like that Boyd had hunted hits home. Doesn't it? Yes, it does. I went through basic training in the summer of 87 July. And we had made it through the obstacle course. I was just thinking Second Time Around wrong. Anyway, we we had made it through the obstacle course the second time around and I had gotten to the point to where they pulled me over and put in the shade and started pouring some water on our heads and back over necks and that kind of stuff. I use four five six of us if you've ever experienced anything like And you can hear it and actually can hit fairly quick and I just want to make it clear. I was walking with some somewhat dehydration effects set down and I didn't sit down because I was having dehydration issues. I sit down because we were just taking a break I could not get back up off the ground. It's like when I sit down and brought my knees up to my chest, I could not straighten out my abs. I couldn't straighten out my legs and I'm talking that happen within 5 minutes. Well, it was bad man. An so be careful that is a definite definite mistake that a lot of people make out. There here is another one that I see all the time out there. People go hiking and I think the trails are going to be marked. So well that there's no way they're going to get lost that I guess. They think that they're going to be like signal lights out there, you know go this way go this way go that way and we have people all the time that think they're on one particular Trail and they are two Trails over going back to that planning and you got to have an idea of where you're going and how are you going and don't rely upon the forestry service? The trail markers to lead you in the right direction all the time. Some of those Trail markers are old they are faded and sometimes other hikers will actually take them down as souvenirs. That's that pisses me off man. Yes, this is me off. It's one of those things. It's think about think about this way and I bring this up because we wrote a section and essential Wilderness navigation. That was about 10,000 words on how you equate road signs and driving. On highways and interstates to understanding how it works on trails. And so if you're not familiar with being out on the trail, it's like that sometimes the signage is great. Sometimes the sign is just is not great. It sucks. It's not there at all. Somebody took it down. Somebody stole it. It got knocked down in a storm. There's snow on it and you can't read it just realize that trails are like that probably even more so than what you're experiencing on the road take it. Manage of the opportunity to pre-plan your hike why it's all we talked about before the hike know your navigational skills or lack thereof and get those fixed if you don't have them and I like this word thumbing. I've never heard you use that word before thumbing along the map. I really like that. There you go. You learned something today then. Yeah, I dig that. Yeah, it works out. We works out really. Well. How about the next one carelessly walking through the woods one again? I Want to emphasize and let me look it up real quick Tracy's podcast number 12 national parks 2017 search and rescue stats. One of the things that came out of that listen to this that right here 77% of the 2003-2004 injuries in Yellowstone were sprains strains abrasions or lacerations and that must happen from just carelessly going through the woods. It does it has to both will both careless. And sometimes you can do everything 100% right and you just make a bad step. You don't see that slick Rock underneath the leaves. You don't see that root underneath the leaves a rock gives a way that you you know think that is solid it can jump up and bite you really really quick the people that go into the woods go out on a hike and think hey, I'm season nothing's going to happen we go in and get them all the time. Because they have slipped and fell and injured themselves and I've done it myself out there. Heck I think I fell twice last year. I can think of to right off the top of my head. So which probably means I feel more than that that we were coming down a hill one time when I'm got a Lady Think Chad Conway and Tiffany Conway were with me coming down to Bluff back down to the trail and there was a big long route Cedar route and I stepped on it. I had about four or five feet of just sliding down. He'll hit the ground and it happened so quick man. Oh, you just don't have time to think just hope for the best and whenever hit the grill ground Craig if my elbow would hit a rock or something like that and you've been checked and broke or yeah, he's a natural something we talked about this one don't actually we didn't talk about this we talked about boots, but we didn't specifically talk about this topic. I don't think when you buy boots and shoes to hike in you should get a half. Half size larger than you normally wear why is that I can think of two or three reasons? But the one is that you just don't get good circulation to your feet. And if you're not getting good circulation your feet, they're not going to articulate the way they're supposed to and you're not going to feel they're going to colder faster. They're going to get a lot of things faster just because you don't get good circulation. Is that what you're getting at? And what are you getting at? I don't know that I'd say. Yeah, absolutely. And then also as you're hiking your feet has a tendency to swell. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. You need that extra half size larger, especially in the winter months whenever you might be wearing at extra thick pair of socks or wool socks or something like that. You have to have that added room in your boot for your feet to move around. All right, Craig one last one and we'll go ahead and close this one out. We're at about 48 49 minutes. There's always going to be some user error in all kinds of topics all kinds of things all kinds of Gears were just not going to we ourselves are going to make a mistake. In dealing with them. I put in our show notes a quick story on how that can happen. Do you want to go over that? Yeah, that's fine. Let's let's get into this. This is a good story. There's so many lessons are here you all so on Sunday evening a team from Portland Mountain Rescue rescued a party of two climbers who became lost in a whiteout on the descent from Crater Rock after climbing Mount Hood upon reaching about 1550 800 feet the As realize they were lost and called 9-1-1 for assistance. Pretty cool. They had I'm On One coverage p.m. Our rescue leader. Steve Rollins made cell phone contact with the subjects and determined that the climbers had a working GPS to come pieces one of which was set to 20 degrees declination and no map. All right, I'll resist the climbers had reportedly forgotten to Mark Timberline Lodge as a waypoint. And their GPS and thus were not able to use it. Rollins talked to the Commerce through configuring their GPS for the nad27 map data and to use UTM coordinates. He was then able to determine the climbers location and provide a three sets of waypoints and bearings to get the climbers safely over to a trail this Trail would ultimately lead them out of the woods and avoid the Avalanche danger higher on the mountain after a series of phone calls and navigation errors. It was determined that the climbers GPS had somehow switch Matt datums off of in a 8027 causing their location to be in accurately reported relative to the map Rollins was using additionally the Commerce had set their Compass to 20 degrees west declination instead of 20. Oh my gosh. I had not read. Hey you all I'm reading this but I have not read this story before this podcast. I figured you'd like it. Oh my gosh instead of 20 degrees east declination as a result the 40 degrees off. I can't stop myself. Oh, Gosh, as a result the Commerce track was always about 40 degrees off the track. They were attempting to follow the error in the Commerce compasses Compass declination setting contributed to them becoming lost and hindered their progress to the trail though. The navigation problems were resolved over the telephone Darkness was approaching in the climbers retired. So a ground team was sent up the trail to assist the climbers in their descent the rescue team started up the mountain at sundown traveling light and fast the team is Able to make contact with the too tired climbers at about 10:30 p.m. Good gravy. That's a long day. Well, that's not all of it the group then slowly made their way over miles down the trail arriving at the whole my gosh arriving at the trail head up Trailhead at 1:30, dude. They're out for that's a long day. Oh my gosh, they're out for 17 hours. So think about this so they had this is it determined that the climbers had a working. S2 compasses, but they had no math. I know and one of the compass was set to the wrong declination. So my question is of the two hikers were they just rely on one individual to do all the navigating you would think that both people in that party should know where they are and that goes back to something we talked about about verifying with someone in your party on your location. The other thing is the West declination had it backwards to what the should have been. And let me throw these out because we're about ready to close out. If you don't know what nad27 that data mirror and say, oh well, heck. Yeah, I took get those are no no, go ahead, please. If you do not know what nad27 map datum is or NAD 83 or wgs84 for that matter. If you do not know what wtm court UTM coordinates are if you don't know the issue about the declination you need to get yourself into a Land Navigation class. Absolutely. Obviously. We love to have you This but even more obviously I hope because you know Tracy now well enough get a class somewhere with somebody please pick up our book decision Wilderness navigation, but the book is good. I love the book. I think we put together the best nap book out there, but it's going to require you to get out and get stuff done. That's the way you get good Atlanta have skills and a good way to get them efficiently. You can learn by trial and error that's there's no doubt about At that but to get them efficiently go study with somebody somebody obviously we'd love to have you join us find somebody to train with man. Very good. Thank you jacked up Tracy. That story is so jacked up. Gosh it is. I knew you knew that you would just love that story. There's so much wrong going in there. And this is this is Portland. Where is this again? Okay, I just had to look it up. This can make it to the podcast or not. The declination there is Degrees so there are six degrees off right there. They might have been as much as forty six degrees off. I think only what I think the only way they made it down to 5,800 feet was that they just went downhill. Oh damn Alton. Oh my gosh, it's so bad. Yeah, and I thought you know Craig and I are not Mountaineers. Actually. We got a gentleman that we're going to interview specifically for Mountaineer a mountaineering that there's a it's a lot of it's a different animal than just hiking the hills of Kentucky and such but you would think that someone who is going to tackle Mount Hood would be a little more up on the navigation skills. Craig I think that does it for this podcast you got anything else to add? No, man. I think that's good. Everything is there to let everybody know again. This is part 2 of 3. We're going to come back one more time. We're going to be going over Camp. We've looked at it Part 1 if you haven't listened to that one, if you're just getting to this one and you just discovered us go back and listen to part one where we go over before you hit the trail. This one has been what to do while on the trail the common mistakes number three, we're going to be talking about Camp. It's Off. Yep, and that probably will be a little shorter podcast coming up. So we'll knock that one out fairly quick. But we thank you for joining us on this podcast. And again, if you will, please follow us or subscribe to the podcast through whatever platform you listen to us. We greatly appreciate it. It helps it helps us out tremendously. So as always with nature Reliance, let me throw something else in there brakes brakes. Hey guys and gals check out just do a quick Google search anchor dot. F m-- nature Reliance. You can do a Google search on that. It takes you to the like the homepage which is the host for this podcast. 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Craig and Tracy discussing common mistakes in part two of a three part series. This one covers some of the more common problems people experience while on the trail. Your support is necessary for us to grow and prosper this podcast. Please subscribe/follow us in your favorite podcast program and consider the sponsors mentioned. Here are some on-going sponsors: Nature Reliance School, where Tracy, Craig et al teach about a wide range of topics in the outdoors. Gets hands-on with us so you can be more comfortable and more enriched. Titan Survival - An American veteran-owned company. Gaia GPS App, best app in the world for wilderness navigation. Craig and Tracy have taught many first responders and the public in how to use this app:  https://www.gaiagps.com/discounts/?fp_ref=naturereliance Join our newsletter and get 20% off of classes, and 10% off gear. 