Sure. But at least stay (in any reasonable place) for a day to get your head together and a chance to get rescued. Two days is better.
Dont just set out trying to self-rescue when you’re still in panic mode. That way leads to death.
I am a “official” Volunteer Ranger and S&R volunteer. Sit tight for a day at least, give us a chance, eh? it’s far better for us to find you than the cadaver dogs.
Excellent choices.
That being said, always bring a “rescue me kit”. I like to call it that rather than a “survival kit”, which is sometime full of crap like snares.
Whistle.
Mirror.
LED flashlight. (This can be even a small keychain size)
Matches (waterproof)
Flint.
Tinder.
Space blanket (either the cheap thin mylar type or the much better heavy version, which is resusable- small one for pockets)
Knife
You can pack all of these in a pocket and always have it with you. In fact
make several- one for each pack, your vest, your tackle box, etc.
Nice to have:
a small first aid kit.
Extra layer.
More water
snack
teabag and Cup. (taking time to start a fire an brew a cuppa is a great way to stave off panic)
Fun but:
Fishing gear.
(OK, if fishing hear means you relax, stay by water and panic less, then yes, by all means)
Useless: snares
Whistle, Mirror, & LED flashlight are critical for us finding you.
Most my hiking is in the White Mountains of NH.
People get lost or even die in the white mountains every year. Inexperienced hikers make up a majority of the incidents but most people never hear about them, it’s just not newsworthy when an novice gets lost. The stories that we do hear about are when getting lost, injured or dying happens to someone with experience, it’s an ever present reminder bad things can happen to even the best of us. A simple miscalculation can be devistating.
Spring and fall in the Whites bring rapidly changing and unpredictable weather. Day hikers decide it’s a nice day for a hike because it’s 70 degrees out, start out late, and are totally unprepared when they are up above the timberline and the temperatures suddenly drop below freazing. Then you have someone with no gear to handle it wandering around getting lost due to hypothermia.
One of the current debates is the use of safety beacons as a failsafe for survival. Experienced hikers looking to cover distances in record time will minimize survival gear to keep thier weight down. They’ll carry a gps location device with confidence that a rescue can be done if the find a need for the equipment they opted not to carry. While it’s a successful strategy most the time it’s not a garauntee. Last winter we lost a very experienced hiker crossing Washington. Negative 50s and high winds, she realized she was in over her head and set off her beacon. Rescue got the distress signal but due to the high risk during a storm opted to postpone until daylight. She didn’t survive the night. Rescue constantly has to weigh risk of losing the own members trying to save others, they can’t save everyone.
The cadaver dogs dont care about how little your gear weighed.
This is idiotic.
An experienced hiker with survival skills and a 15lb pack may be putting themselves at far less risk than a novice with a 40lb pack. Does that mean the latter would also be an idiot to go hiking? It’s a question of whether the hiker has the adequate skills and experience to know what’s appropriate for the conditions.
There are many situations where a light pack makes you safer. Obviously, technical climbers routinely minimize weight. Consider a hiker fording a swollen river, or off trail traversing unstable steep slopes, or needing to move quickly off an exposed mountain pass when unforseen thunderstorms roll in.
It’s a question of common sense and knowing your own abilities and limitations. I always equip myself for survival if I’m immobilized by injury. Outside of winter, it’s generally possible to do that with a 10-12lb base weight (i.e. ex- food and water). Most hikers take an inordinate amount of unnecessary crap. I value agility and the option to move quickly if and when required over camp comforts.
I don’t get any thrill out of speed hiking or trail running, all my trips are planned so I can take my time and enjoy the views.
Everything is a calculation based on your own abilities and goals. and it certainly makes sense to cut gear based on that. If your planned hike is 25 miles across mountainous terrain you might have to make a choice on how to do that, if you pack light you could do it in a day, skip the overnight gear, only carry a days worth of food etc. If you want to carry all the gear to be safe you may be weighed down and can’t make the trip in a day so have to plan on camping.
In both situations if you break an ankle your pretty much screwed, your just screwed more with the light gear, but carrying the heavier gear increases your odds of it happening.
Take Kilimanjaro. Most people are going to take multiple days to hike it. Kilian Jornet, a trail runner did it in about 7 hours, can’t do that with more than a few pounds of water. I don’t think he was stupid for doing it.
I highly recommend Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzalez.
Not limited to hiking exclusively, btw
Light pack is fine. Getting rid of unnecessary crap is fine.
Survival gear is not unnecessary crap. That’s what they’ll put on the tombstone.
Even a super fit super soldier can find themselves in a survival sitrep.
Yup, but some people sure can’t distinguish between the two!
Two hikers were found dead in the innner Grand Canyon one summer - when daytime temperatures commonly exceed 110deg, and at a time of year when overnight lows are around 70, with water bottle capacity of just 2L each, but carrying >40lb packs including an axe! (Presumably for chopping firewood; fires are illegal if there were the remotest need to build one in those temperatures).
That’s the problem with hikers who are inexperienced or unaccustomed to local conditions, and don’t do their homework and get some advice. There’s a tendency to throw everything and the kitchen sink into the pack, and that doesn’t necessarily make you safer.
Getting lost as many people have pointed out, is relatively uncommon at least as far as survival is concerned. Setting off in a T shirt and shorts in the morning, ill-equipped for an afternoon thunderstorm, that can be a problem. Hypothermia can be a problem in 40F to 50F, high winds, rain etc. In freezing weather, thought it is far colder, may be snow on the ground, it is easier to stay dry.
Although it’s probably not accurate to call anybody who straps on a 50+ pound pack to hike up and down mountains “lazy”, I tend to bring lots of gear and setup comfortable camps and linger a while. The spartan types who weigh their toothbrushes and rip off the strings of their teabags in a fit of weight paring fury, yeah, no. They might hike 20 miles in a day and the rest of it. To each his own, I guess. Carry extra clothes and raingear for sure. Years ago they had a list called “the 10 essentials” that every hiker should always carry. Still basically the same.
One angle that is modernized, or should be, is an excessive reliance on both/either Cell phones and GPS. While they are both extremely useful they should not be relied upon exclusively for navigation in particular. Always carry a map and compass and know how to use it - the local declination, back azimuth, triangulation, etc. Pray to God you never need it, but.
There’s an old adage if you carry bivouac gear, you will use it. The idea is that the more stuff you carry to spend the night, the more likely you are to make decisions that cause you to spend the night. This really only applies to experienced hikers who know enough to make the right choices. I hike with some folks who pack very light, and the are very conscious of the risks they take on when they’re not carrying overnight gear. Knowing the weather, the terrain, their bail out routes, and their limitations doesn’t ensure safety in the event of all possible scenarios, but their track records are pretty good.
I don’t know about lost, but the people who most often need a team to go in and retrieve them are inexperienced tourists. They don’t know the area or the weather and are usually woefully unprepared. An experienced local who manages to get a bit turned around can usually figure out how to get him or herself safely back.
Here’s an article from Outside on deaths on Mt. Washington (in the White Mountains, as mentioned upthread.) Discusses many reasons why this particular mountain kills so frequently; it’s close to “civilization” so many people are unprepared, but it’s dangerous even for very experienced hikers. Also discusses the failure of an emergency beacon.