Fess up? Mistakes you've made in the wilderness...

[Teotwawki]

No one is perfect... we have all made mistakes in the wild.

What mistakes have you made and what did you learn from it?

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Here is one from me.

Last spring my son and I backpacked a couple miles to the basin of a double waterfall ~60 foot drop each.

We set up camp on a little plateau up a bank from the stream at the bottom of the waterfalls. (anticipating someone asking: no flood risks we were up and in a drought situation, anyway, with no rain in the forecast).

Our sleeping bags are rated to 30 degrees. Forecasts called for high 30s overnight.

What we didn't realize or think about was that the two waterfalls would act as a huge natural air conditioner - not sure what the temp was but our sleeping bags were not very effective - we were chilly all night. I don't think we were at risk of exposure or anything but it was a mistake to set up camp where we did.

Kept a fire going, considered zipping the sleeping bags together for warmth. If our teeth had started chattering we would have. Didn't want to relocate in the dark.

Fess up?

[Rick]

No. I think you're the only one. The rest of us are professionals and highly proficient.

There was this torrential rain once that went through a debris hut like nothing was there. Everything soaked. Really miserable night.

[wareagle69]

well one night a long time ago i was camping in the mountains me and the two wonder mutts this is back when i first started the outdoors skills when i would be making a transition from camping enthusiast to primitive skills practioner i would use a (gasp) tent i know(hangs head in shame) any how was sleeping beautifuly but thinking it must be really cold cuz my feet felt like they were on fire, so i look up and sure enough they was the tent was on fire so i cut the back side open pulled the tent with dogs still in it out of the fire and spent the next few minutes in a panick putting out a small fire that had sprung up from my campfire like a 20 by 20 are or so scared the crap out of me was a litttle bit windy that night not unlike other nights where nothing had happened before but that night enough tinder was around to reingnite the flames, now i had let the fire die down to embers before going to bed but did not do a wide enough perimeter check, i do not douse a fire before retiring just so i can start in morning from coals but i now clear a wide enough area around my fire pit.

[FVR]

Late season deer hunting in the N Ga. mountains in prim. garb. Early afternoon had to cross a stream so I just man'd up and walked through it.

My knee mocs although pretty waterproof as far as mocs could be, got soaked inside and out. Next morning, they were still wet or shall I say frozen.

Next time, do a dry crossing. Or take the time, take off the mocs, roll up the leggins or just take them off, cross then get dressed. Warm feet, it's worth it.

[KT_Cobra]

I was once camping with my buddies a long time ago and didn't check the tent before doing so. I took it right out of the pack from it being in the attic for so long. We set up the tent, and when we went inside to crash for the night we realised that this fiberglass sort of material was rubbing right off on us from the tent only after moving around in it a good bit (no jokes please). We didn't use a bottom sheet or blanket in the tent so was therefore totally covered in this itchy red fiberglass (I guess it was a sort of fiberglass). I was a kid at the time, and we were camping in my friend's backyard so we all just went inside, took a shower, and stayed indoors for the night. I know, I know, I was a pansy for doing so.

Hey, Teo. First of all, good story. Secondly, I guess the cold air is just sucked down pretty fast like a vacuum with the falling water, eh?

[crashdive123]

Water fall acts as a giant nature made heat exchanger.

[DOGMAN]

Most painful mistake:
Several years ago I was on a multi-day river trip on the San Juan river in Utah. The river was flowing brown. We stopped for lunch and at these cliffs and tested the water depth below them, and we all jumped off them before lunch. After lunch our footsteps had dried up, and I went to what I thought was the same spot and jumped off a 20 foot cliff. However, I had jumped from a little bit different spot, and landed in two feet of water and sprained both ankles- badly.
I still have ankle and knee problems from that.

[DOGMAN]

Coldest mistake:
This winter I took my dog team out for a 30 mile training run. We stopped after about 10 miles and I tied the sled to a Forest Service sign and stepped off to go to the bathroom. THe dogs were not ready for a rest and started lunging and jumping in place, and they broke the sign post in half and freed the sled (and themselves).

They took off running at a dead sprint- down a trail they knew well that went for 5 more mile before looping back towards me. So, I started walking after them. It was about 10 below zero, my mittens, parka, and overboots were all in my sled, I just had on light glove liners, wool lobbens (light weight wool booties) and a fleece jacket. Then it started snowing, and getting dark. I found them after 4 hours of walking and punching through knee deep snow. I was freezing. I grabbed all my warm stuff out of the sled bag, turned the dogs around and headed home. it took about 3 more hours to get home.

[DOGMAN]

Most Embarrassing and regrettful Mistake:
I was hunting on my in-laws property, there were 3 bull elk grazing on a hill-side. I stalked in as best I could and got off a shot, they all took off running. never got a chance at a follow up shot. Went up there any way and looked around for blood. No blood trail anywhere. So, I went to the in-laws house and told them my story.
2 days later my father-in-law was glassing the hill side and saw an elk bedded down. he looked at it all day, and realized it had never moved- at all. He walked up hillside and found a 6x6 dead bull elk that I had shot, and not found. It had been unseasonably warm those two days and the meat was spoiled. I still tagged the elk, gutted him, quartered him, then packed him out. I think I lost several points in the in-laws book that day.

[dragonjimm]

back in high school, me and a buddy went camping found a perfect little spot beside a small creek between two large hills
i was woken up in the middle of the night, by water pushing at the back of the tent. the whole place had flash flooded over three feet deep. to make matters worse the tent hadnt been staked down so when we got out, it pops up and floats down stream with our stuff in it.
that was a miserable night

[DOGMAN]

Most rewarding Mistake:
Several years ago I was deer hunting on a friends land, and it was almost the end of shooting light. I saw a couple of nice bucks skylined on a ridge about 200 yards from me, I snuck over a couple of feet to get a better shot, got the one in my sites that I wanted and squeezed off the shot. After feeling the recoil, I looked again throught the scope and saw the buck running. It appeared that I missed- I whistled loudly, and that made the old buck stop, for a second and look back- I shot at him again- this time dropping him. When I walked up the ridge I found that I had actually shot both of the bucks. Fortunatly, I had two tags, and filled the freezer in one day!

[Assassin Pilot]

I'm not old enough to have had the experience doing anything crazy like those examples. But once while camping with a few pals, We managed to blow up the base of a tree with fireworks. It fell on our tent and we couldn't get the tent out from under the tree without completely ripping it up. We got pretty bug-bitten that night without our tent.

[DOGMAN]

Biggest "I told you so" mistake:
A few years ago I was guiding a crew of people from Chicago on a full-day rafting trip, and they had this annoying son about eleven years old who wouldn't shut-up. Well, junior was obsessed with seeing a bear- bears, bears, bears, it was all he would talk about. He was just positive we'd see a bear.
The section of river we were on flows next to a highway, and there are houses along most of it. Not, remote, but still technically it is in bear country.
I told the kid several times we wouldn't see a bear...I had been floating this section of river for a decade and never had I seen a bear. Besides it was about 90 degrees, and in the middle of the afternoon. I just knew we wouldn't see a bear.

Anyway, towards the end of the float, there is a large black animal walking along the shore line. The kids see's it and shouts "Bear"....I said, "No, no...calm down its probably a rottweiler or a big dog"...sure enough it was a black bear and we floated with in about 200 feet from it before it ran up the hill and climbed a tree. We then pulled over on the other side of the river and watched it for several minutes.

I've never heard so many I told you so's as I did from there to the take-out.

[KT_Cobra]

My goodness, Montana. It seems like if we want something bizarre to happen we should go camping or hunting with you. lol Good stories. I enjoyed reading them.

[DOGMAN]

My goodness, Montana. It seems like if we want something bizarre to happen we should go camping or hunting with you. lol Good stories. I enjoyed reading them.

Heck, I'm just getting warmed up. Thanks for the compliment-though. I actually have a column called "The Guiding Life" in a magazine that is full of whacky moments from my 15 years of guiding wilderness adventures. The one bad thing about being a professional guide, and writing about your misadventures is that it might just scare off prospective clients.LOL

here is a link to a few more stories of mine at Outside Bozeman magazine:
http://www.outsidebozeman.com/magazi...h+for+Articles

[RobertRogers]

While building a new trail system in the mountains of Northern NH a friend gave my girlfriend and I his tent, for privacy, in exchange for our tarp.

That tent not only leaked like a sieve in the heavy rainfall that night, the waterproof floor prevented the water from escaping.

Being the gentleman that I am, my girlfriend slept on top of me as I floated around all night. Nothing like spending eight hours laying in a soggy sleeping bag.

In retrospect I should have vented the tent floor using a knife.

[Sunshine]

These are great stories! I wish I had some to share but I'm so perfect, everything always goes right for me and I never mess up. Well...except for that one time when I was camping and had to go and I accidently peed all over my shoe...No...that couldn't have happened to me...it was just a bad dream...

[DOGMAN]

Scariest Mistake:
I was guiding elk hunters in a Wilderness Area just outside of Yellowstone Park. We horsepacked 18 miles in to get to our spike camp. For a week straight it rained, and every night Grizzly bears had been around our camp spooking our horses. We had a solar powered electric fence set-up as a corral, and when the bears would spook the horses ,they'd break through the fence and flee. So, then we (the 3 guides) would have to go look for the horses in the rain.
One night at about 3 am the horses started making crazy noises and they all busted out and took off running. I was on my cot, in my union suit and I jumped up threw on my pac boots, grabbed my headlamp and was out of the tent in the pouring rain.

I ran through the woods with a lead rope in my hand trying to catch the horses before they got to far away- in nothing but a union suit, I got to the trail that led out of camp, and walked through the mud for a couple of hundred yards until I saw a horse off the trail.
I walked up and got the horse than started leading it back towards camp. I walked a few feet down the trail, shining the light into the mud looking at my footprints. Then I came upon a very fresh grizzly bear print on top of my foot print that I had just left minutes before!
Then my headlamp went out!!!!
So, there I was standing in the pitch dark,in the rain, in my underwear, holding on to a horse and realizing that there was a grizzly within a few feet from me.

[Chicago Dan]

Like many people when I first started out I took a few miss-steps and skinned a knee, singed a sleeve etc. but I have been lucky that nothing was really above a minor inconvenience. I did have a almost once. I was eyeing a tree line about 50 yds to my front and almost stepped on a slumbering badger in knee high grass. I didn’t notice until my foot was on the down stroke. Twisted, turned and did all sorts of contortions to keep from stepping on him and keeping my balance, but alas the East German judge still only gave me a 7.0 and took me completely out of metal contention.

[RBB]

Most of my miss-steps deal with getting to the trailhead without some essential piece of gear: Paddles (on a canoe trip), winter boots (on a snowshoe hike), tent poles (for a dome tent) - things like that.