mattyboi

I agree, that's a great story; thank you for sharing!

31 minutes ago, Jolan said:

Its a lot like being slightly drunk - you're dumb and you know you're dumb so you think you're compensating by being extra smart, but basically, you're dumb as rocks.  The only reason we survived that huge cloud burst and freeze is luck and the fact that we did actually know what we were doing. And tended to go out over prepared for the day.  As an example for a day hike in summer I had two sets of matches, mittens, a wool hat, a poncho,  a wool sweater, food for two days, a space blanket and a tarp.  Along with the usual stuff - compass, jackknife, chocolate, binoculars, etc.  That mountain kills a lot of people, we got lucky.

That's always a good idea. I live in Colorado now and the locals all give the same advice. Freaky stuff can happen at elevation, even in summer. 

@Jolan I've never been seriously close to hypothermia myself. Growing up in Minnesota my dad would give us lectures about it and he read us "To Build A Fire" when we were young so I was always conscientious of not putting myself in that position.

I have had to help people who were hypothermic (or nearly there), but it was in a group and we got a fire going quickly so it never felt that serious at the time. But having seen what it's like, I would be very concerned about being hypothermic by myself. They get pretty loopy. 

1 hour ago, exeexe said:

At one point i didnt have more energy in me so i just laid down in the snow and gathered some energy.

I know exactly how this feels. One time a friend and I were out in the woods in Montana. We'd been exploring around all day and were trying to get back to our cabin. We ran into a huge snow drift across our path, where the snow went from being at knee level to waist level and then chest level. I'm 2m tall, so I went first trying to break a path through for him to follow after me. In places this drift came up to my neck. It was absolutely exhausting work; took the better part of an hour for us to go maybe 10m because I'd have to keep pausing and just lay down in the snow to try to recover my energy. And after we got through I had to lay there a while again to get the energy to keep walking home.

After that experience I promised myself that if I ever ran into that situation again, I'd spend the time trying to find away around the drift rather than trying to walk through it, because it really is not worth the energy to do it.

Curious how many of us players have ever been in a survival experience, or if not true "survival", what is the most dangerous or stressful situation you have been in out in the bush?

For example; when I was around 11 or 12 years old I went with my dad, brother, and some family friends on my first extended backpacking trip in the Badlands of South Dakota. The entire trip was around a week and a half. One evening we made camp and as I needed to relieve myself, I grabbed a small trowel we had brought for the purpose, and walked a ways into the woods for some privacy. And as you might guess, I made the mistake of not checking behind me to mark my return trip, so after I had finished my business, I realized I didn't have an idea of how to get back to our camp. Then to make matters worse, my first instinct was to panic, and take off running. Thank God I stopped at some point and realized I was probably making a big mistake. I shouted for my dad. When he called back I could barely hear him, which is saying something as he had taken voice lessons in college and probably has the loudest set of pipes of anyone I know. But at least I could hear him, and we kept calling to each other until I found my way back. When I came out into a clearing I realized I had completely overshot our camp and had been headed out into the middle of nowhere. Also, it was nearly sunset, and I had no other equipment with me besides the trowel. It impressed on me at an early age that small mistakes in the wilderness can cascade into serious situations very very quickly.

Like Androcles
I will remove your arrows
And we can be friends

As a good American, I own too many firearms to list. Primarily hunt elk and deer; there are actually more elk in my state than deer, but you need a good group of buddies to help you haul them out of the mountains.