An important lesson for the intrepid explorer.

[UFO]

I can confirm that both spruces and pines covered with thick and heavy snow do cover the sky efficiently. It is hard to say from which direction the sun shines unless it is a really bright day, as the snow creates ambient lighting dissolving shadows. Spruces and pines don't need even snow to make the forest dark, intimidating and hard to navigate...

I am a born metropolitan area dweller, but my parents were from countryside, so I spent my summer and winter holidays at grandma's and grandpa's farm. It was practically an area of a barn, main house, storage building and garden in middle of a dense forest (wild one, surrounding area wasn't harvested). As a child I quickly learned how to get lost just by stepping few meters out from the yard. It is amazing how quickly a tree line can disappear from the sight: I could literally hear people talking at the yard, but I couldn't see anything but bushes and trees around me. Perhaps a small glimpse of the red wall of the barn between tree trunks if I looked very carefully. Trying to go towards the noise was also tricky, as the sound echoed from the trees. Scared me to death...

For many of us anything under 10C means that many jumpers and jackets that our arms are stuck straight out sideways and we can hardly move.

As long as it is above 5 degrees Celsius and the rain is moderate, I don't bother to change my inside clothes to warm ones (except a jacket) when going out...

Of course, "going out" refers in this case just to a quick trip to a shop about 400 meters down the street where a wind rarely blows

 

[Outdated]

I can confirm that both spruces and pines covered with thick and heavy snow do cover the sky efficiently. It is hard to say from which direction the sun shines unless it is a really bright day, as the snow creates bright ambient lighting dissolving shadows. Spruces and pines don't need even snow to make the forest dark, intimidating and hard to navigate...

I'm one of those freaks that can read a topographical map and in general work out where I am by contours in the land, but that's almost impossible too in very hilly and densely wooded country.

This is a picture of a part of the trail the girl walked along, as you can see the coverage is very dense.

 

[Outdated]

I can confirm that both spruces and pines....

Interesting side note: Australia has no native conifers except for one tiny little patch that covers a couple of acres in remote Tasmania. And the location of that tiny little patch is a secret that scientists hold on to tight because if tourists ever start going there that will be the death of them.

Eucalypts adapted to fire and even evolved to depend on regular fires as a part of their breeding cycle. Usually here fires only kill off the understory and the well established trees are unharmed. This clears the way for new seedlings to try and establish themselves. If a pine tree catches fire it's dead.

We also have a lot of very confusing common names for trees here simply because the Poms didn't have much imagination, if it's flowers were small discreet nodules instead of what we recognise as a bloom then they called it a Pine tree. Most of our trees with Pine in the name are in fact eucalypts.

We have some of the tallest trees in the world in south eastern Australia, they got called Mountain Ash simply because all the trunks are tall and straight, they're also eucalypts.

 

[Mary Terry]

A solo hiker in Arches National Park in Utah who got stuck in quicksand in a narrow canyon was rescued a few days ago by using his Garmin satellite messenger to request help. He had no cell phone signal where he was located. The Garmin GPS automatically includes the coordinates for its location. Search and rescue sent a drone and spotted the man. The team hiked to his location and pulled him out of the quicksand, and he walked out wearing his backpack and drove himself home in his car. Those location transponders save a lot of hikers and skiers.

 

[Outdated]

A solo hiker in Arches National Park in Utah who got stuck in quicksand in a narrow canyon was rescued a few days ago by using his Garmin satellite messenger to request help.

Here we recommend people that intend to go bush take a personal emergency beacon with them, the same EPIRB system used for boats. Don't push the button unless you really need it though because paying to be rescued isn't cheap.

https://australianhiker.com.au/advice/technology-on-the-trail-personal-locator-beacons/

 

[Mary Terry]

Here we recommend people that intend to go bush take a personal emergency beacon with them, the same EPIRB system used for boats. Don't push the button unless you really need it though because paying to be rescued isn't cheap.

https://australianhiker.com.au/advice/technology-on-the-trail-personal-locator-beacons/

It's recommended here, too, especially for cross country wilderness snow skiers. But people ignore the advice all the time, to their detriment. Darwin's law strikes again.

 

[Mary Terry]

Do people get stuck in tree wells in Australia? I call them snow traps but they are known as tree wells, or spruce traps. These really suck. I fell into one years ago while skiing on a mountain, it was invisible. I just skied close to a tree and suddenly the snow gave way.

Tree well - Wikipedia

I've had that happen to me, too, skiing in Utah and Idaho.

 

[Outdated]

I've had that happen to me, too, skiing in Utah and Idaho.

I've never heard of that, but I watched a mate fall through the snow one day where there was a small bush underneath.

The only pine trees you'll see in Australia aren't native, pine trees having needles instead of leaves can't dump snow the way broadleaf trees can. Our trees rotate the angles of their leaves to suit weather conditions, if the sun's too hot or the rain or snow too heavy they turn all their leaves to be edge on to the sky, then as the weather shifts they right themselves again.

So it looks like we don't often get that lack of snow around the bottom of tree trunks.

 

[velociraptor]

I've had that happen to me, too, skiing in Utah and Idaho.

We have to be very careful of them where I live. I give certain trees a wide berth. Another good reason not to roam through the forest in the winter - trails are much safer in this regard.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

It's not just your phone either, it's GPS as well.

They say that they fix errors as soon as someone complains, but how much can you trust that when situations drag on for so may years that regional councils have to start installing proper signs?

I've seen the overreliance on GPS in Utah. I thought I had decent coordinates to some locations for Obsidian in the Black Rock Desert. The GPS was more than a mile off and only by paying attention to the geology were we able to find the sites.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I've had that happen to me, too, skiing in Utah and Idaho.

I learned that also when I was skiing in Yellowstone one winter . . . skiing from the continental divide back to the Snow Lodge. The worst problem I encountered was falling in the very deep snow. I could not touch the ground even with my poles to push myself up and needed to get my butt on the back of the skis before I could stand again.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

I learned that also when I was skiing in Yellowstone one winter . . . skiing from the continental divide back to the Snow Lodge. The worst problem I encountered was falling in the very deep snow. I could not touch the ground even with my poles to push myself up and needed to get my butt on the back of the skis before I could stand again.

There are many situations in which one can fall and be unable to get up. I did an unintentional backwards somersault down a railroad embankment this summer and ended up halfway upside down pressed between two trees. I managed to claw my way out, but it was not easy.

All electronics can fail. They can run out of battery. You may not have clear access to the sky/satellites. Or it may be an area that is not yet covered. When I was in wilderness in Saskatchewan, my GPS told me there were no coordinates for my area. There was no coverage. Well, that's great.

A compass and a map. And know how to use them.

The only time I did not take a road map, in Wyoming, GPS stopped working and I had no idea how to get out. I just had to retrace my steps and stop at the nearest place that appeared to have people.

 

[Outdated]

All electronics can fail.

Most people never take notice of the warnings on their devices, unless specifically manufactured for extreme conditions most devices have an operating temperature range of between 0 and 50 degrees celsius. Because phones have such thin bodies they are especially sensitive to temperature.

There's plenty of youtube videos from tourists in Australia where they show you that their phone gave up in the heat. Their GoPro still works fine but the screen on the phone goes black and it no longer works. And if your phone ever gets that hot keep a very close eye on it's battery afterwards - if the battery starts to swell up get rid of it somewhere safe as soon as possible.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

Most people never take notice of the warnings on their devices, unless specifically manufactured for extreme conditions most devices have an operating temperature range of between 0 and 50 degrees celsius. Because phones have such thin bodies they are especially sensitive to temperature.

There's plenty of youtube videos from tourists in Australia where they show you that their phone gave up in the heat. Their GoPro still works fine but the screen on the phone goes black and it no longer works. And if your phone ever gets that hot keep a very close eye on it's battery afterwards - if the battery starts to swell up get rid of it somewhere safe as soon as possible.

I’ve had this happen when canoeing in Florida. The screen goes black and I have to put it somewhere coolish, because no place is cool, until it comes back. I’ve never had trouble with the battery, but I can see how it could happen.

 

[velociraptor]

I’ve had this happen when canoeing in Florida. The screen goes black and I have to put it somewhere coolish, because no place is cool, until it comes back. I’ve never had trouble with the battery, but I can see how it could happen.

I thought I was being clever by mounting my phone on the dash of my truck to watch for the exhaust regeneration and outlet temps while pulling a trailer (you don't want it climbing past 1,200F on a hill). Also needed to watch the phone temps. I now have it mounted low, out of the sun.

It turns out that my truck is so powerful that my current trailer is "tiny" by its standards and the temperature barely moves when I go up a mountain pulling my fifth wheel. I think I over purchased by a wide margin.

 

[Jeff T]

Maps can also get you into trouble. The pooches and I were 4x4 exploring the NW area of Nevada one May. I was using a popular state atlas (-+60 pages). To get to my next destination, the atlas showed an important dirt road that was the ticket. After traveling the road for 10 miles, it began to split off in different directions and ended in a sheep pasture. There was a trail, but a vehicle would have flipped on its side trying it. We ended up going another way.
A few decades earlier, a family left the Bay Area for a family wedding or christmas in Idaho. A winter blizzard had closed all the roads in the region, including I-80. They went anyway, eventually getting stuck in snow in the Summit Lake/ Antelope Refuge area. They had a harrowing time out there for several days, trying to find a way out. https://www.kcra.com/article/archives-remembering-stolpas-tale-snowy-survival/30536555

 

[Outdated]

A few decades earlier, a family left the Bay Area for a family wedding or christmas in Idaho. A winter blizzard had closed all the roads in the region, including I-80.

We get similar situations here from time to time, but from floods rather than snow. Sometimes travel advice can look a little strange:

Katie has been a truckie for just 18 months but now she's taking on mammoth 12,000km runs to help flood victims