11 Dumb Ways to Die While Bushwalking

[Perfect weather for walking, but will it stay that way?]

People die bushwalking. Every year several people shuffle off this mortal coil while shuffling their boots through the Australian bush.

Our bushwalking retailers, bushwalking websites and other authorities issue warnings along the lines that “outdoor activities carry their own risks of injury and death.” They’re trying to tell us that when we lace up our bushwalking boots and hoist your pack, we’re doing something dangerous.

How dangerous? Well, it’s as risky as getting in a car; or catching an aeroplane; or going to hospital; or swimming; or making love; or riding a bike; or sitting on the toilet; or any of the other common activities that kill a proportion of their participants. If we wanted to be really paranoid, since most people die in bed, we might consider avoiding sleeping there.

Having established that most activities carry risk, wise participants will look for ways to minimise those risks. Or some might prefer to learn lessons from those who’ve already made mistakes. I’m in that second category. So I thought I’d offer here my own far-from-exhaustive list of dumb ways to get into trouble while bushwalking.

[A gently-flowing Ronny Creek, near Cradle Mt, Tasmania]

A few caveats: I point out that I have adopted – as one born-to-it – the voice of a dumb (male) walker! Also, although his list applies to bushwalking in Tasmania, it should be transferable to most cool/temperate/alpine walking areas. Here then are: 

11 Dumb Ways to Die While Bushwalking

1. Don’t take a map

Maps are expensive, and I’ve got a perfectly good road map after all. And don’t get me started on how expensive a GPS is! I’ve got my smart-phone, and I’m sure it has GPS built in. Besides the route is easy to follow - she’ll be right!

2. Don’t carry a tent

There are huts on this walk, for heaven’s sake! Why would I bother buying a tent that I won’t even need? Do they think I’m made of money? In an emergency I’ll just use the bin-liner I’ve got inside my pack.

[Who needs a tent: unless the hut is full]

3. Ignore weather warnings

I’m on a tight schedule, so I have to leave today. Besides those bushwalker’s weather alerts are a bit of an over-reaction, I reckon. I’ve got pretty good clothing and my bin-liner will keep stuff in my rucksack dry.

4. Wear denim or cotton clothes

If there’s one thing that drives me crazy about bushwalkers, it’s how incredibly daggy they look in all that expensive gear they get from those rip-off outdoor stores! My good ol’ jeans look SOOO much better, and they’re comfortable. Same with my cotton T-shirt. Okay they get a bit heavy when they’re wet, but since when did a little moisture kill anyone?

[Daggy, but effective for cold/wet weather]

5. Start late in the day

I believe in flexibility. We had planned to get walking by noon, but that early lunch turned into a long – and very pleasant - one. And we certainly weren’t going to leave our beers! Who cares if it’s nearly four o’clock?! We’ve got a warm inner glow, and a couple of torches to match. We’re up for navigating in the dark if we have to.

6. Don’t take a PLB

Here’s another con from the gear stores! A personal locator beacon will set you back hundreds of dollars. And I hear you have to register with some dodgy-sounding international organisation. If worse comes to worst, a good old smoke signal will do the same thing, and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg.

7. Split up from your group

If you’re lost, there’s a better chance to find the track if you all split up and go looking. Many hands make light work, and all that. You can always find each other again by shouting or whistling.

8. When you’re lost, just keep walking

I’ve got a great sense of direction, so I figure if I just keep looking I’ll eventually find my way back to the track. My other rule of thumb is to walk downhill. For one it’s easier, but for another it’ll lead you towards a lake or the sea, and that’s always good, eh!

9. Don’t leave your trip plans with anyone

As I said, I like to be flexible, so I never bother leaving my plans with anyone. Where’s the spontaneity in that? Also, I NEVER sign any of those damned log books. I don’t want the government knowing my personal business!

10. Cross that flooded creek no matter what!

I’ve already told you that a bit of moisture isn’t going to kill you. I’m not one to let a bit of flowing water intimidate me, or stop me from getting to my campsite on the other side. Just plunge on in and keep going, I reckon. Anyway I’m not a bad swimmer.

[A creek crossing: what could possibly go wrong?]
 

11. Never underestimate your abilities

I take learning seriously. It’s very important to think that you can work everything out on your own. If you stopped to ask for help every time you struck a hard patch you’d never improve your own abilities. What kind of wimp ever admits that he’s in trouble?!

* * *

As you can see, there are a good many dumb ways to die while bushwalking. If you’re as rigorously gormless as my dumb friend, there’s a good chance you’ll never even be bothered by the sound of the rescue helicopter. It’ll all be too late.

Never Truly Lost: Part 1

Now Where Is That Track? A relatively open bit of Tasmanian scrub. 

Never Truly Lost is what Paddy Pallin, pioneer bushwalker and outdoor gear maker, entitled his 1987 memoir. More than 3 decades later, with the advent of GPS, PLB, EPIRB and SPOT*, you might almost believe that Paddy’s wry boast was achievable by any bushwalker.

Going off track in Tasmania’s scrub should convince you otherwise. Scrub is no respecter of technology. I discovered this in the early day of GPS, when a techy friend and I went for a day walk in the Southern Ranges. Wandering off track in search of lyre birds, we entrusted our location to the small electronic brick that my friend had carted up the steep slope.

The beauty of this GPS, he told me, was that it would tell us exactly where we were, when used in conjunction with a map. Eventually, finding ourselves suitably lost, we fired up the device. For some minutes it scanned the sky for satellites, eventually finding enough to reveal exactly where we were. We soon confirmed on the topographic map that we were precisely 300 metres west of the marked track.

Desirable devices? (from left) A PLB, a GPS and SPOT

The simple solution would be to walk 300 metres east, and voila! we’d find the track. True enough, but the problem was that the intervening 300 metres was dense south-west scrub. On that occasion the scrub was kind, and it took less than half and hour to get back on track.

On other occasions I’ve been less fortunate. Once I spent more than four hours “walking” about 400 metres uphill to a known and visible destination – a banksia tree marking the end of a band of scrub. We had “misplaced” the track, but because we could see where we needed to be, we assumed that pushing through the scrub would be the best tactic. It wasn’t.

Carrying full packs into a wall of bauera, tea-tree and horizontal scrub, we did everything we could to make headway. We crawled; we rolled; we flung ourselves bodily into the scrub; we even climbed metres above the ground on see-sawing branches, feebly imitating Tarzan and Jane. We stumbled, fell, became covered in scratches and bruises, and wore botanical specimens from head to toe.

We cursed, swore, laughed, kicked, screamed and cried, and I came the closest I have ever come on a bushwalk to choosing to lie down and die. Try it for four hours and see if you don’t feel the same!

Somehow we eventually broke through to the banksia. We gave it a feeble hug before falling to the earth for a long, breathless, wordless rest.

This all happened before GPS was a twinkle in some military mind’s eye. But GPS would not have been any help. We knew where we were, we just (almost) couldn’t physically get to where we needed to be. 

As the same Paddy Pallin observed "in the bush, the problems of life are no longer complex." Perhaps not, but they certainly can be stark.

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* Glossary

GPS = Global Positioning System

PLB = Personal Locator Beacon

EPIRB = Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon

SPOT = Satellite Personal Tracker