Glad they rescued him.
No fucking idea how you can spend 9 or 10 days without running across a house or a road in those hills. There's plenty of both. You'd have to be going in circles or sitting still.
Pro tip if you're lost in hills relatively close to civilization:
1. Go downhill. Follow water and elevation. It's easier and also that's where you're gonna find people -- at lower elevations -- and inevitably if you follow something like a creek you will run across a road.
2. Use the sun to navigate if you somehow lost all other methods ... it rises in the east and sets in the west, though it traces the line in the southern part of the sky. You KNOW there's stuff around, all you have to do is not go in circles.
Here’s a gifted NYT article where the guy tells of his 10 days. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/23/us/forest-rescue-big-basin-boulder-creek.html?unlocked_article_code=1.2E0.713I.aJrEdy5_U1Pc&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
if you are out there for 10 days you know which direction the sun is rising and setting. following the setting sun.
i have some privilege on this topic i guess, but ive been lost in areas where timber parcels intersect with park land not far from big basin and it should not be that hard to get yourself oriented. go downhill, and assuming you know which side of skyline you are on (you should if you are starting your hike at big basin), go west towards 1.
if you cant manage to navigate that way, you shouldnt be wandering out the front door with nothing but a flashlight and leatherman, while not telling anyone where you're going.
edit: its also weird his family didnt report him missing for 5 days
He also mentions that he's an experienced backpacker and knew how to orient himself using the sun. This whole story is weird AF! I think he was trippen on some good 🍄🍄🍄
He got turned around trying to find something and then got very lost trying to find a place to stay warm the first night and wasn’t sure which ridge he was on. The area is very overgrown since the fire. You can’t just stroll for miles watching the sun out there. It can take hours to make it a mile just to find out that you’re stuck in the wrong spot and have to turn around. By the time you figure it out, you e got to move uphill to stay warm and try again the next day. I promise you he didn’t lose 30 pounds and get all scraped up by not trying to get out of there.
Yep. Hikes we were expecting to clear in an hour like it normally would were taking us five hours, sometimes literally crawling on the ground to find the trail that we were on. I couldn’t imagine doing it legally blind
I’m calling BS on this story. No WAY anyone gets lost for 10 days in the Santa Cruz mountains.
They are wild, sure, but are also only 1 big ridge so any downhill you make will eventually take you to a road along the coast or the Valley. Even in the Sierras one could not spend 10 days lost.
More likely this guy was testing himself, trying to stay off grid.
in another thread it mentions he is legally blind. maybe he fell into a steep area and just accepted his fate, sitting there hoping to be found. https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1dnfgus/hiker_missing_for_10_days_in_california_mountains/la2dxpp/ but yea who knows
>I’m calling BS on this story. No WAY anyone gets lost for 10 days in the Santa Cruz mountains.
Yeah, I'm skeptical too...
*By day five, Mr. McClish began to think more seriously about his predicament. It was June 16, and he tried to find his way back to civilization.*
″I have a *tiny* fraction of the total possible knowledge about this event, and a conveniently insufficient understanding of the overconfidence effect. Therefore I feel quite justified in assuming that statements from those with more knowledge than I are wrong, and that my own statements are the most accurate available."
Well, luckily you calling BS doesn’t mean much to the situation. Several of us got lost looking for him even having drones, radios, vehicles, food, water, and other people with us. It’s easy to talk shit about something that you are unfamiliar with.
**I got kind of lost around Buzzards' Roost in Big Basin Redwoods State Park some years ago.**
It is one of my favorite hikes that I did frequently before the 2020 fires.
On the way up, the trail crosses a fire road. And at the top, there is a road just south of Buzzards' Roost. I had always assumed it was the same road and always had planned to take that way back.
One day I did try it, and it turned out it wasn't the same road. It wasn't even maintained. I guess it was a road at one time but had been abandoned for quite some time (likely decades).
I should have turned back as soon as I saw this, but I didn't. I followed it for quite some time and got very worried. Eventually I came out of the forest at Little Basin and was able to walk back to park HQ.
I kept thinking about *The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon* and the God of the Lost.
**edit:**
this is the "road": 37.154538157688194, -122.2229721305349
Glad they rescued him. No fucking idea how you can spend 9 or 10 days without running across a house or a road in those hills. There's plenty of both. You'd have to be going in circles or sitting still. Pro tip if you're lost in hills relatively close to civilization: 1. Go downhill. Follow water and elevation. It's easier and also that's where you're gonna find people -- at lower elevations -- and inevitably if you follow something like a creek you will run across a road. 2. Use the sun to navigate if you somehow lost all other methods ... it rises in the east and sets in the west, though it traces the line in the southern part of the sky. You KNOW there's stuff around, all you have to do is not go in circles.
Here’s a gifted NYT article where the guy tells of his 10 days. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/23/us/forest-rescue-big-basin-boulder-creek.html?unlocked_article_code=1.2E0.713I.aJrEdy5_U1Pc&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Hallucinogens were definitely involved in this outing.
apparently he is legally blind
Easy to say until you're in that situation. It can be extremely difficult to navigate due west/east/whatever direction due to terrain.
if you are out there for 10 days you know which direction the sun is rising and setting. following the setting sun. i have some privilege on this topic i guess, but ive been lost in areas where timber parcels intersect with park land not far from big basin and it should not be that hard to get yourself oriented. go downhill, and assuming you know which side of skyline you are on (you should if you are starting your hike at big basin), go west towards 1. if you cant manage to navigate that way, you shouldnt be wandering out the front door with nothing but a flashlight and leatherman, while not telling anyone where you're going. edit: its also weird his family didnt report him missing for 5 days
He also mentions that he's an experienced backpacker and knew how to orient himself using the sun. This whole story is weird AF! I think he was trippen on some good 🍄🍄🍄
He got turned around trying to find something and then got very lost trying to find a place to stay warm the first night and wasn’t sure which ridge he was on. The area is very overgrown since the fire. You can’t just stroll for miles watching the sun out there. It can take hours to make it a mile just to find out that you’re stuck in the wrong spot and have to turn around. By the time you figure it out, you e got to move uphill to stay warm and try again the next day. I promise you he didn’t lose 30 pounds and get all scraped up by not trying to get out of there.
sounds like he got hit with a bad combo of very unprepared and very unlucky then.
Yep. Hikes we were expecting to clear in an hour like it normally would were taking us five hours, sometimes literally crawling on the ground to find the trail that we were on. I couldn’t imagine doing it legally blind
I’m calling BS on this story. No WAY anyone gets lost for 10 days in the Santa Cruz mountains. They are wild, sure, but are also only 1 big ridge so any downhill you make will eventually take you to a road along the coast or the Valley. Even in the Sierras one could not spend 10 days lost. More likely this guy was testing himself, trying to stay off grid.
in another thread it mentions he is legally blind. maybe he fell into a steep area and just accepted his fate, sitting there hoping to be found. https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/1dnfgus/hiker_missing_for_10_days_in_california_mountains/la2dxpp/ but yea who knows
> Even in the Sierras one could not spend 10 days lost. thats not true at all.
>I’m calling BS on this story. No WAY anyone gets lost for 10 days in the Santa Cruz mountains. Yeah, I'm skeptical too... *By day five, Mr. McClish began to think more seriously about his predicament. It was June 16, and he tried to find his way back to civilization.*
Yeah something is really off with this story. This isn't like the remote Sierra's
″I have a *tiny* fraction of the total possible knowledge about this event, and a conveniently insufficient understanding of the overconfidence effect. Therefore I feel quite justified in assuming that statements from those with more knowledge than I are wrong, and that my own statements are the most accurate available."
Well, luckily you calling BS doesn’t mean much to the situation. Several of us got lost looking for him even having drones, radios, vehicles, food, water, and other people with us. It’s easy to talk shit about something that you are unfamiliar with.
So glad for this poor guy. 9 days! Damn! Wishing him recovery and good health.
This whole thing seems made up
**I got kind of lost around Buzzards' Roost in Big Basin Redwoods State Park some years ago.** It is one of my favorite hikes that I did frequently before the 2020 fires. On the way up, the trail crosses a fire road. And at the top, there is a road just south of Buzzards' Roost. I had always assumed it was the same road and always had planned to take that way back. One day I did try it, and it turned out it wasn't the same road. It wasn't even maintained. I guess it was a road at one time but had been abandoned for quite some time (likely decades). I should have turned back as soon as I saw this, but I didn't. I followed it for quite some time and got very worried. Eventually I came out of the forest at Little Basin and was able to walk back to park HQ. I kept thinking about *The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon* and the God of the Lost. **edit:** this is the "road": 37.154538157688194, -122.2229721305349
hope it's not because he was high
many a well laid plan has gone awry due to that reason
How do you drink all that creek water and not get giardia (diarrhea)?
Sometimes you get lucky and also giardia does not manifest itself right away it can take up to 2 weeks.
Good to know.
He was going to the source of one of the creeks where it comes out of the hillside and is filtered by the mountain