Hiking in the dark

Sometimes I end up walking, misjudging the distance, and the hike turns into a night hike without planning for one. Occasionally we have planned to walk in the dark. When I was young, living in a small town, the electricity would go off regularly. Sometimes we would be sitting in the movie theater when the lights went out and the movie came to a grinding halt. We would all sit there and clap and yell, but eventually the novelty would wear off and we would file out and walk home. I had to walk up a long hill and it is amazing how dark it is outside with little or no ambient light. The only way I could make sure I didn't fall in a ditch, was to walk with one foot on the pavement and one foot off on the side of the road. It was so dark I really couldn't see my feet.

Maybe it was the darkness of the Colorado Plateau that made me unafraid of the dark and let me know that if you keep walking you will eventually get home or fall into or bump into something. It didn't really matter what happened. One of the more memorable dark night episodes occurred at the Dugway Proving Ground in the salt desert of Utah. At the time, I was being trained as an Army Ranger and I guess they thought it might be a good idea for us to wander around in the dark for a while, just in case we ever had to fight in the dark or anything. So they loaded us all up and trucked us out to the salt desert. It is dark out there at night and I would assume that they chose a night when the moon was supposed to come up pretty late. We were put in teams of two or three and given a compass bearing and a distance. We were supposed to find the next compass bearing and distance at the destination.

We took off in the direction we were supposed to go, walking out across the almost flat and very empty desert. When we had gone the distance, we found the next set of directions, but there was one small problem, back in those pre-digital days, it was too dark to see the directions, or see our compass or even tell what time it was. Every team had a different goal so we weren't all standing around in a group, but we could hear for miles and everybody was having a similar experience. We were on a tiny little hill, mostly just a rise in the ground, and couldn't see a thing. We could barely make out our hands in front of our faces. Looking to the East, I could see a glow on the horizon. I figured if we waited long enough, they would get tired of waiting for us or moon would come up and we would be able to read everything. It is quite interesting standing in the middle of an almost flat desert waiting for the moon to rise. It is amazing how slow the earth turns.

You can probably guess that the moon came up, or I probably wouldn't be telling this story. I can't remember what happened exactly, but I think the organizers got tired of waiting for everyone about 1:00 or 2:00 am and turned on a light and we all walked towards the light, got in our trucks and road back to the base. This must have been some sort-of standard Army experience because from time to time over the years I was in the Army, they would haul us out into the (fill in the blank) and let us try to find our way to (fill in another blank). The novelty of these experiences didn't last long, because before I was in the Army, I had already spent a considerable amount of time wandering around in the desert in the middle of the night. One time, we even swam across Saguaro Lake in the middle of the night. This is not an endorsement for doing things that aren't too bright, in the middle of the night in the desert, but it does cause me to think.

Usually, I start to think about these experiences when I read about someone who wanders away from a camp and gets lost. I could never figure this out. If it were daytime, you can see for miles in the desert and it would be hard to walk far enough so that you couldn't see where you started. Even in the night, there are few clouds and you can almost always see some kind of star which instantly tells you the direction. Even if you can only see a few stars, if you wait a while you can see them move and tell the major cardinal directions. Anyway, the wind always blows from the same direction in the Arizona and Utah at the same time of the year, so even if you can't see anything, if you can feel the wind you know what the directions are. If directions are important that is. It seems like from the time I was young, I had a map of Arizona and Utah in my head and I always knew exactly (or pretty close anyway) where I was.

One time I got disoriented in the middle of the night at Camp Geronimo, near Pine, Arizona. I was walking back to my camp and thought to take a short cut over a hill. When I got over the hill, I didn't know if I had come out above or below my campsite. I walked into another campsite and asked them the number of their site, which, by the way, none of them knew, and finally got an answer and immediately turned and walked to my own campsite.

OK, back to being lost. When I was in the Army in Kentucky and Washington state, I finally realized that with all those trees and bushes, if you got disoriented, it could take a while to find some way to see the sky or anything else for that matter. At least, I could now sympathize with some of the people that got lost.

One of my memorable night hikes was into the Superstition Mountains with a full moon. It was bright enough that we didn't need flashlights and I mostly remember walking through the huge cholla forests, it was like being on another planet. It is interesting but I can remember almost every foot of every trail I have ever hiked. (What a burden!!)

Relative Risk v. Perceived Risk

I am still thinking about the idea of relative v. perceived risk. Many outdoor activities are viewed as risky. For example, downhill skiing appears to have a higher risk factor than walking in a city park. However, depending on the time of day and the location of the park, the walk in the park might be much more of a risk that skiing. There are some activities which, by their nature, are high risk activities. For example, free climbing without protection, is more hazardes than with protection. My issue with the Scouting Magazine article for October, 2008 "Don't get sick on the trail" is the use of an unexplained statistic to increase the reader's perceived risk of an otherwise safe activity. It seems to me that ultimately, the real measure of any activity's risk is the mortality rate per number of participants. The use of mortality rates eliminates the issue that in a rather benign activity, like hiking, the injuries are likely to be minor, whereas a crash in bobsled could be a lot more serious.

Authors Richard J Zeckhauser and W. Kip Viscusi give the following observation:

"Society's system for managing risks to life and limb is deeply flawed. We overreact to some risks and virtually ignor others. Often too much wight is placed on risks of low probability but high salience (such as those posed by trace carcinogens or terrorist action); risks of commission rather than omission; and risks, scuh as those associated with frontier technologies, whose magnitue is difficult to estimate. Too little effort is spent ameliorating voluntary risks, such as those involving automobiles and diet. When the bearers of risk do not share in the costs of reduction, moreover, extravagance is likely. " See Simon, Julian Lincoln. The State of Humanity. Oxford, UK: Blackwell in association with the Cato Institute, 1995.

It is interesting to note the following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mortality Data (See http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/otheract/injury/injury_mortality.htm ):

"In 2002, the 10 leading causes of death were (in rank order) Diseases of heart; Malignant neoplasms; Cerebrovascular diseases; Chronic lower respiratory diseases; Accidents (unintentional injuries); Diabetes mellitus; Influenza and pneumonia; Alzheimer’s disease; Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis; and Septicemia and accounted for about 79 percent of all deaths occurring in the United States."

The CDCP indicates that in 2002, accidents comprised only 4.4% of all deaths in the U.S. However, the death rate for males between the ages of the 10 and 40 is as high as 50% from accidents. Essentially, what that means is that young men are not likely to die of anything else.

Perhaps, it would be a good idea to weigh the benefits of walking and hiking as compared to the risks of heart disease. When obesity is a national epidemic, it not appropriate to give overemphasis to the risks involved in walking around in the sunshine.

Relative Risk

Some further thoughts on the relative risk in outdoor activities. The list of activities in the study include the following:

Boats, Bobsleds, Camping equipment, Climbing, mountain, Exercise (hiking), Fishing, Horseback riding, Ice/snow boating, Jet skis, Mountain bikes, Scuba diving, Sleds, Skydiving/hang gliding, Snow disks, Snow skiing, Snowmobiles, Snowboarding, Surfing, Swimming, Toboggans, Water skis

I find this list to be an interesting selection. First of all, what is the real difference between sleds, toboggans and snow disks? Why include mountain bikes but not other bikes, like road bikes? How many people are injured by fishing? If boats are a different category than fishing, does fishing only include those who are injured while fishing and not in a boat? Why are boats a category when ATVs and off-road vehicles, including motorcycles, are not? Why is swimming an outdoor activity but golfing is not?

The study says that it is focusing on the interaction with the natural environment. What about motocross? It is evident that the assumptions of the study eliminate a lot of inherently dangerous activities and include some, like bobsleding, that very, very few people are ever going to do in their lifetimes.

This got me thinking about risk factors in general. Over the years we have known quite a few young people that have been killed in automobile accidents, in some case, because of not wearing a seat belt. Overall I know a lot of people who have been killed in automobile accidents. I also know a significant number of people who have been killed in airplane accidents. I also know a number of people, mostly men, who have been seriously injured on ATVs. I also personally know a number of people who have been seriously injured riding road bikes. The question here is, which of these activities are perceived as dangerous but are not and which activities are perceived as "safe" and are really dangerous?

More later.

Hiking the third most dangerous outdoor activity

I was reading in the Scouting magazine for October, 2008 and the author of an article called "Don't get sick on the trail" cited a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study listing hiking as the third most dangerous outdoor activity. Not being very impressed with statistics, I looked up the original story. Here it is:

http://www.cdc.gov/media/pressrel/2008/r080610.htm

The CDC news release had an expired link to the Wilderness Medical Society in Salt Lake City, Utah.

http://www.wms.org/

After a bit of searching I found the following report:

Flores AH, Haileyesus T, Greenspan AI. National estimates of outdoor recreational injuries treated in emergency departments, United States, 2004-2005. Wilderness Environ Medicine. 2008;19:91-98.

Unfortunately, that link was also broken, but I did find the original report at:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/E-News/2008/06-12-2008.doc.

• Snowboarding, sledding, and hiking were associated with the highest number of injuries requiring emergency department visits.
• More than two-thirds of patients treated for outdoor-related injuries were male, with the greatest number of injuries affecting young men ages ten to 35.
• Half of all injuries treated were fractures, strains and sprains, and most injuries involved the head and neck or limbs.
• 6.5% of all outdoor injuries in the study were diagnosed as traumatic brain injury, or TBI- a serious injury that helmets, when used appropriately, can help prevent.

The report also noted:

Skiing was the most common of the activities in the “other” category- more than half of the injuries classified as “other” were skiing-related.

Some of the observations of the study made me wish someone would pay me to do this kind of study, such as "Falling while moving at a relatively fast speed increases someone’s likelihood of being injured if they fall." That would never have occurred to me. Actually, what would never have occurred to me is that someone would pay me to say that. Anyway, back to the study.

This may be a valid study, but it occurs to me that they are comparing a lot of very dissimilar activities. I would just guess that many more people go hiking each year than go snowboarding. It is probably easy to guess that there will be more injuries from hiking than from some other types of activities, such as bungee jumping or sky diving. But the absolute number of injuries is meaningless, unless there is an adjustment for the number of people participating in the activity.

I finally did find the entire report at:

http://www.wemjournal.org/pdfserv/i1080-6032-019-02-0091.pdf

The Study notes that 29.8 million people participated in hiking in 2004. What is more important, the overall rate of injury, including very high risk groups, was 4.6 injuries per 100,000. That means that out of 100,000 people participating in hiking only less than five of them will be injured at any given time. Compare this with a FATALITY rate of 13.61 per 100,000 of population for motor vehicle accidents. You can see the statistics at

http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

You are more than three times more likely to die from a motor vehicle accident than you are to be injured while hiking. This doesn't diminish the need to be careful while in the outdoors but it would be nice sometime if the people writing articles for magazines wouldn't use statistics as propaganda.

It seems to be a lot safer to hike around in the desert than it is to drive there on the freeway.

The Scorpion Wars -- Episode One -- The fight to the death

One night I woke up and I felt really strange. I got up and went into the bathroom and realized that my hands were itching. Within a couple of minutes I began to feel like my lips were tingling and my throat was closing up. Since this was not exactly normal, I decided we needed to do something drastic, like go to the hospital. We went to the emergency room and, for a change, were quickly admitted. After a few minutes doctors started interviewing me. One of them shined a light in my eyes and ask me to follow it back and forth from right to left. Strangely enough, I couldn't do that. My eyes were jerking and wouldn't track. The doctor announced that I had been stung by a scorpion and immediately ordered and IV with pure benadryl. Within a few seconds, it was like there was ice water in my blood and the feeling started at my feet and then worked its way up to my head. That ended the scorpion sting effects.

They kept me in the hospital for an hour or so and then sent me home. They said I would probably sleep for most of the day. But, that isn't what happened. I don't get sleepy with benadryl.

Anyway, that was the official start of the Scorpion Wars. Our old house had tons of bugs for many years. Then all the bugs disappeared and we got scorpions. We mostly fight them with sticky glue board traps that work really well. When we moved to our new house, we inherited a huge supply of scorpions. We have killed more than twenty in one evening. We now fight them with glue boards, diotomaceous earth, and a black light. We have sprayed around the house, mostly to kill the bugs scorpions eat. They don't seem to be bothered with any of the commercial spray poisons out there. We can still get two or three in one night. There seems to be a never ending supply.

Tune in for Episode Two

The Magic Kingdom of Okra

The magical appearance of a giant okra plant in my garden gave me the inspiration to write a series of books. I thought I might share a few of the proposed titles with my loyal readers:

Cry, the Beloved Okra
A poor Minister, living on an Okra Plantation in Africa overcomes adversity from the neighboring Kale Planters.

Goodnight, OKRA
A tiny tot is introduced to organic farming through a simple story.

James and the Giant Okra
A young waif is befriended by a motley crew of oversized insects who all ride the waves on a giant okra.

Jack and the Okra Plant
A poor farm boy makes it rich trading okra futures in the stock market.

The Wizard of Okra
A simple girl from Kansas tries to take over the Okra-green City by a multiracial alliance.

The Little Okra on the Prairie
A family faces an okra famine in the Mid-west.

As you can see the possibilities are endless. It is only through pure self restraint that I could be kept from starting some of these non-fiction classics, not mention some of great historical accounts begging to begin:

A Brief History of Okra
The ultimate theory of everything green in the universe.

Godel, Escher, Okra
Only through the meta-okra can we begin to understand the true essence of okra.

The Stillness at Okra
The end of the Great Okra War finally has a voice.

Okra's Seed
The origin of the five okra societies in America.

I couldn't resist one last work, the musical:

Okrahoma
A poor okra farmer struggles to make a living singing on Broadway.

Wait, wait, I almost forgot, that terribly popular TV show:

OKRA

The Invasion of the Giant Okra

A short time ago I noticed a plant growing in our raised garden. It looked like some kind if squash and since it is still hot outside, I figured I would let it grow and see if we could finally get some squash. I am so busy that it was some time before I looked closely at the garden again. The plant had grown appreciably but now looked more like some kind of sunflower. I couldn't image how a sunflower got planted but I decided to let it grow and flower.

My next observation of the garden showed that that plant was almost five feet tall and still growing. The stem was about an inch thick. Finally a few days later, my wife came in one morning and said that the plant was growing chiles. I went out and there was a huge long pointed vegetable. It was definitely an okra. Now, there is a remote possibility that I somehow planted a sunflower seed. But there is no possibility that I planted an okra plant. Here are some pictures of our volunteer okra. We actually have two plants.

Pariah Canyon

Coming out of Pariah, after following the river for nearly forty miles, the canyon widens. The trail leaves the river and starts to cut the meanders. The good news is the trail may actually be shorter by doing this, the bad news is the trail leads into huge sand dunes. As you walk in the brilliant sun, you suddenly realize why Navajo, Hopi and Zuni jewelry uses turquoise, jet, coral and mother of pearl. The sky is turquoise, the canyon walls are coral, the shadows are jet and the clouds are mother of pearl. Unfortunately, this insight is not helpful in climbing the huge hills of sand. As the trail crosses the flat canyon floor, you keep looking hoping that the trail goes around the hills. You keep saying to yourself, "The trail can't go up that hill," "The trail can't go up that hill." It does go up the hill. The struggle is whether the sand is worse than the heat or whether the heat is worse than the sand.

Time doesn't erase the feeling of climbing sand dunes. That feeling is part of the intense feeling of strangeness you feel at the bottom of the Colorado Plateau canyons, especially at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The canyon world is so restricted and yet expansive at the same time, that it is like coming home after a long absence, like a half remembered dream or the smell of dinner when you were young. It is the essence of existence in the light and shade of canyon floor that carries you through all those days when the canyon is only a faint memory. Once there, you never really forget. The canyon is in your soul. There have to be canyons in heaven.

Not what you might expect

Living in the desert, sometimes you have to learn to rely on what it on hand to survive. One day years ago, my father decided to show us a development his company was doing down on the Mexican border. The farming operation turned out to be about 10 miles north of Mexico and about 60 miles from the nearest paved road. Driving back out to the highway in our Rambler Ambassador Stationwagon, my father hit a huge rock and knocked a good sized hole in the gas tank. Instead of becoming vulture bait, he grabbed a bar of soap, jumped out of the car and rubbed the soap on the hole in the tank. Miraculously, within a few seconds the gas stopped leaking and we drove out to the highway and home.

We drove that car for months and months with the hole in the gas tank. Every once in a while, we would get out and put a little more soap on the hole. I think we finally sold the car.

Many years later, after I was married with lots of little children, I drove off the pavement in a camp ground and hit a rock in our Suburban. Same problem, hole in the gas tank. When I finally realized that gas was running out onto the ground I yelled for my wife to grab a bar of soap. She thought I had lost my mind and thought I was going to run over to the water faucet and wash my hands or something. But she got the soap and in a few seconds, like magic, the leak stopped and we were able to drive home.

Good thing we were all raised in the desert.

Storms in the desert

When I was younger, we spent our summers out on the Colorado Plateau, in a small town just north of Arizona's White Mountains. To the south, I had a clear view, across the miles of desert, of the mountains, about thirty miles away. Each day, beginning around the first of July, the clouds would start to build in huge mounds over the mountains. As the day wore on, the clouds would climb higher and higher in the sky, and start to move north out over the relatively flat plateau. As the days progressed and the moisture came up from the Gulf of California across Mexico, the clouds would grow larger and eventually, small thunderstorms would break loose and wander northward.

This was the time for us to jump into action. We could see the small thunder storms moving slowly across the plateau and we could tell approximately where the rain was falling. We would jump in the car and drive out towards the rainstorm, until we found a dirt road leading to where the rain was falling. We would race across the desert on the dirt roads, until we found a spot where it was raining. Then we would pile out of the car and dance around in the rain. As soon as the storm moved on, we would start all over again, trying to find the rain.

Years later, when I was living in Panama, I would still go outside to watch the rain, which caused a lot of people to question my sanity. Even today, if I could drive to a rainstorm I would do it, just to see water fall out of the sky. My father told me a story about a farmer in northern Arizona who was packing his car one day. A neighbor stopped and asked if he were going on a trip. The farmer said yep, he was going to take his son back east. The neighbor asked why he was going to do something like that. In reply the farmer said, Well, I saw rain once, but my boy is almost 17 and I thought he ought to see some rain before he goes to college.