Here’s an mp3 of an interview with Cindy Wysocki, the woman rescued the other day after two nights in the woods in the northern Cascades. (link via WTA Blog).
Three main points emerge from the interview, beyond the obvious about having a just-in-case disaster survival kit.
- Stay mentally focused and don’t waste emotional energy on what could go wrong.
- If you’re under thick tree cover, try to move to a place where searchers can find you. Wysocki heard a river nearby and went in that direction, figuring there’d be open country nearby. That’s where the rescue helicopter spotted her.
- Don’t over-rely on a group’s guidance. Wysocki mentioned she was hiking with two people she trusted and was relying on them to guide her to their destination and back. She got cold and decided to return on her own and was lost within the first half-hour with no maps and no guides. How many of us have gone out with groups and left all the navigating to somebody else?
Oh, and I loved this tidbit: some ecologically dense buffoon had left a perfectly good pair of rain pants in the woods (probably got overheated while snowshoeing and tossed ’em in disgust). Wysocki found the pants and figured they might be useful; they weren’t her size — way too big — but she ended up using them to flag down the helicopter.
(There were some violations of the Hiker Responsibility Code here but let’s face it, if everybody did everything right every time — and their luck held — we’d need no cops, courts or rescue personnel.)