Rich Landers: Common sense invaluable during winter

Technology has great potential for adding a measure of safety to outdoor adventures, but it’s no match for poor planning, bad decisions and horrendous weather.

The climbing tragedy unfolding on Mount Hood is just one case in point.

Going light and fast is a sound mountaineering tactic in the right conditions. In this case, however, the climbers stacked too many odds against themselves and apparently shrugged off the essential question many of us neglect to ask before heading out:

“Are we prepared for the unexpected?

The men were new to the mountain, yet they chose a difficult route in cold-weather conditions where they were unlikely to encounter other climbers and the potential to get assistance and additional insulation should it be needed.

Those are factors that should have encouraged them to pay $5 apiece to rent emergency locator units that have been made available to Mount Hood climbers for years in the wake of other similar tragedies on the mountain.

They had a mobile phone, but perhaps they relied on it only to see their hopes fade along with a draining battery and weak signal.

Then a forecasted storm slammed the door shut on their chances to overcome whatever it was that went terribly wrong.

Meantime, two snowshoers from Colville last week shrugged off the second question outdoorsmen often neglect to ask even when weather conditions are giving away the answer:

“Should we bag the trip and retreat?

On Friday, during the most serious Pacific Northwest winter wind storm in memory, Keith Wakefield, the Colville National Forest winter recreation expert, was shaking his head in exasperation as he witnessed the judgment of winter recreationists at Sherman Pass.

“The Sno-Park lot was drifted in, so skiers and snowshoers had parked six cars on the highway, blocking the entrance to the parking lot so the plow truck couldn’t get in,” he said. “That was the first clue that these people weren’t thinking.”

Wakefield encountered two snowshoers at the pass who said they were going to head south into the backcountry 6 miles to meet friends who were at the Snow Peak cabin.

Wakefield tried to talk them out of it.

“You could see the avalanche hazard developing with the drifting snow right there at the pass,” he said. “The visibility was bad, route-finding was difficult and there was extreme hazard from the high winds knocking down dead trees along the trail through the old (forest fire) burn.

“I explained all the risks, but they took off anyway.”

Later that night, the two snowshoers used a cell phone to tell the Sheriff’s Department that they were hunkered in a tree well, lost, cold and uncomfortable. Even though the snowshoers had winter gear and sleeping bags, the deputies felt they had no choice but to call a search team, head out in the dark through the dangerous woods and rescue the dimwits.

They all walked out around 5 a.m.

In the days before cell phones, the snowshoers would have had to build a shelter, make a fire, use their sleeping bags and endure the uncomfortable night. They might have learned a lesson.

That’s the scary thing: Does technology discourage us from learning survival lessons?

Pioneers in covered wagons had to know a few things about survival – or they didn’t survive. Simple as that.

Nowadays people jump in their cars in a Thanksgiving snowstorm and head over Snoqualmie Pass wearing flip-flops.

Vehicle heaters and cell phones disconnect our survival instincts.

Most people don’t even realize that winter reduces our margin for error.

An Air Force survival instructor once let me tag along as he tried to pare down his vast knowledge of survival into a few useful nuggets that elementary school kids could grasp in a few hours.

This was hard, considering that most kids nowadays aren’t allowed to experiment with knives and matches, two important survival items.

He whittled his message to six words:

“Health, shelter, fire, water, signal, prevention.

Survival situations often involve an accident, he said. Take care of your injury and get out of immediate danger first.

Then make shelter. He pulled a plastic grocery bag from his pocket and put it over his head before working on bigger shelter.

“Always have a plastic bag in your pocket,” he said. “Stay dry. Wetness kills.”

He told the kids they might save their parents’ lives by putting a blanket, plastic bags, emergency road flares, water bottles, peanut butter, a whistle, candles and matches in the family car.

Prevention was stressed repeatedly.

“Always tell a responsible adult where you are going, what you’re going to do, when you’ll return and who you’re with,” he said. “Never go out alone. Take gear appropriate for the conditions.”

From my own outdoor experience, here’s one of the most underrated nuggets of survival advice:

“Always have a Plan B.

Sometimes the risks posed by weather and conditions aren’t worth the adventure.

The bravest outdoorsmen I know are those who overcame their egos, stood up to group pressure and talked their partners into heading back to town for dinner and a movie.