Important safety tip
Jul. 28th, 2010 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kengrI don't care if it's "only a few steps away". If you are out in the woods, even close to civilization TAKE YOUR WATER WITH YOU.
I almost became an example of why you need to do this today.
I was geocaching up around Rocky Butte here in Portland. First cache was easy. Well, except for the trail I picked as the shortest route (it was) leading along the edge of a hundred foot drop.
By edge, I mean "edge of trail" to "vertical drop" was like 6-12 inches. And the trail wasn't that wide. Being more than a bit acrophobic, this was *not* fun.
Of course, when I got nearer to the cache I could move away from the cliff edge. And after finding it, I found that the longer way I'd passed up, wasn't that much longer and didn't go near the cliff edge. Oy.
Started farther up the road to the top and discovered that it didn't come any closer than 400 feet to the next cache. I noted a possible turn off and continued on up to the "earth cache" that I knew was on top. Great view from up there.
Need to go back up with the good camera and the tripod. Also take some containers to harvest wild blackberries.
So, I headed back down and tried the turnoff I'd spotted. Had to climb a slope via a "path" that'd been cleared by a small bulldozer. That got me within 60-80 feet, but I'd have to climb down a slope thru some nasty underbrush. but I could just barely see a trail below.
Saw there was a somewhat better service road leading down in another direction so I took that, it seemed to be going in a likely direction to find an end of the path I'd seen.
Several false starts later, I'd finally found a way onto the path. And I pushed the bike along it until I was within a hundred or so feet of the cache. There was a trail going damn near straight up the side of the hill. As in someone hard hacked *steps* into the dirt of the hillside. And not very well. Since the part of the trail I'd come in on seemed to not be much used, I parked the bik there and headed up.
Hey, like I said it was *only* a hundred feet or so.
Note, according to the track log on my GPS, I was at 384 feet above sea level at this point.
When after a lot of scrambling (and several rests), I'd gotten within 20 feet of the cache the log shows the altitude as 447 feet. So I'd gained 63 feet of altitude in less than 120 feet horizontal. And the "path" had a fair bit of sideways in that 120 feet.
Once up there, I realized I didn't trust myself to be able to get back *down* safely.And I was sweating like a pig. And my water was back at the bike.
Oy. I just noted the time stamps. I did that distance (and climb) in 12 minutes (including the rests). I are an idiot.
So, after giving up on locating the cache I had to go *up* the trail. I was hoping it came out near the turnoff. No such luck.
Nope it came out at the top of the butte.
And checking the log data, I see I was even dumber. 123 foot climb, about 800 foot horizontal. In 11 minutes. Of course, I was sort of forced because I reaklly needed to get back to my water and there weren't suitable places to take much of a rest on the way up.
*Long* walk down the road and about two thirds of the way around the butte to get back to the bike. And I'm damn lucky I didn't get heatstroke or worse.
Definitely take the water with me in the future. And bring the walking stick. With it, I might have been able to get down the way I got up.
And after looking at those logs, I *definitely* have a problem with pushing myself too hard. Alas, part of that is that for some things like climbing stairs (or a slope) I *can't* do it slowly. I either do it at a certain speed or I stumble or have other problems.
I almost became an example of why you need to do this today.
I was geocaching up around Rocky Butte here in Portland. First cache was easy. Well, except for the trail I picked as the shortest route (it was) leading along the edge of a hundred foot drop.
By edge, I mean "edge of trail" to "vertical drop" was like 6-12 inches. And the trail wasn't that wide. Being more than a bit acrophobic, this was *not* fun.
Of course, when I got nearer to the cache I could move away from the cliff edge. And after finding it, I found that the longer way I'd passed up, wasn't that much longer and didn't go near the cliff edge. Oy.
Started farther up the road to the top and discovered that it didn't come any closer than 400 feet to the next cache. I noted a possible turn off and continued on up to the "earth cache" that I knew was on top. Great view from up there.
Need to go back up with the good camera and the tripod. Also take some containers to harvest wild blackberries.
So, I headed back down and tried the turnoff I'd spotted. Had to climb a slope via a "path" that'd been cleared by a small bulldozer. That got me within 60-80 feet, but I'd have to climb down a slope thru some nasty underbrush. but I could just barely see a trail below.
Saw there was a somewhat better service road leading down in another direction so I took that, it seemed to be going in a likely direction to find an end of the path I'd seen.
Several false starts later, I'd finally found a way onto the path. And I pushed the bike along it until I was within a hundred or so feet of the cache. There was a trail going damn near straight up the side of the hill. As in someone hard hacked *steps* into the dirt of the hillside. And not very well. Since the part of the trail I'd come in on seemed to not be much used, I parked the bik there and headed up.
Hey, like I said it was *only* a hundred feet or so.
Note, according to the track log on my GPS, I was at 384 feet above sea level at this point.
When after a lot of scrambling (and several rests), I'd gotten within 20 feet of the cache the log shows the altitude as 447 feet. So I'd gained 63 feet of altitude in less than 120 feet horizontal. And the "path" had a fair bit of sideways in that 120 feet.
Once up there, I realized I didn't trust myself to be able to get back *down* safely.And I was sweating like a pig. And my water was back at the bike.
Oy. I just noted the time stamps. I did that distance (and climb) in 12 minutes (including the rests). I are an idiot.
So, after giving up on locating the cache I had to go *up* the trail. I was hoping it came out near the turnoff. No such luck.
Nope it came out at the top of the butte.
And checking the log data, I see I was even dumber. 123 foot climb, about 800 foot horizontal. In 11 minutes. Of course, I was sort of forced because I reaklly needed to get back to my water and there weren't suitable places to take much of a rest on the way up.
*Long* walk down the road and about two thirds of the way around the butte to get back to the bike. And I'm damn lucky I didn't get heatstroke or worse.
Definitely take the water with me in the future. And bring the walking stick. With it, I might have been able to get down the way I got up.
And after looking at those logs, I *definitely* have a problem with pushing myself too hard. Alas, part of that is that for some things like climbing stairs (or a slope) I *can't* do it slowly. I either do it at a certain speed or I stumble or have other problems.
