Ah, but a walk in the woods for someone who is not aware of the dangers can be fatal. Inexperienced hikers and climbers can make fatal mistakes without realizing it. A National Parks Services superintendent put it this way: “The number-one cause of injury and death is unpreparedness. You must always ask yourself, ‘What if?’ What if it rains for three days straight? Is my tent waterproof? What if I lose my compass? What if the rescue party doesn’t find me?”
Hiking death statistics are hard to find. There are several reasons – hiking can embrace mountain climbing and other activities, and because they occur in widely disparate locations, death certificates are never collated into one solid statistic. Plus, most death certificates will list the cause of death as exposure or a fall, not a hiking accident. But here’s a grim statistic: The climbing rangers at Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park claim that less than 1 percent of backcountry accidents are attributed to natural causes like falling rocks, avalanches and animal attacks. Instead, hikers die because they were unprepared for what they would encounter.
Rescuing an inexperienced hiker can be costly. Prolonged rescues in backcountry areas can cost well into the six figures, embracing manpower hours, supplies for the search party, and things like helicopters and emergency crews.
The Right Supplies
Safe hiking starts with planning. Bringing the right gear on a trip into the wilderness is a matter of comfort and convenience, but also can be life-saving under the right circumstances. It’s not all that rare for hikers to become lost. Each year, rangers in Yosemite National Park respond to about 250 emergency incidents in their 800-square-mile jurisdiction.