Ran for my life out of the woods.

Woods Walker

The Wood is cut, The Bacon is cooked, Now it’s tim
Joined
Jun 8, 2008
Messages
5,433
Location
New England woods.
The plan was simple. I have not bivy/tarp camped during a storm in a few years. Basic kit. Ridgerest closed cell pad, 10x8 tarp, sleeping bag, USGI Gortex bivy. Also wanted to do a video and pics of my pulk sled for the forums. Two birds one stone. Do the video and pics of the pulk sled then spend the night. So I hit the trail with the pulk. Setup my shelter then finished the pulk video. Then it all went to hell in a hand basket. The wind picked up. The snow turned heavy and wet. The trees bent way over. Then I had an epiphany..... I must get out... As in right now!!! So packed it all up and did the short 1.5 miles to the trail head. Trees branches, some widow maker class where coming down. Made it out and had an awful ride back. Now it appears the power is ready to go out as it's blinking so will post these pics right now.


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So anyone else ever run for their lives out of the woods?
 

zespectre

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
May 21, 2005
Messages
2,197
Location
Lost in NY
Oh hell yes.
Made it off the ridgeline of a mountain about 10 minutes ahead of a storm that dumped 1.5 feet before it was done.
Hell of a run to the vehicle and a nightmare drive down the mountain switchbacks from 4,000ft to 900ft.

I don't EVER want to repeat that one :O

Damn nice photos though
 

niraya

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Sep 5, 2012
Messages
61
Location
EU


So anyone else ever run for their lives out of the woods?

Good decision! I never did have to run. But some years ago, my friend was found frozen in forest. He went very far and weather went berserk unexpectedly. He was found three months later. Nature can be brutal and you can only make bad decision once.
 

scout24

Flashaholic
Joined
Dec 23, 2008
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8,869
Location
Penn's Woods
We wound up with just shy of a foot, had a 75' tall pine tree come down across one of the big sheds/small garages. Had a few big pieces snap off from healthy looking trees, and more than a few good sized branches come down. You definktely made the right choice coming out quickly, especially if you were on trail solo. Mother Nature is an amazing force.

Edit- I'll bet the pulk was a fair bit lighter than last time. :) I'll assume it handled better?
 
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troutpool

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Apr 22, 2010
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1,324
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Arizona
I never ran out of the woods, but I have waded pretty fast out of trout streams at the sudden approach of a lightning storm, or, once in Yellowstone, when a grizzly bear started crossing the stream near the spot I was fishing. In Wisconsin, a frisky young bull once chased me out of his pasture on Pine Creek.
 
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Woods Walker

The Wood is cut, The Bacon is cooked, Now it’s tim
Joined
Jun 8, 2008
Messages
5,433
Location
New England woods.
We wound up with just shy of a foot, had a 75' tall pine tree come down across one of the big sheds/small garages. Had a few big pieces snap off from healthy looking trees, and more than a few good sized branches come down. You definktely made the right choice coming out quickly, especially if you were on trail solo. Mother Nature is an amazing force.

Edit- I'll bet the pulk was a fair bit lighter than last time. :) I'll assume it handled better?

Snaked through the trees like a dream. :)
 

Woods Walker

The Wood is cut, The Bacon is cooked, Now it’s tim
Joined
Jun 8, 2008
Messages
5,433
Location
New England woods.
I never ran out of the woods, but I have waded pretty fast out of trout streams at the sudden approach of a lightning storm, or, once in Yellowstone, when a grizzly bear started crossing the stream near the spot I was fishing.

Lightning kinda sucks when someone is out in the open. A few times I hurried off the higher ridges during a hike. The night before the storm hit I was doing a field use review of a flashlight. Beyond almost bumping into two skunks I got underwater footage of native brookies. Made for a great IPX-8 test of the light.
 

Woods Walker

The Wood is cut, The Bacon is cooked, Now it’s tim
Joined
Jun 8, 2008
Messages
5,433
Location
New England woods.
Still no power so in the other house. However as stated the flashlight hobby paid off last night. Everyone in the house got something.




1. My sister got an old D cell LED lantern. It was from Sportsman's guide, Nitecore LR30 and a Fenix LD10.


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2. My nephew got a Luci Lux, Nitecore NU20 and 4/7 Smart Quark.


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3. I Had a standard version warm Tiara headlamp, Luci light Outdoors V2 and a AT Partner warm 2XAA flashlight.


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Charging the phones.


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Downed trees and branches in the yard. There are more than this but snapped these shots on the way out.


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The inline big junkerac died after a storm a few years ago so replaced it with a cheaper one which I ran for a few hours to chill down the fridge and keep the fish alive. The fish (one neon tetra) is with me now along with two very very angry parakeets.
 

Woods Walker

The Wood is cut, The Bacon is cooked, Now it’s tim
Joined
Jun 8, 2008
Messages
5,433
Location
New England woods.
The snow stuck to everything. If I waited another hour would never been able to drive back to the house from the woods as the road got taken out by a fallen tree.


From last night.


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Woods Walker

The Wood is cut, The Bacon is cooked, Now it’s tim
Joined
Jun 8, 2008
Messages
5,433
Location
New England woods.
Area lighting. Tricks of the trade.


18650 powdered Fenix lantern is nice.


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But if yea don't have something like that ceiling bouncing a flashlight or headlamp works really well for no glare area lighting.


Wizard white standard version headlamp running 18650.


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4/7 Knight EDC 1XCR123 or in this case 16340.


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scout24

Flashaholic
Joined
Dec 23, 2008
Messages
8,869
Location
Penn's Woods
WW-I'm pretty sure I'm only a couple hours west of you. If you need it, my eu2000i is available... Good luck with the cleanup!
 

Woods Walker

The Wood is cut, The Bacon is cooked, Now it’s tim
Joined
Jun 8, 2008
Messages
5,433
Location
New England woods.
Thanks brother. I am good!

Power back on per neighbor as not there right now. Today they dealt with the two issues on the road. One down line and tree earlier today.


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bykfixer

Flashaholic
Joined
Aug 9, 2015
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John 3:16
We didn't get the concrete heavy snow, but got some significant wind.
My brother lives in one of the remaining houses on our homeplace from when the ancestors arrived around 1900. It is a house that was built on 18" tall brick piers. One strong gust twisted the house about 2 degrees. Yup, a 35x40 house full of furniture etc.

Running out of the woods? Oh, that reminded me of a time as a lad, we had found an abandoned underground fort and sat around the perimeter with a bon fire in the center a few times one summer... until some idiot one night decided gasoline sprayed from a 409 bottle was a good short cut.
The gasoline melted the suction straw. So he poured gasoline from the bottle onto a small fire. Fire chased the vapor trail back to the bottle rim. He did not know that until somebody said "uh, dude your bottle is on fire". He does the whole WTF thing and tosses it.... towards the crowd.

Having about 50 people with coolers of beer, we tried putting it out. Trouble was the underfoot area of a pine forest in late summer was nothing but extremely dry pine straw and the peat below.
Most had scattered but a few remained trying to put out the fire. Fire was spreading under our feet. WOW!! It was like being in a movie.

It was sureal as you are pouring liquid on a small fire and to your left some 25 feet away suddenly a fire erupts from the earth.
There was a creek nearby so when the beer was all gone we scooped water from that and ended up putting out the fire... or so we thought.

Next day a couple of us went back to retrieve the lawn chairs etc and saw where it had erupted again and the local fire department was on scene. About 2 acres had been scorched along the ground.

I still owe that guy a good swift kick in the arse...

At one point where my sister lives (at the Outter Banks of NC) some bear poacher accidently caught the woods on fire in the dismal swamp. The peat burned for like 2 years until a hurricane finally put it out. I remember her evacuating inland that year due to the hurricane and saying "well at least we won't have to smell pine straw burning anymore".
 
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Hugh Johnson

Enlightened
Joined
Jan 15, 2017
Messages
334
WW, you're inspiring me to do some hike in camping. I'm currently a car camper. Even with this story, just need to stay aware. Glad you're safe.
 

Keitho

Enlightened
Joined
Jun 7, 2017
Messages
781
Location
CO, USA
I've hustled out of lightning areas and storm areas, but what first came to mind was when my then girlfriend (now wife) and I ran away from heat! We spent longer than it should have taken to head out onto a south-TX beach to set up a romantic night of camping under the stars, listening to the waves. We were the only ones on the beach. It ended up being too windy for a proper fire, and too windy to efficiently set up a tent. After finally getting it set up, getting inside, and zipping it up to protect us from blowing sand, we realized that, while protected from the wind, it was sweltering and humid inside the tent! We were too busy battling the wind to realize that sleeping in a sand-filled tent at over 90 degrees F wasn't going to be "romantic" in any way...

After a few minutes of sweating and laughing in the tent, we broke down camp and checked in to a hotel!
 

kelmo

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Aug 27, 2004
Messages
3,092
Location
Sacramento
A long time ago when I was young I hiked to the top of Mt Whitney (14,505 feet tall) in California. It was a three day trip. The first day I and my friend Cathy drove from Alameda to Mt Whitney where we met up with friends and camped in the desert. Bright and early the following day we hiked up the mountain and set up basecamp and proceeded to summit the peak. All was well until that night. I got up in the middle of the night and noticed my friend had labored breathing, a high fever, and was gurgling. I remember reading about the warning signs of pulmonary edema when we were getting our permit at the Ranger station and the gurgling fit the profile. Our base camp was at 12,000 feet and I needed to get her below 10,000 feet or her lungs would continue to fill with fluid until she passed out and worse, died. We broke camp but by this time she was delirious. This was before I got into flashlights so all I had was a AA Maglight. I could not find the trail head, everything was covered in snow and ice. A mountain climber saw us and helped us hike down below 10,000 feet where we spent the night. I eventually got us down. I lived in Alameda at the time and Cathy resided in San Diego. She was a very fit woman and annually her and three friends did a relay swim from Catalina Island to LA. I got her on a flight back home and she called about a month later. She had contracted pneumonia and spent 1 week in intensive care. Running for your life or someone else's life sucks...

kelmo
 
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