Ore. mushroom pickers found alive after 6 days

[Aonghus]

Ore. mushroom pickers found alive after 6 days

Wow. Talk about unprepared.

Let's see. What would I do....hmmmm...MAYBE BRING A PACK WITH SOMETHING IN IT!

[Shaper]

Ore. mushroom pickers found alive after 6 days

Wow. Talk about unprepared.

Let's see. What would I do....hmmmm...MAYBE BRING A PACK WITH SOMETHING IN IT!

But packs are, like, heavy, and stuff.

Plus, if you eat enough mushrooms, Daddy Sasquatch will find you and take care of you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wulpj1Xto

[BigDaddyTX]

Left their jackets and dogs at the jeep.. left the jeep.. it's amazing how turned off your brain can become when you decide you're lost. It surprises me every time. One of them needs to take up smoking, they'd have been saved in no time.. or just carry a lighter and a mirror in a pack.. maybe a map or gps.

[Czechnology]

I have seen many people up in the woods hunting mushrooms at the same time as me. Some of them are in full foul weather gear, and are obviously prepared for the rapid changes in weather @ those altitudes, and some of them look like a light rain would do them in.

My biggest concern is always the weed farms, or rather the people who guard them, and the... ornery asian immigrants who defend "their" patch like they would in their home country. (sometimes with more than words!)

Lots of people don't take nature seriously, and there's a lot of it up here for them to get into trouble with. Even I had to completely change my mindset about outdoor preparedness when I moved here, because I'd grown accustomed to Appalachian conditions. I had never even considered the utility, let alone damn near necessity of rain pants until moving here. I now live in a temperate rainforest, and I found that I need a lot less wool, and a lot more fleece and waterproofing. (yes, wool keeps you warm when wet, I said that too at first. It also chafes like a motherfucker, and I'd rather be warm and dry, thank you very much!)

Mushrooms grow @ a decent altitude here, and conditions can change rapidly. Lots of people think they can take the family sedan up the mountain in jeans and cotton hoodies and roam around in the woods for half an hour with a general description of what they're looking for and go home with a bushel of shrooms. Maybe they can once or twice, but eventually they're going to hit bad weather, bad mushrooms, or bad people, and they'll pay for it.

[TacAir]

Thanks for the follow - up.

[jamoni]

Left a Pepsi can on the trail? Jerks.

[duodecima]

At what point did it make sense to leave the car? I'm missing that, completely. Holed up with nothing but clothes on my back in car, vs. hollow log? No question. Also, car is on a road, which seems to increase the odds someone will find it (which they did...) Every time I read/watch one of these, leaving the car seems to make things worse for folks. Not that staying with it guarantees survival, but that leaving the car makes the chances a lot worse...

[jamoni]

At what point did it make sense to leave the car? I'm missing that, completely. Holed up with nothing but clothes on my back in car, vs. hollow log? No question. Also, car is on a road, which seems to increase the odds someone will find it (which they did...) Every time I read/watch one of these, leaving the car seems to make things worse for folks. Not that staying with it guarantees survival, but that leaving the car makes the chances a lot worse...

They lost the car while hunting mushrooms. That's what precipitated the emergency.

[Regulator]

No way to make fire and no whistle? Easily could have fit in a pocket and saved them a lot of trouble. Fail. They even had a dog and didn't eat it, double fail. Glad they were found, hope they learned.

[Czechnology]

At what point did it make sense to leave the car? I'm missing that, completely. Holed up with nothing but clothes on my back in car, vs. hollow log? No question. Also, car is on a road, which seems to increase the odds someone will find it (which they did...) Every time I read/watch one of these, leaving the car seems to make things worse for folks. Not that staying with it guarantees survival, but that leaving the car makes the chances a lot worse...

They lost the car while hunting mushrooms. That's what precipitated the emergency.

Mushrooms don't generally grow on vehicle-passable trails. Too much sun. You do find SOME, but they're usually an indicator of where to look deeper in the woods. We park on USFS roads and hike into the woods, either up or downslope to make direction-finding easier.

[duodecima]

At what point did it make sense to leave the car? I'm missing that, completely. Holed up with nothing but clothes on my back in car, vs. hollow log? No question. Also, car is on a road, which seems to increase the odds someone will find it (which they did...) Every time I read/watch one of these, leaving the car seems to make things worse for folks. Not that staying with it guarantees survival, but that leaving the car makes the chances a lot worse...

They lost the car while hunting mushrooms. That's what precipitated the emergency.

Mushrooms don't generally grow on vehicle-passable trails. Too much sun. You do find SOME, but they're usually an indicator of where to look deeper in the woods. We park on USFS roads and hike into the woods, either up or downslope to make direction-finding easier.

Nah, I just misunderstood the article - I thought they got back to the car and THEN got lost. And I have heard/read some bits about people for whatever reasons leaving their cars to walk, and assumed this was yet another of those stories.

This is more like the family that went for a Xmas tree, lost their way back as it was snowing over their tracks, and were missed on Monday when kids didn't get to school. Also somewhere in the Pacific NW, iirc.

[nateted4]

Yah, I thought this group was lost for good. It's good to hear they found 'em. They were blessed by unseasonably awesome weather the last week. I did not expect a good outcome from this story.

[jamoni]

Fire, water, shelter, food, first aid, comms.
And they had....
None of it, unless you count shrooms.

[ninja-elbow]

Not MY personal experience, but one none-the-less.
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-north ... r_six.html

They got lucky and survived. Again, Oregon - so nice and tranquil. So easy to get lost and killed in.

[Kutter_0311]

A similar search and rescue mission did not fare as well for another family. The pilot who spotted the Connes, John Rachor, also found a San Francisco family who disappeared near Gold Beach in 2006 while he was flying alone. Kati Kim, 30, and her daughters were rescued from their car after being stuck in a snowstorm for nine days with few supplies. James Kim, 35, was found dead two days later in a creek.

Don't be that guy...

[Ad'lan]

Is it bad that the fact I can get lost, really, really lost there, attractive to me about the PNW?

A simple EDC would have made their lives a lot better for those few days, and made their rescue faster. A good knife and means of making fire are essentials.

[Czechnology]

Is it bad that the fact I can get lost, really, really lost there, attractive to me about the PNW?

A simple EDC would have made their lives a lot better for those few days, and made their rescue faster. A good knife and means of making fire are essentials.

Not just really really lost, but really really lost, really really fast.

[ninja-elbow]

Hell, hate to admit it, but me and Nate got "sorta lost" mushroom hunting with Czech and crew last November. It was on a slope, all downhill lead to the road. Still got miscombobulated. Thick underbrush, mud groves, fallen timber - fuck your day up around here and all within a few hundred yards off the road. I had a compass bearing too.

[ninja-elbow]

Ad'Lan is correct - 10 essentials, 5 Cs, 10 Cs ... whatever you want to call them. Would have made life way easier for them folks 6 days out in the wild.

That dude that died in the creek a few years ago? He was fucked. No EDC that was not "full 80 litre pack for sub zero outing and Les Stroud and 4 years of experience" would've helped him. Too bad. He sounded like a cool guy.

Another family got stuck out in the area of Mt. Hood National Forest that I play in, I even recognized the fork in the road they were stuck in, last December. A Dad and his 2 kids went out to play in snow and he got stuck turning his van around as it was getting dicey. They had food and gear and walked out the next day after the van's gas ran out (he kept it running all night for the heat). For those that have been out there with me, they walked some miles back to Ripplebrook where they were able to make some calls.

[maxxb]

Out here in the east side of the state I normally run into one or two people that are lost in the mountains. During elk season I found a lost hunter who came over the wrong side of a ridge and got lost. Normally when we find someone they are from some other area and aren't even carrying a map for the region. Heck one time we ran into one guy trying to find his camp then later we found his camp in the opposite direction he was going.

[Ruppism]

this could of been another fine example of thinning the herd.

[BigDaddyTX]

Dupe:
http://zombiehunters.org/forum/viewtopi ... 31&t=89976

NE Edit - Thanks TX - merged 'em.

[nateted4]

this could of been another fine example of thinning the heard.

I didn't realize tympanic membrane ablation was a common problem.

Unless you meant "herd", in which case I might suggest more sympathy for your fellow man.

[ninja-elbow]

When you are in the trees and bush you can't even take visual bearring via landmark as your visibility is down to "them trees right in front of me".