A backpacking tent is a necessity even when you expect to do only a simple hike. I learned this lesson the hard way, personally, and it would’ve been at a great cost were I not lucky enough to have been rescued by volunteer forest rangers who dutifully responded to a midnight call.
My friends and I hadn’t taken any gear at all, never mind a backpacking tent. It was supposed to be nothing more than a quick enough romp up and down a straightforward mountain of modest height, some two thousand feet above ground level and the tallest point in all of the region. It was Mount Buck, near Lake George in upstate New York, the busiest tourist attraction around for miles. Yet as luck would have it, it turned out to be a cloudy, then rainy, day (note to self: check weather forecast day-of).
Nevertheless with no backpacking tent, we decided to proceed anyway. After all, we’d traveled up from New York City hundreds of miles, way over three hours by car; we really needed to stretch our legs! But soon it got dark – just like in the movies, fading to black in mere seconds – and we’d thought we were done for. It was literally black, and we made the decision to remain in place so that we do not worsen our predicament.
Luckily, that fateful choice proved to be the right one, as it was through remaining on the trail that volunteer forest rangers, hiking up the trail hours later, were able to fairly easily rescue us. But until that hopeful time, at one or two in the morning, we had to endure the cold – how cold it gets, and how rapidly, in a forest! And so in no way leave home without portable shelter: always take your tent along, no matter what.
No comments yet.