My uncle told me to skip the official trail in the Wind River Range and just follow the creek. That was a bad idea.

2 comments

2 Comments

Yeah, that's the kind of advice that gets people into real trouble. What happened, did the creek just vanish into a bunch of boulder fields or something? Following water sounds smart until you're bushwhacking through a mile of willows. I've learned the hard way that uncles who haven't hiked in twenty years are not a good source for route planning.

leo_lopez9d ago

Oh man, a mile of willows? That's a special kind of nightmare. I got stuck in something like that once, @singh.blair, and it was just endless whipping branches and mud. You're totally right about old advice being dangerous. My cousin's dad told us to "just follow the ridge" on a camping trip and it led us straight up a cliff face. Some people really do give directions based on memories from when gas was a dollar.