This trip to Maroon Bells, Colorado, 19 years ago, convinced me to never go backpacking again. 

Youtube suggested a channel to me that brought that trip to mind.  It’s about people who die on hiking trips.

The channel is called The Last Hike, and using interviews and official reports, they piece together the sequence of events that resulted in tragedy.

In a literature, a tragedy has a tragic hero, tragic flaw and the downfall.  Each incident is like that.  I should feel bad, but the tragic flaw means we see that the downfall is earned. 

Watching that two hour compilation, a couple of things stood out, and reminded me of that trip to Maroon Bells.

Going hiking in your late 40’s, you may as well wear a red shirt, because you’re going to die.  My guess is that at about that age, a person has lost strength and stamina, but hasn’t yet accepted that fact.

I was 47 for the Maroon Bells trip.  Joe was maybe 28, and Jason was in his mid-thirties.

Also, God punishes hubris.  People who are too casual about the route, reject advice or aren’t realistic about their situation, and end up in trouble.

I had done a few serious backpacking trips with Sierra Club to Yosemite and Denali National Parks, and several non-serious backpacking trips to near the Grand Canyon and Zion National Parks.  Joe and Jason had done some casual backpacking.

We had a challenging itinerary.  The Maroon Bells Four Passes loop was 28 miles, and we planned on 5 days. 

The first day, we had to get up to Buckskin Pass at an altitude of 12,500 feet.  It became a death march, and I wasn’t up to it.  I get it.  Push yourself, keep moving, slow down, hydrate.  All that.  I knew my limits, and this trip exceeded them.  If I made it to Buckskin Pass, there are three more after that.

I told the guys.  Joe is an accommodating guy, so he admitted it that it was a slog, but we could probably make it.  Jason really wanted to keep going.  

I couldn’t make it.  My plan was to head down to the car.  I’d fire three shots if I got into some kind of trouble.  I’d take the car and camp somewhere.  Get a hotel, whatever.  I’d drive back to the trailhead every day at noon to pick them up.  It was too remote for cell phone coverage.

Jason was being a little bitch about it, which I didn’t understand.  I’m not stopping you, I’m just not continuing.  When it started to rain, Joe was done.   We had no problem getting down the mountain.

In those national park tragedy videos, a big problem is a person not admitting to the group that they cannot continue.  I am fortunate that I had the experience to know I was done, and the fortitude to not be pressured to continue.

For people in their 20’s and 30’s, the lesson from that Youtube channel is that social media will kill you. 

I don’t get it.  You see posts on social media of people you don’t know, standing in a particularly scenic spot, so you want yourself in that photo.  Before you know it, a nice trip to Yellowstone ends with you being hip deep in a boiling mud pot. 

I like that channel for background.  It’s not morbid, or maybe I’m just callous and cynical.  Each incident seems like a cautionary tale.