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[pct-l] Re: Hikers Rescued thanks to Cell Phone



John wrote:
>
What is missing here and not explained -- why didn't these two simply 
turn around and retrace their path in instead of hiking thru the snow??

seems to me the better preparation these two need is a large dose of 
common sense.
>

That reminds me; I wanted to strongly recommend the book "Deep Survival"
by Laurence Gonzales.  It's not a book about how to build a fire or
anything like that.  Rather, it's a book about the psychology and
physiology of survival in emergency situations.  People's brains do some
pretty weird things under stress, even when they're otherwise very
common-sensical.  Gonzales talks about why that happens and suggests
ways to avoid it.

In the book Gonzales points out that of all the people who get lost in
the woods, very few _ever_ stop and backtrack.  The urge to move forward
and the delusion that a solution will be just around the next bend is a
powerful one.

Anyway, for those of us who are going nuts with cabin fever, it's a
great book to occupy your time and will probably give prospective PCT
thru-hikers some much-needed tools for mastering the mental and
emotional challenge of the trail.

Eric