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#183113 - 02/22/14 12:22 AM Educating My Friend
GearHead Offline
newbie

Registered: 02/20/14
Posts: 1
Hello,

I am not sure how to title this post but I had a discussion this evening with my new hiking friend about is refusal to purchase Rain Jacket and Pants.

Some history is he has gone on numerous dayhikes for the last several years with a local hiking group in my city. I've seen the pictures listed on the their website of trips everything from Mailbox Peak to Gothic Basin and far between. The former is hard-core *&^%$# and in ALL that time he has never packed nor worn rain clothing.

Another thing is he and others in the group commonly wear cotton Jeans. :>)

So he & I are doing a Day-hike tomorrow morning below deep snow levels (less then 6") i.e., low elevation. Last night over dinner we casually discussed looking for CHEAP Rain Pants for him. His Jacket for rain is a heavy duty insulated Hille Finger Parka that I don't think he's ever worn for Day-Hiking but hey he's willing to pack it.

I went out today and shopped at REI and bought two pairs of WP pants one by Colombia and other a PreCip knockoff with ankle zips. When I told him about my good finds he said, "$50.00"! And then he tells me that he's never worn Rain Pants ever and he really believes that since he has Never been caught out in Wilderness when it's pouring rain that he has no use for carrying a pair of cheap rain pants.

Oh and he's wearing cotton jeans tomorrow too. My God.....

Two years ago I got on of my best friends who expressed an interest in doing really EASY Day-Hikes with me into getting properly geared up. I did all the research and together we got him all the Ten Essentials for low bucks. And our 1st day hike at the end of August an easy no gain 4-miler on the hike out from the lake we both got chilled. Out came the PS150 Gloves, Miro-fleece hats, PL1 pullovers, etc. And in minutes we were both comfy.

How do I educate my new friend and be nice about it? :>)

In the end there is nothing I can do. He told me he wants to do some Backpacking this Summer too....but he's too cheap to spend $50.00 on a pair of H2o pants. I quess there is always Craigslist for gear.

So I'm packing a UL stove setup for tomorrow brew up some tea and/or cocoa maybe soup and taking a Sil Tarp. He'll have his choice of three different Daypacks of mine to choose from and an assortment of Xtra gloves and hats.



Edited by phat (02/22/14 02:57 AM)

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#183115 - 02/22/14 03:09 AM Re: Educating My Friend [Re: GearHead]
phat Offline
Moderator

Registered: 06/24/07
Posts: 4107
Loc: Alberta, Canada
well you have a couple of options

the first is dont go with him

aside from that talk to him and decide how much you care

I survived hiking for many years in jeans. they suck when wet but that alone won't kill you

I most often do not take rain pants. I normally take quick drying stuff. I will take them in winter if digging around in snow. I don't take them on day hikes even in winter (I do take adequate warm clothing and emergency gear including a silnylon tarp/poncho

being wet doesn't kill you. being cold does. its a judgement call but if your friend would prefer to carry a warm heavy jacket and have a cold wet butt and legs let him hike his own hike. if you genuinely feel he is in danger talk it out but at that point you might not want to go if you are not comfortable that he has enough gear to be safe

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#183128 - 02/22/14 02:35 PM Re: Educating My Friend [Re: GearHead]
billstephenson Offline
Moderator

Registered: 02/07/07
Posts: 3917
Loc: Ozark Mountains in SW Missouri
This is a tough one. The thing he has to realize is that his backup plan is you giving him your gear and that's really a sucky backup plan.

He'll deny that, but he doesn't have any other, so that's it.

I'd put together a pack with some essentials and insist he carry it. Tell him you won't hike with him if he doesn't carry it, and you'll buy him a beer if he doesn't use anything in it, but it will cost him a beer if he does, and put two beers in the pack you give him wink
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#183129 - 02/22/14 04:15 PM Re: Educating My Friend [Re: billstephenson]
Gershon Offline
member

Registered: 07/08/11
Posts: 1110
Loc: Colorado
Stick a good 30 gallon trash bag in your pack and a length of paracord or a long belt. Cut the bottom out of the trash bag. In an emergency, you can make a skirt which will keep the upper legs dry. The lower legs won't matter much. In warmer weather, a 30 gallon bag makes a reasonable poncho as long as you don't move too fast and sweat under it.

My rain jacket is an essential part of my layering system, but people have different solutions. I have an REI version of the Precip.

Groups can be dicey and I find it best to stay in the follower role and keep my mouth shut. Personally, when I go out on a winter hike in most areas, I take a full pack. It may seem extreme, but a badly sprained ankle can quickly turn a day hike into an overnight trip. I usually avoid hiking groups because they always leave too late in the morning and there is always some inexperienced person to slow things down.

I'm not a member of the "cotton kills" club, as my backup plan if I see a wet and chilling situation coming is to set up the tent and get in the sleeping bag. It did happen to me once, and it wasn't a big deal. Sometimes I wear jeans or cotton cargo pants on winter hikes when it's too cold for the possibility of rain. I do carry cheap rain pants in case I need them to break the wind. I sometimes wear synthetic pants in the summer when it's hot, but I think this year, I'm going to switch to shorts. The thing about wearing cotton is a person has to grasp the necessity of staying dry from rain and from perspiration.

Maybe this is a situation where "Hike your own hike" applies.














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#183130 - 02/22/14 06:14 PM Re: Educating My Friend [Re: GearHead]
lori Offline
member

Registered: 01/22/08
Posts: 2801
I have gone out many times with rain pants and never put them on. I have three pairs, one for SAR and then some Precips and also the REI Event pants. I think I have used one or two of them maybe once. He should top half raingear like a jacket or maybe a poncho. I would get some of those two dollar emergency ponchos, stuff them in the side pockets of his pack without him knowing, and then congratulate him when he shows up properly prepared. But I am a wisea$$ and I am intolerant of fools, after being lied to ("I have been backpacking many times" and they cannot hike two miles, have Big 5 junk and can't seem to figure out how their own stuff works) and sometimes ending a trip with my pack plus theirs.

Sell him on a poncho and tell him to carry it or find someone else to take him out and risk sitting at a fire trying to keep him warm instead of hiking out on time.
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#183131 - 02/22/14 07:25 PM Re: Educating My Friend [Re: lori]
bluefish Offline
member

Registered: 06/05/13
Posts: 680
x2 on the poncho. No pack cover needed, can serve as a tarp/shelter, something to sit on when you take a break. If he refuses all emergency gear, hike if you're 100% sure of good weather. In the past, if I've hiked with someone and they blew off my suggestions for being somewhat safe and prepared for the conditions, they got blew off themselves. Don't ruin your hike because someone has a problem being reasonably safe and sane.
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#183134 - 02/22/14 10:13 PM Re: Educating My Friend [Re: GearHead]
jimmyb Offline
member

Registered: 09/16/13
Posts: 276
I wonder what the motivation of being less prepared than possibly necessary your friend has. Might be ego, lack of common sense or just not having faced an eye opening incident before. Sometimes you have one of those eye openers and you think differently about almost everything you plan for.

I tend to agree with Lori's smart #ss ways. My approach might be to plan a hike in a COLD soaking rain. Take him out and if he starts to put on a piece of ran gear say NO, NO, NO, you wont be needing that today as you didn't need it the other day. Let him hike for a VERY short while keeping close to the trail head and then sit and take a break in an open unsheltered area telling him he has just taken a bad fall and can no longer walk on his own. Sit long enough for his body not to be producing heat from activity and when his teeth start chattering say OK I think we learned the importance of keeping dry and head him back to the trailhead ASAP. Now if he's a wise man he will thank you for possibly having saved him from a future hypothermic event.

We all know a wet body is a perfect "cold soak" of body heat and he will surely learn it too. My next move would be to point him in the direction of some good reading on just how easily you can become hypothermic even in the middle of summer. A good article about cold water immersion will explain to him how his body will react when wet and temps start dropping. He may honestly not realize how his body can start to loose its ability to articulate and how his mind will suffer judgment issues as well.

Good luck, jimmyb


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#183141 - 02/23/14 12:46 AM Re: Educating My Friend [Re: jimmyb]
aimless Online   content
Moderator

Registered: 02/05/03
Posts: 3292
Loc: Portland, OR
Sometimes you have one of those eye openers and you think differently about almost everything you plan for.

My eye opener was at age 17, getting snowed on and blasted with freezing winds all night in early August up in the Oregon Cascades. Basically I survived the experience because there was a log shelter to sleep in (since torn down) and someone who had stocked it with firewood and started a fire who let me and my buddies share his bounty. Ever after this night the word 'hypothermia' has meant something to me on a personal level. eek

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#183143 - 02/23/14 09:54 AM Re: Educating My Friend [Re: aimless]
jimmyb Offline
member

Registered: 09/16/13
Posts: 276
Good story Aimless. My eye opener was actually before I started hiking and backpacking. We traveled to the US virgin islands for the first time and St John being a NP had some trails to hike. On my first hike, woefully unprepared for the heat, we hiked along and atop of the island. Thinking this was going to be just a short walk at best I carried NO water. The sun soon dehydrated me to the point of exhaustion and I got to the point I could take only a few steps at a time before I would collapse to the ground. I would pull myself to my feet and take a few more steps...doing that for the remainder of the hike. At one point we were at the top looking down at the ocean and I thought here I am within sight of the cooling waters of the ocean and I feel like I'm gonna die on this pile of rock. Still we enjoyed hiking and when I got home I read everything I could about being prepared in the outdoors. Never have I put myself in a situation like that again.

jimmyb

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#183144 - 02/23/14 12:43 PM Re: Educating My Friend [Re: jimmyb]
billstephenson Offline
Moderator

Registered: 02/07/07
Posts: 3917
Loc: Ozark Mountains in SW Missouri
Quote:
My approach might be to plan a hike in a COLD soaking rain.


I did something like that with one of my brothers who also refused to carry anything on day hikes or gear up for backpacking trips. For years I'd asked him to carry some basic gear and he'd always say "I won't need it" so I'd carry extra clothes, food, and water.

Finally I decided that I wouldn't do that anymore. We went out on a day hike, he got cold, and ornery, and even took off and left me behind while he raced back to the car at the trailhead. I had the keys to the car in my pocket and I was warm and fine so I just watched as he took off ahead of me.

He was shivering cold when I got back and would hardly talk to me. To this day he thinks I was a selfish jerk that day. He still doesn't consider the dozens of times I packed gear to cover his ass, and he used it. He doesn't consider the even more times I packed it and he didn't. All he remembers about that trip is it got cold and I didn't offer my clothes even though I had several layers on. We haven't been hiking together since, and I still feel a little guilty about how the day turned out.

With quite a few years to reflect on it I think that if I'd just insisted he carry the gear I knew he might need he would have and that would have been a better approach to deal with the problem.

On the other hand, had I done nothing he would have gladly let me carry gear for him on every trip since then, so I'm not entirely unhappy with the outcome.
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"You want to go where?"



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#183156 - 02/23/14 08:51 PM Re: Educating My Friend [Re: billstephenson]
jimmyb Offline
member

Registered: 09/16/13
Posts: 276
Bill, that story is a little heart breaking to read in that you guys don't hike together anymore but honestly I wouldn't carry the load of guilt as he didn't carry his load on the trail. Sometimes no matter how hard you try to help folks they just don't get it. I'd have done the same thing.

jimmyb

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#183219 - 02/25/14 12:46 AM Re: Educating My Friend [Re: GearHead]
OregonMouse Online   content
member

Registered: 02/03/06
Posts: 6799
Loc: Gateway to Columbia Gorge
I gather from the destinations (Mailbox Peak, Gothic Basin) that you live in or near Seattle. That is soggy country! (So is Portland where I live.) Not only does it rain a lot from October or November through May or June, but the snow is soggy, too. I used to X-C ski wearing jeans in the Rockies where the snow is dry, but I'd never do it out here on the soggy West Coast!

I gather that the group he has gone with is one of the Meetup groups, not the Mountaineers who supposedly check. When I belonged to and led trips for a similar club in eastern Washington, I always checked! I do know that at least one of the Seattle Meetup groups has ended up in a disaster situation where they had to be rescued, and at least one member of the group lost toes due to frostbite. They took a 2-person tent for 4 people; they didn't keep their insulation dry and they didn't check the weather forecast (hyped by the local TV stations as the "Storm of the Century," which we get every 2-3 years, but still should have been heeded). Your friend might want to read at least the first part (plus some comments) of this extremely long thread on nwhikers.net

The old saying about taking a horse to water but can't make it drink definitely applies here. Either you refuse to take the friend without proper gear (which is what I'd do, because I'd care) or you can carry emergency gear for him (which I wouldn't do because I can barely carry my own gear) or you can let him suffer. Now that the PNW's winter has finally arrived after a very dry November, December and January, you can probably guarantee that the friend will be wet and miserable unless you don't go out until July.

I'd personally practice tough love and risk losing the friend, but only you can make that decision!

I note now that your hike was Saturday. It didn't rain on the beach (I was at Westport, WA with family), so maybe you lucked out? Too bad the trip wasn't Sunday or today! Anyway, do let us know what happened! Thank you!



Edited by OregonMouse (02/25/14 12:51 AM)
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