During one of our trips this summer, we came upon the following charming scene. It was an idyllic place: the sun was sparkling, the meadows were lush and green, and the surrounding mountains seemed as if they were waiting for Julie Andrews to start singing. "The hills are alive...."


And there, in the middle of the meadow, were a couple of pack llamas taking a bit of the breather.


Nearby, a young family was taking a bit of a breather as well. The kids, aged from about 4-10, were having a snack in the shade, and mom was pulling a few more tasting morsels out of a pack for them. They looked hot, tired, and reasonably happy.


But as we approached them, the father of the family came out to greet us as we descended down from our cross-country adventure to Return and Soldier Lakes.


"Is that the trail to Virginia Pass?" he asked, a not of worry in his voice.


We assured him that it was not. It wasn't really a trail at all, although it led to some beautiful country. It sure wasn't on the way to anywhere else at all.


"Can you tell me where the trail to Virginia Pass is?" he asked, a little desperately.


We remembered passing a large cairn on the trail below where his family was resting and mentioned it to him. The cairn also had a huge arrow next to it to point the way.


"Yeah, it's not very easy to follow." he said. "I guess it might get better as you get higher up."


We would like to have helped, but our route was in another direction, and he didn't seem to want to hike with us down to the cairn...so we offered him encouragement that we were sure that was the trail.


And then we hiked off and left him in the middle of the idyllic meadow, with his llamas and his little kids. We hoped that he would find his way up to Virginia Pass. And we made a note to tell the Rangers in Bridgeport where we had been hiking, and to check the backpacking websites when we got back, to see if a family was reported missing.


All has been quiet, and we are happy that it must have turned out well.


Still...it was awkward to just leave them there. Maybe we should have hiked the route past the cairn with them, until we were sure that they could find the trail. But then...it wasn't on our way at all. And the kids had food and water. And the trail to Virginia Pass could really only lead one direction---up over the ridge and down to the trailhead.


Still...little kids

It's my own "thing" and certainly would not be what I'd consider an obligation. But I would have stayed and talked them into going back to a trail with me. Probably using the map and compass to demonstrate where they were and where they thought they were, and make the point that they clearly were in need of help. Sometimes people don't really understand how close they really are to disaster.

I'm sure they figured out how to get Somewhere - still, one never quite knows ....

Obviously, up until the moment he approached you, your thoughts and concerns were far, far away from taking care of that family. It takes a very large measure of self-possession to instantly recognize the full import of such a situation when the external clues were all so idyllic.

I'd say you discharged your responsibility to that family and those kids about as well as you could under the circumstances. They were not injured or ill, and to the degree they were lost, you offered sufficient information for them to get back on track. If the father was even minimally competant you gave him all he needed to work with.

With the benefit of hindsight, you might have asked him some further questions about what he planned to do now that he knew he was on the wrong path, so that you could have discovered if his plans were foolish or irresponsible, allowing you to offer better suggestions. But that approach would have also made it clear you had doubts about his competance, so it is not a path that is easy to go down on such short notice.

Really, you did fine.

Err, tough call, that. I'd presume a llama wrangler has more than passing familiarity with backcountry travel, but his questions implied unfamiliarity with the area at least. And mistakes at 10+k feet can bite you in a hurry, much less the young ones.

You gave important information, hard to say how they capitalized on it. And, so long as there's water it's relatively easy to make an ad hoc camp--I've certainly done so many times.

In July I was hiking out of Desolation and in late afternoon ran into a solo guy headed up the hill, wondering where a lake was. We had a clear view of the basin that held the lake and I pointed it out, estimating he might just make it there by nightfall. Given he was equipped with a hand-carried water bottle, a shirt tied around his waist and the clothes he was actually wearing, I strongly suggested he take a nice evening stroll but not try the several-mile walk and thousand-foot climb to the lake.

I'll save the folks carrying suitcases on the PCT for another day.

You did as well as you could, I think.

Cheers,

We ran into a similar situation, albeit not as dramatic, a few years ago. We were finishing up a weeklong trip and were on our last full day heading to our last camp. We were doing what I call a lolipop route. This is when you do a loop with the beginning and ending being the same trail. We were coming to the end of the loop and the top of the lolipop. We were probably 3 miles to the junction when we ran into a couple. They were going the other direction and asked were a certain trail junction was. We quickly realized they meant the junction we were headed to. They had walked past it by 3 miles! I asked to see his map so that I could show him were to go......but they had no map, or gps. We told them they could follow us to the junction, but they walked way too slow. So, after waiting for them for a long time, we eventually built a cairn, then I took my extra map and wrote on the back, "Go this way!" and put it on the cairn. Hopefully they found their way.

I've run into a couple of situations like that over the years, and did pretty much the same thing: try to talk to them, offer to help if you can ("wanna hike with us?"), give them a map if we've got spares, etc. I wouldn't want to just ignore folks, once I realized there was a problem but, if after a reasonable effort, they just refuse to listen or to take help, all you can do is comfort yourself with the sentiment on the sign the USFS put up a quarter mile into the Clifty Wilderness at Red River Gorge in Kentucky: "You are entering a wilderness area. We cannot guarantee your enjoyment or return." (Or, in the extreme idiocy cases, I think about what my wife's cousin, an RN, once said: "There really should be a diagnosis called Too Stupid to Live.")

That's a tough one. When there are kids involved it's quite a bit tougher to walk away not knowing for sure if they'll all be alright, but I'm sure I would have done the same as you in that case. It doesn't sound like the adults were completely clueless and incompetent, just needing a clue.

For a short string of years I ran into this kind of thing a lot. I figured that most all of these encounters were not a result of some sort of unearthly intervention or fate, they were a result of me going places where careless/clueless types like to go (mostly the Bufflao River NP is where they found me).

That led me to consider how many of them die when I don't go, and should I also consider that my fault because I wasn't there to save them too? I know they are going to show up there, and I know when too (weekends and holidays).

I decided, recognizing my selfishness, to avoid those hots spots and that has indeed lessoned my encounters with those who need to be saved from themselves by a lot, and I honestly haven't noticed any significant uptick in deaths or injuries reported in the places I tend to avoid now.

It's a conundrum though. I've resolved it the best I can by knowing that I have, and always will, help those I run across needing it, but staying away from hangouts where those who really work hard at needing help tend to go exercise that skill.

Geez. I guess I'd have done the same thing. You don't want to get yourself in trouble trying to help those guys by hiking in the absolute wrong direction. (Though if it's just a few miles, and it doesn't change your plans, maybe it's not such a big deal to backtrack a little. But I don't think you're obligated to.)

When we were in Montana last year, a group of trail runners and their dog ran past us a few miles into our hike. They stopped for a brief second since the trail was narrow and we had to get out of the way. They told us they were doing the whole trail that day, same trail as us. We thought that was kind of weird. It's a 30ish mile trail, and it was already 10 o'clock or so by that time. They had almost no gear with them whatsoever. Well, a few miles later, the dog comes tearing past us, going back toward the parking lot. Maybe 15 minutes later, back come the trail runners, asking if we'd seen their dog. We told them the dog was headed back to the parking lot. A while later, they ran past again, with the dog. All that back and forth took awhile and I have no idea how they thought they were going to finish the trail (lots of elevation gain, switchbacks, rocky sections, sections with pretty decent drop-off right next to the trail) that day. No way in hell would anyone run that in fading light, or the dark. In any case, we never saw them again and I can only assume they busted butt to make it out of there before the sun started to fade, but I remember thinking... these people are insane. (And they carried very little water... so they must have had to stop and filter water, too, since there aren't any pumps anywhere along the way.)

I would have done the same as you. Give the best directions I can, and carry on.

I'd have done the same. Last week I had 2 incidents where I strongly suggested people alter their plans or risk a SAR event or worse. One was a fellow beginning up the steep, narrow and rugged trail that leads to the upper Palisade Glacier from Sam Mack Meadow. It was late in the day, and he was carrying a huge pack. I asked him if he had water and was prepared to stay up there with really lousy campsites in cold and high wind predictions. Not only that, the snow and ice was only reachable across some Class 4 then a very, very loose and steep scree slope. After some banter he dropped the pack and headed up, as we went down to our base camp. He later came down and joined us and thanked me profusely for convincing him not to proceed with the pack.He retreated before reaching the talus, let alone the scree. He would have had a miserable, dry camp and no way off the narrow trail with big drop-offs in failing light. The other incident was on the trail to Mono Pass as we came down due to 70 mph winds, ice on the trail and some pretty brutal wind chills on the summit. A couple was sitting down resting and breathing hard , with @ 1700' yet to climb. They looked to have outfitted themselves with 2nd hand Wally World gear, and though not bad in itself, their condition and afternoon start made me question their destination. I convinced them to bail on the pass and drop down to a protected lake. The husband at least was very grateful for the suggestion and info. I can't imagine what they would have done reaching the top with a barren landscape of snow and rock, nowhere to escape the wind and no second choice, except to head down for several miles. We bailed off the pass with some pretty rugged climbers due to the conditions, that couple would have been in pretty bad shape. In some ways I hate to insult people or hamper their sense of adventure, but sometimes it's best to say something rather than have them get hurt.

It might be the hardest lesson of all is learning when to bail. We all have our own brushes with mortality and in my case, more than a few could have been avoided entirely if I'd let reality seep in earlier.

This summer our group of three spend half a day trying to XC into a drainage that seemed TOTALLY DOABLE on the maps, yet we kept hitting dead ends and descents that warranted rope (and a skill set). I was really, really tempted to try a couple anyway, but hey, here I am typing about it instead. :-)

Changed most of our week-long itinerary too, but that's okay.

Cheers,