The first third of the book is about doing things to not survive rather than to survive and what leads us to make poor decisions. For those willing to wade through diffcult reading, it's really quite good.

The kind of toughness that has been talked about so far is giving everything you have without complaint. It's the unwise pursuit of this type of toughness that may lead to accidents. It's one thing for a person on a SAR mission to go 20 miles through the snow at night to rescue someone. It may be quite another for the same person to do it when it's not necessary.

Another kind of toughness is deciding not to do something that is pressing personal or nature's limits.

Accidents are really pretty rare compared to the number of people out there. I've never witnessed one on the trail. However, I know poor decisions can lead to bad discomfort or worse, so I tend to fail safe a lot. Because of the relative rarity of accidents, many press on into situations that will cause a problem for someone that does what they did.

One reason I like to backpack solo is there is nobody else to involve me in what I may consider to be a bad decision for me even if they are able to safely do something.