ITT: Post the most difficult hike you've been on

>>1091203
>early spring
>cascades
>packed 45 pounds
>rained the entire time
>covered 50 miles in a weekend because I fuckered myself on the routes


I am glad I'm not a small woman or old person. 10/10 would be dead if I was.

mt. whitney trail
>th at 8400'
>6100' of gain
>top out at 14500'
>22 miles roundtrip
>14 hours c2c
>came straight from sea level
>never hiked more than 5 miles before
>not enough food and water
got blasted with altitude sickness at 13500 (nausea, headache, vertigo), but pushed through and made it to the summit, spent the entire time at the summit sitting with my head between my knees trying not to puke.

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>>1091203
I did the same thing and holy shit it's grueling. Luckily I went in October when the water was flowing but the monsoons made it tough as shit

The only real hiking I've done is the Georgia section of the Appalachian trail. Was pretty tough, not too bad though. Took a massive face plant coming down blood mountain in the rain

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>>1091203
my friend and I got lost on abandoned logging roads on the canadian/vermont border. after reciving ominous warning from a dead man (its a really long story). We were lost in the roads for 8 hours. I was wearing lacrosse shorts and flip flops. I was so sure i was going to die was leaving ciggeretee butts on the trail so people could track my body. I didnt even have my wallet so it could be used for DNA test. after about 8 hours we found a road which lead us to a USCIS satellite station. The guard gave us water, directions back (not in the woods), and wifi to email our friends (no phone service). It was the worst/best day of my life. if anyone wants to know where to cross the us Canadian border unseen let me know.

pic related.

>>1091424
I must know more... ominous warning from a dead man?

>touring by bicycle
>stop for hike in Sequoia NP
>in fantastic shape after riding ~2000 miles from Canadian border through the mountains, stopping for hikes along the way
>set off around 10 AM
>overestimate abilities
>around 10 PM still on the trail
>come to the conclusion that it's fucking dark and I really don't want to lose the trail (didn't have my head lamp, planned to just be out for the day)
>find some boughs on the ground and curl up under some bushes
>fucking cold because I'm at ~6000' and all I have is a wind breaker
>getting up to piss constantly because I'm type 1 diabetic and I didn't bring insulin with me and my blood sugar had skyrocketed after my basal insulin wore off (again, I thought I'd be back at the trailhead by dinner time)
>saw a grizzly bear walking by the trail an hour or so before I had to stop
>had eaten all my food but was terrified that my pack still smelled of food
>spend the night cold, uncomfortable and scared
>hike out to my bike at the trailhead in less than an hour the next morning, after somehow falling asleep for a few hours
>look at map again, turns out I took a wrong turn and hiked almost 30 miles

I still don't always bring everything I'd need to spend the night on the trail, but I spend a lot more time planning out routes and double checking before making turns.

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Hiking from Sallent de Gallego to somewhere near to Banos de Panticosa. It was something like the 12th day of the hike and I arrived into Sallen de Gallego the day before with a guy and girl I had met on the trail. We were going to be going our separate ways in Sallen so were looking to celebrate the time we had walked together with alcohol, a shower and a real bed. It turned out that we entered the town on the same evening as a pretty cool festival. Local music, food and most importantly booze. I stayed up late drinking a mixture of beer and spirits while eating as much BBQed meat as I could afford. I had an early start the next day, 5am, as I had to cross the highest pass on the route, 2765m, but I didn't care. I managed to drag myself out of bed when my alarm went off without feeling too groggy. It wasn't till about an hour into the walk that my stomach started to wake up and realise what was in it. From that point on I started sweating pure alcohol and my stomach felt like it was full of worms made of lava. I had to stop and shit 3 times before I even got to the start of the climb to the pass. Even though I had made the effort to get up early and hit the pass in the morning it was already looking like there might be a thunderstorm. From that point on it gets a little blurry. I sweated the whole way up the climb, then spent the whole steep scramble up and over trying not to shit myself. I literally ran down the decent so I could get to a good camp site and try to recover. It was quite fitting that the pass is called Cuello de L'Infierno!

>>1091430
>I must know more... ominous warning from a dead man?

Im not greentexting because it’s the current year. Also this story makes me look bad and im a bad story teller.


Every year my fraternity bros from undergrad get together up north for an event a friends house in a small town on the US Canadian border. Its gets pretty wild. The first nice and day is just the brothers, the next day people from all over the area come by and its like a big bbq/bonfire thing. On one of the mornings my friend and I thought we would take a quaint walk through the trails and head up a small mountain/hill that overlooked Canada. To get there you have to walk up this street which is VERY “south of north.” As we were walking two guys (later learn father son) came out of the woods and were like really friendly. Odd but friendly.

pt 2 incoming

>>1091460
pt 2

The dad did all the talking and the son kind of stood there with a square head and his shoulders hunched up. He made some noises. They were way different thanmy friend and I but seemed harmless and we were just shooting the shit. Then about 3 min into the convo this old guy comes up on whats essentially an off road golf cart. He is introduced as the dad’s dad his name was like Rick or something generic. He his silent and pale as a fucking sheet. We tell them where we are headed and walk off. As we are walking away uphill. I hear the golf cart behind us. I turn around and stop. The cart stops. We keep walking, golf cart comes, we stop turn around it stops. Think like the ghosts in Mario. This happened about six times and then we just stop and stand there until he drives up to us. We waive friendly and he leans in and starts essentially whispering. It wasn’t even a whisper, just like a noise. I lean in to hear him better and black stuff (I assumed it as dip) just starts pouring out of his fucking mouth. And hes saying something like “those boys are bad. Im good but those boys are bad. Go away. You shouldn’t be here stay away. This is not a place for people like you, you seem nice, leave, don’t come back this way.” I am shittin bricks at this point so we deceided to take a left and assumed that down the line we could take another left and get back parallell to where we came from without having to back…. We get lost… yada yada yada

>>1091461
last part


whole series of events yada yada… we get back to my friend’s house for the big party. My friends dad is there nicest fucking guy you would ever want to meet. Salt of earth class act. And we are telling him the story. He asks us 100 times about the old guy we met. Out of all the events in what is essentially a story that takes 45 minutes to tell that’s all he focuses on. He asked about so many fucking details. He then looks at my friend dead in the eye and says “I went to that guys funeral 2 years ago.” I laughed expecting him to. He didn’t laugh. He just said something along the lines of “this is too weird” and walked away.
I know this man, he was not fucking with us.

>>1091462
and then everybody walked the dinosaur. the end.

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/a/ here

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>>1091368
the fucking mule trails up the kaibab made it miserable too since every step had a 6" puddle in the middle of it

How was the weather in October? We got snowed on the night before the hike, but it was 80F down at the bottom of the canyon the next day

>>1091203
>Decide to explore the woods behind my college this morning.
>Find a moist but waterless river.
>It's the only way through that isn't covered in thorny vines so I follow it.
>Get through several parts where thorns encroach on the road with them catching on my clothes and scratching me all over.
>Reach a clearing walled off by thorns on all sides
>realize I only have 15 minutes until class starts
>Can only make it in time if I head straight though the thorns.
>Come out the other end cut up and covered in spiders, but I memorized the general shape of the woods last year before a flood fucked everything up so I actually came out faster than if I went back and made it to class barely on time.

I really need to get out more. This literally only lasted 45 minutes and I've been on way longer and harder sounding hikes but for some reason this really ruffled my puffles.

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>>1091203

Katahdin up the cathedral trail in May. I've hiked the John Muir, climbed fourteeners in Colorado but fuck me that piece of shit 6000 foot mountain in bumfuck Maine got me.

>Mud and swarms of mosquitoes for the first 4 miles
>straight up the mountain face, boulder scramble on mossy wet rocks for two miles, damn near snap my shit up multiple times
>get to the top sometime before noon, decide against going down cathedral trail to avoid bouldering
>TOO BAD NIGGA IT'S ALL BOULDERS
>the """""gentler""""" trail is about 10 miles, basically the same slippery boulder-covered mess, just slightly less steep and twice as long
>hiking bro twists his ankle, bandage it up, brace it, but the going is agonizingly slow
>as the sun starts hanging low, the last four miles greet us with even more mosquitoes and some rain

Never doing that again. I can see why a lot of AT hikers give up at the last twenty miles, Katahdin is an absolute bitch of a mountain. Still super beautiful though - maybe a trail other than Cathedrals might actually be fun

The 100ft walk from my car to my place of work, every Monday morning.

>>1091203
Think the toughest hike was during a search and rescue for a lost tourist where I grew up. Also did a lot of hiking in the military through Afghanistan and that's got its own problems.
>Our tourist though had decided to go running off in some rough arse country and didn't really give anyone specifics of where they'd gone.
>Cops did a door knock and narrowed it down to some rough locations he was last seen.
>There's 4 of us doing the whole area-knowledge, rope skills and a police officer along for the ride doing comms and medical
>We rambled through some of the nastiest gorge country for 3 days
>Sneks, spiders, rocks, tree plantations, freezing fucking cold, rain, wind and spent most of it completely drenched
>3rd night and we're running low on supplies, figure we'll pull out tomorrow and let another team cover our area

>4th morning, mate takes a piss over the side of a gorge and notices something down there
>Scope it out and looks like camping gear
>Well fuck, break out the ropes and go down, poor copper isn't keen on it but we get him down there eventually
>Yep, he's dead Jim
>Tourist has fallen arse over head 50ft off the cliff, busted himself up, eventually died of something or other and there's shit everywhere
>No chance of chopper getting here to extract so we bag him up on a stretcher and begin the process of dragging him and us outa there

>After long enough, people turn into 'spam' and he's sloshing along in the bag, it smells like hell
>Walking along, slosh, splepple, splotch, someone will take time out for a vomit every now and then
>No one really wants to eat
>Many spam jokes around the last night's camp fire while we wait for a 4wd and ambo to come pick us up

Still haven't been able to look at processed meat quite the same since spam man

Finished JMT about 2 weeks ago

10/10 will do again

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Great Gable climber's traverse in the Lake District, UK. A lot of scrambling up over rocks and waterfalls, nice climb in the middle called Napes Needle (HS) full of polished handholds as it's the first recorded climb in British mountaineering, first climbed in the 19th century I believe. After the needle the going gets more tough scrambling up small faces rather than scree and clear paths; at several points we were all well aware that a mistake would result in death, a friend actually dropped his rucksack, we could see it rolling down the mountainside for a good kilometre. All in all a good outing though.

>>1091203
>be me, 45, hiking San Gorgonio, south fork trail
>start 4:30am, summit 11 am
>so tired heading back (4k ft elev gain 20 mi RT)
>back at car 4:30 pm
>longest hike of life

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>>1091703
Try hiking the Presidentials sometime if you think Katahdin is rough. Maine ain't got shit on how rocky and fucked up New Hampshire is. Pic related, the slope up to Mt Adams.

>>1091749
Was it hard to get a permit for Whitney?

>>1091745
That probably beats the other stories here

>>1091438
>stop for hike in Sequoia NP
>saw a grizzly bear walking by the trail an hour or so before I had to stop
No you didn't. There are no Griz in California. We shot them all decades ago.

>>1092161
My bad. It was a brown bear, which I falsely assumed to be a grizzly.

>>1091745
Any Afghan stories /out/ related, anon?

>>1092181
wrong again. california only has black bears. it may have had brown fur, but it was not a brown bear.

>>1092197
God I just wish all Californians could die

Squeeze all of you together, all the only redeeming factor is the mediocre wine that I drink because I'm too poor to drink real wine

>>1092197
It was a brown bear. In other words, it was a bear, which was brown.

To clarify, my eyes detected a mixture of light frequencies reflected from some object which I viewed as brown. The light reflected from the object reached my eyes in such a way that my brain rationalized its shape as a bear.

Upon viewing this creature, I falsely assumed that it was a Ursus arctos ssp., while in reality, it was most likely an Ursus americanus with brown fur.

Can I clarify further?

>>1092214
all californias CAN die. i believe what you meant to say was
>God I just wish all Californians WOULD die

>>1092219
>being this mad at other people because you keep making stupid mistakes
lol

>>1092220
>>1092220
You're correct. I sorely wish they all would die.

It cannot escape my thoughts that their existance is a complete theatrical waste of their land.

>>1092138
Ah, not a competition- just tell some people where you're going and when to expect you back. That way you might actually get found in time not to die horribly somewhere.

>>1092186
We did a lot of long range stuff up into the mountains doing observation mostly for arms dealers and taliban bounding back over from one of the other 'stans, so for a lot of the boys it was the first time they'd seen snow. Which was great fun for them, for about 15min, then you just want to go home because its soggy, cold and miserable shit to be running around in.
Wasn't in a position to complain then, but fuck my life it was some of the coldest I've ever been. You're already past the pain barrier of 10,000ft so dehydration is a real risk, then it would drop down to about -15C with these 50-100km/h winds that would just rip the heat right out of you.
>No fire
>No tents
>Sleeping on rocks
>not a lot of food + its cold
>carrying about 60kg of gear
Literally would lose somewhere between 5-10kg of body weight in about 5-6 days. Absolute misery, the highlight of one trip was we're sitting there on our pile of rocks and about 100m away we kept seeing something moving around. Turns out to be this funny looking Palla's Cat with a short face like a persian, short stubby ears and very fluffy coat. After a few days we got to see her a bit closer and she had 2 adorable looking kittens scurrying around with her and that basically cheered everyone up.

>>1091203
Grand Canyon nearly did me in too. Got 4 blisters that basically covered 80% of the soles of my feet. Started into heat stroke by my dad grabbed me, put me in the shade and feed me oranges and water until my pulse went back to normal.

Then there was Tunari in Bolivia. First attempt I walked 10 steps, nearly fell over from lack of oxygen, decided I'd spend the afternoon sitting on the ground next to the cars. Second attempt I had acclimatized and made it to the top.

But then, I do stick to marked trails and easy hikes. I'm in the woods to have fun, not put myself in danger's path.

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Grouse Grind in British Colombia. Not knowing I had a blood clot in my lung at the time may have had something to do with it thou.

This is by far one of the most interesting /out/ threads I've seen. I'll be reading all these on my downtime at work today.

I go /out/ a shit ton but I've yet to have a life endangering experience, as I'm usually overprepared and overcautious. Not hiking related but I started getting blown out to sea in a kayak due to sudden 50mph winds and big waves from the wakes of a shipping channel. I pretty much had to paddle harder than I've ever had to for a solid 30 minutes to make it 1/4 mile and then tie myself to a rock on the shore to rest becaise there was nowhere to land. Then I went with the wind back the way I came. Had to call my ride to come back the the shore I put in on.

>>1091462
>“I went to that guys funeral 2 years ago.”
Guy died for tax reasons or something? Talk about being "off grid"

>>1092234
>for a lot of the boys
Wait, what? Does the US Army seriously not have winter training?

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Not much of a "hike" (almost no real elevation gain) but I recently did and finished my first big backpacking trip ever. The place is called Cape Scott provincial park up here on Vancouver Island in Canada. Even though it was over a month ago it felt only like yesterday that we packed up and left for home. I could post a lot more about it but I'm sure that you guys also have the same feelings everytime you go hiking somewhere spectacular

All told we did ~50km which tired out the friends I went hiking with

Pic related is what my lg g5 could muster at night there

>>1092384

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Warfare_Training_Center

It ain't much

>>1092496
And here I thought that the US army was the best trained, best equipped, best and largest army in the world.

>>1092512

Here's your (You)

They need people fit for desert climates right now, and not winter. (crazy right?? with all these conflicts going on up in the cold north)

It doesn't take a bright mind to realize why 99% of US military equipment is beige.

>>1092524
Equipment can be easily repainted. Afghanistan gets very cold. Does the US still carry out combat operations in Iraq?

>>1092526

>Equipment can be easily repainted.

Yes, it can. Still beige for a reason, and it's not because snow is brown.

>Afghanistan gets very cold.

Yes, it does. Oklahoma and Illinois get far colder. What's your point?

>Does the US still carry out combat operations in Iraq?

IIRC, No.

>>1092533
>IIRC, No.
>what are operations against IS

>>1092535
>>what are operations against IS
Something the Iraqi and Syrian army are doing. I wasn't aware US troups were involved.

>>1092533
>Yes, it does. Oklahoma and Illinois get far colder. What's your point?
My point is that if you're maintaining an army in combat readiness, they should be trained for all conditions, not just the easy ones. I just don't think it's fine that the first time combat troops see snow is when they are out a 6 day patrol in it.

>>1092535
>>1092541

Unless things have changed, US troops are there to give intelligence and the like to the Iraq and Syrian forces.

As far as I know the only actual fighting done by US troops has been unintentional.

But then again I'm some retard on a Vietnamese knitting websites /out/ board.

>>1092543

The strongest fighting force in the world doesn't need to train 100% of it's soldiers for a climate only 2% of them will actually encounter during their time in the military.

Realistically if the US went to war with some northern country, you'd see a change. Until that happens, there is no reason to waste resources training for a situation that likely won't occur.

>>1092546
>>1092541
I'm just a shitposter from a nato country who sometimes reads /k/ in somalian goatfucking website but I'm fairly sure some US SOF at least engaged foreign forces, but then again may they were just shooting back.

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>>1092384
We're not Americans.
I did quite a bit of mountaineering and training people in it, but the vast majority of our training was in desert and jungle warfare though which is like nearly all of our theatres. Arctic and winter warfare not so much but we do have a couple of experts to make sure we're not doing anything too daft in terms of cold weather gear, calorie intake, getting frozen to death etc.
Plus if you're not smart, being tough helps :)

>>1092551

>We're not Americans.

Well fuck. You damn roos.

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Flattop in Alaska is only 1000 metres tall, so getting up to the summit is easy enough, but the temp dropped 10 degrees and it started raining on the way down. THAT was a bitch.

I'm in better shape now though, would do again

>>1091203

Couch to fridge, shit sucks cause the fridge is in the garage.

>>1092551
I guess I should have added to my original post that they did survive those conditions anyway is impressive.

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>>1092685
Put the couch in the garage, dummy.

Pic related is Linville gorge. I'm kind of an old guy and just getting into hiking.

>>1093168
yeah the pictures of steep trails never show how difficult they are, I believe you tho.

>>1092101
It's the granite. Other rocks will wear from constant foot traffic, allowing you a bit of traction, not that New Hampshire granite, it's all slick and treacherous. I came out of the Alleghenies and it has blown me away how awful these rocks are.

When I was a lad in the Scouts we did a backpacking trip in Shenandoah NP in November. We hiked down into this canyon where there are waterfalls in a pouring rain so everybody's pants/ socks/ boots got soaked. (We had ponchos and covers for the bags but this was before reliable rain pants were widely accessible to us). We break for lunch and the rain has stopped, while everybody has their packs open while cooking the clouds open and everyone's gear gets soaked. We had to slog up and out of the canyon uphill on switchback after switchback on steep slippery rocks in a cold rain. After we made camp the temperature dropped down below freezing and a strong cold wind blew in. Now our wet asses are freezing while tents are trying to fly away. Hiked the last two miles with every pair of socks I had on and my frozen boots slung over my neck. We got scolded and called a bunch of candyasses by the scoutmaster at our next meeting and they made damn sure the lessons we learned sunk in.

>>1093552
>made damn sure the lessons we learned sunk in
never fucking trust your scoutmaster to organize an expedition with kids?

>>1093568
>>1093568
No he was a great scoutmaster because he allowed us to fail. The policy was hands off until things actually became dangerous. If we were uncomfortable because of poor decision making on our part, then that was all part of the experience. No one was in any real danger, we were just cold, wet, and tired.

>>1093571
>actually became dangerous.
So soaking wet kids, below freezing, strong winds, at night isn't dangerous? While it's nice of you to try to cover his ass, I think you need to rethink his actions.

>>1093571
You're either exaggerating the conditions or you WERE in actual danger. Soaked through gear in freezing temperatures is dangerous.

>>1093599
The two or three kids who could no longer take care of themselves (no dry clothes/ emergency blankets/ sleeping bags wet) were evaced before sunset as it was only two more miles to a road and one of the fat dads' heated travel van. It was not dangerous for the remainder, just uncomfortable. We helped each other through by sharing our gear, sleeping in shifts, building windbreaks out of wet clothes, etc; we got through it, learned a lot, and got a good story out of it. That's the entire point of the organization. It blew at the time but I look back on it as one of my fondest memories of my time in. Keep talking out of your ass about events you were not present for though, I am enjoying this. People like you are the reason scouting is absolutely worthless nowadays.

>>1093615
Fuck the entire paedophile hitler youth fucking scout movement.

>>1093617
Aand there it is.

>>1093615
>Keep talking out of your ass about events you were not present for though
Deliberately putting someone into danger, then scolding them afterwards is a asshole stupid way of teaching anyone anything.

>>1093622
Except no one was in danger.

Longs peak. It's only 14500 feet but i'm a huge pussy so it was hard

>>1092526
>>1092533
>>1092535
>>1092541
>>1092546
>>1092550
Officially, US troops are in Iraq to advise and assist. Off the books, they're in every Middle Eastern and Southwest Asian country shooting people in the face at night

>>1091552
Underrated post

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>>1093615
>People like you are the reason scouting is absolutely worthless nowadays
As a former scout, this. Though it's still somewhat decent here in Norway, I think it's gotten worse since I left, from what I hear.

>>1091203
Most physically exhausting was a week long hiking/fishing trip with a 30kg backpack (I weigh 60kg) at 18, when I hadn't done much else than drink beer and smoke cigarettes the previous years.

Most difficult in real terms, without leaving hiking territory, was a few weeks ago. We were doing a ridgewalk that was supposed to be pretty much cleared of snow for the summer, but saw 30-40cms of fresh snow two days before we went up, and during the entire trip it was snowing with heavy winds yet foggy (which was good since we couldn't see the hundreds of meters drop on both sides).
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