If you go out into the wilderness, bring plenty of water. Maybe bring a friend. Carry a GPS unit or even a PLB if you might go into risky territory. Carry the 10 essentials.
Most people who die in the wilderness have done something stupid to wind up there. Fewer people die who have NOT done anything glaringly stupid, but it still happens, the same way. Ewasko’s case appears to have been one of these.
Hmm, so is there evidence that he did in fact follow those common-sense guidelines and died in spite of that? Google doesn’t tell me what was found alongside his remains besides a wallet.
I wouldn’t call them “common-sense”. When a modern-day tragedy (death of a child) is required before “hug a tree and survive” becomes a slogan, it seems safe to say that they are counter-intuitive.
If humans did the right thing by default (e.g. “If you are lost, ‘Hug-A-Tree’ and stay put.”), there would be fewer sad stories.
Didn’t tell someone the exact trailhead/route he’d be hiking (later costing time, while he was still alive, while rescuers searched other parts of the park)
Didn’t have a GPS unit / PLB, just a regular (non-smart) cellphone (I don’t actually know to what degree a regular smartphone works as a dedicated GPS unit—like, when you’re at the edges of regular coverage, is it doing location stuff from phone + data coverage, or does it have a GPS chip? - but either way, he didn’t have a smartphone)
Had an unclear number of the ten essentials—it seems like a fair number? But (as someone in the youtube comments pointed out) if he had lit a fire, rescuers could have found him from the smoke, so either he didn’t think of that or he just didn’t have a firestarter.
Though I want to point out that doing all of these things—well, it’s not an insane amount of preparation, but it’s above bare minimum common sense / “anyone going out into the woods who thinks at all about safety is already doing this.” I’ve had training in wilderness/outdoor safety type stuff and I’ve definitely done day hikes while less prepared than Ewasko was.
Well, the thing I’m most interested in is the basic compass. From what I can see on the maps, he was going in the opposite direction from the main road for a long time after it should have become obvious that he had been lost. This is a truly essential thing that I’ve never gone into unfamiliar wilderness without.
Ah! I forget about a compass, honestly. He definitely came in with maps (and once he was out there for, like, over eight hours, he would have had cues from the sun.) A lot of the mystery / thing to explain is indeed “why despite being a reasonably competent hiker and map user, Ewasko would have traveled so far in the opposite direction from his car”; defs recommend Adam’s videos because he lays out what seems like a very plausible story there.
(EDIT: was rewatching Adam’s video, yes Bill absolutely had a compass and had probably used it not long before passing, they found one with his backpack near the top. Forgot that.)
Yes, I buy the general theory that he was bamboozled by misleading maps. My claim is that it’s precisely the situation where a compass should’ve been enough to point out that something had gone wrong early enough for the situation to have been salvageable, in a way that sun clues plausibly wouldn’t have.
I think confirmation bias plays a role here. At the point where I think Bill probably went wrong (of course we will never know for sure), there’s a junction of two basically identical jeep trails, neither of which are marked on the park map or most of the then-current trail maps (they are on the topo map). There’s 3 or 4 different ways he might have gone down the wrong road—others have mentioned the two I put out there, there’s a couple of other ways that are possible but less plausible so I didn’t bother with them—but he should have noticed he was going south and not east, by the setting sun. However, because of the angle of the road and the mountain cover, plus having an obvious road to follow, I can see why he wouldn’t have. The sun would still more or less be setting behind him, and to his right, on either route. If he was focused on making time, it’s unlikely he’d note the exact angle of the sun.
My feeling is that because Bill was in a hurry, he did not get out things like a compass or (maybe, depending on how he got lost) more detailed maps until he knew he was lost and by that time he was screwed by the darkness and the topography of the area which wouldn’t allow him to dead reckon back unless he could find the trail again, and at that point it was a wash, of which there are a half dozen in the area. I basically cover this in the video, there’s a lot of information there so it can be hard to follow, but there are reasons why the compass didn’t get him out of the situation.
Hmm, so is there evidence that he did in fact follow those common-sense guidelines and died in spite of that? Google doesn’t tell me what was found alongside his remains besides a wallet.
I wouldn’t call them “common-sense”. When a modern-day tragedy (death of a child) is required before “hug a tree and survive” becomes a slogan, it seems safe to say that they are counter-intuitive.
If humans did the right thing by default (e.g. “If you are lost, ‘Hug-A-Tree’ and stay put.”), there would be fewer sad stories.
Check out Marsland’s post-coroner’s-report video for all the details, but tentatively it looks like Ewasko:
Hiked alone
Didn’t tell someone the exact trailhead/route he’d be hiking (later costing time, while he was still alive, while rescuers searched other parts of the park)
Didn’t have a GPS unit / PLB, just a regular (non-smart) cellphone (I don’t actually know to what degree a regular smartphone works as a dedicated GPS unit—like, when you’re at the edges of regular coverage, is it doing location stuff from phone + data coverage, or does it have a GPS chip? - but either way, he didn’t have a smartphone)
Had an unclear number of the ten essentials—it seems like a fair number? But (as someone in the youtube comments pointed out) if he had lit a fire, rescuers could have found him from the smoke, so either he didn’t think of that or he just didn’t have a firestarter.
Though I want to point out that doing all of these things—well, it’s not an insane amount of preparation, but it’s above bare minimum common sense / “anyone going out into the woods who thinks at all about safety is already doing this.” I’ve had training in wilderness/outdoor safety type stuff and I’ve definitely done day hikes while less prepared than Ewasko was.
Well, the thing I’m most interested in is the basic compass. From what I can see on the maps, he was going in the opposite direction from the main road for a long time after it should have become obvious that he had been lost. This is a truly essential thing that I’ve never gone into unfamiliar wilderness without.
Ah! I forget about a compass, honestly. He definitely came in with maps (and once he was out there for, like, over eight hours, he would have had cues from the sun.) A lot of the mystery / thing to explain is indeed “why despite being a reasonably competent hiker and map user, Ewasko would have traveled so far in the opposite direction from his car”; defs recommend Adam’s videos because he lays out what seems like a very plausible story there.
(EDIT: was rewatching Adam’s video, yes Bill absolutely had a compass and had probably used it not long before passing, they found one with his backpack near the top. Forgot that.)
Yes, I buy the general theory that he was bamboozled by misleading maps. My claim is that it’s precisely the situation where a compass should’ve been enough to point out that something had gone wrong early enough for the situation to have been salvageable, in a way that sun clues plausibly wouldn’t have.
I think confirmation bias plays a role here. At the point where I think Bill probably went wrong (of course we will never know for sure), there’s a junction of two basically identical jeep trails, neither of which are marked on the park map or most of the then-current trail maps (they are on the topo map). There’s 3 or 4 different ways he might have gone down the wrong road—others have mentioned the two I put out there, there’s a couple of other ways that are possible but less plausible so I didn’t bother with them—but he should have noticed he was going south and not east, by the setting sun. However, because of the angle of the road and the mountain cover, plus having an obvious road to follow, I can see why he wouldn’t have. The sun would still more or less be setting behind him, and to his right, on either route. If he was focused on making time, it’s unlikely he’d note the exact angle of the sun.
My feeling is that because Bill was in a hurry, he did not get out things like a compass or (maybe, depending on how he got lost) more detailed maps until he knew he was lost and by that time he was screwed by the darkness and the topography of the area which wouldn’t allow him to dead reckon back unless he could find the trail again, and at that point it was a wash, of which there are a half dozen in the area. I basically cover this in the video, there’s a lot of information there so it can be hard to follow, but there are reasons why the compass didn’t get him out of the situation.