Gabrielle (00:04.608)
Welcome to this fucking trail home to brutally honest takes on Texas trails hiking hilarity and all things adventure I’m your MC John and I’m here to warn you this podcast is not for young children or anyone with a sensitivity to swears or strong opinions and now over to everyone’s favorite hiking hostess and Intrepid Explorer and affirmed potty mouth and my wife Gabrielle. Yep. That’s me
Gabrielle (00:34.946)
So today is a shit you should know episode, a type of episode that covers ways to not fuck up in the back country, things you should generally know out there, and how to have the best, safest experience out on the trail. So today specifically, we’re going to talk about how to create an effective safety plan. Yeah, and I think you are a great person to talk about this. I wouldn’t say you’re paranoid necessarily.
Gabrielle (01:02.338)
However, I would say that you are obsessively anxious about everything that could possibly go wrong. I am and you know, I’m a planner as well. I do have that anxiety. So you put that all together in one big melting pot and you get a hiker who’s scared of everything but wants to experience it all. So to help me mitigate risk and manage my anxiety or make me feel like I’m managing my anxiety, I might.
Gabrielle (01:31.348)
listen to podcasts on hiking disasters and what people did and animal attack podcasts and read books like Death in Big Bend. And actually, there’s a whole series of death in national parks. like there’s death in Yellowstone, there’s death in I’m drawing a blank. Anyhow, I read it all. listen to it all. Yeah. And learn as many lessons I can from other people’s misfortunes.
Gabrielle (01:59.798)
Yeah, I definitely have questioned at times whether or not you’re just feeding your anxiety, but you insist that you’re learning what not to do. And I guess, you know, it sort of makes sense to me. Yeah, I mean, whatever it is, what it is, you’re going to benefit from it. All right. So let’s talk about what is a safety plan.
Gabrielle (02:28.406)
What is a safety plan? Yeah, it’s a plan to ensure that someone knows where you are and when so that if something goes wrong, that person can help initiate search and rescue for you. And it also includes things that you should be aware of for your trip or for your trail, like, you know, bailout points, turnaround time, start times, any special considerations that are unique to that particular trip or trail that you’re on. Yeah, and this is definitely something that’s pretty important. This is something that we do with
Gabrielle (02:58.592)
every trip and you know especially every time that you’re going anywhere solo. Yes. We have this all sort of worked out in great detail. Yes. So the first thing that we’re going to talk about is what’s called a trip plan. A trip plan is a written plan that you leave with your base camp person so your person who’s back at home. That’s me. Yes.
Gabrielle (03:23.178)
And you’re also going to leave this written plan in the driver’s seat of your car face down. All right. And why face down? You don’t want people to know when you’re coming back. At least as a solo female hiker, I don’t want somebody to be able to know, hey, this is what time she left. This is when she’s coming back, because I just don’t need the general public knowing that. Yeah.
Gabrielle (03:47.674)
And other people might choose to leave it face up. mean, I’ve read stories of people leaving their hiking plans like on their dashboard, like under their windshield wiper. And if you’re comfortable with that, I guess that’s something you can do. I’m not going to voice an opinion on whether you should do that or not. Yeah. Yeah. So I think there’s something to think about there, but certainly, you know, you’re leaving it face down as a an additional safety consideration here. Yes. And so your trip.
Gabrielle (04:15.726)
plan should include your dates and routes for each day. So if you’re doing multiple trails at multiple trail heads, you’re going to make sure that you order your trails in chronological order. why does it matter the sort of the the ordering and that you’re making sure that this is written out like a schedule? Yeah. So you want to make sure that people know where to find you and when.
Gabrielle (04:43.884)
And so for example, let’s say I’ll write out, know, Monday, February 1st, and I’ll put plan to do, I’m trying to think of a trail here, Tejas Trail, followed by the Bull Trail, followed by Bear Canyon. And so that way, you know, if I do go missing, if I fail to contact you, it’s a little bit easier to guess what trail I’ll be on. And if nothing else, they know all the trails that I’ll have tried to cover that day. Yeah.
Gabrielle (05:14.094)
So it gives people kind of a starting point and a way to predict based on when you said you left, where you might be found or where you might’ve gone wrong possibly. Yeah. So it is really important to include your start points and end points. And if you’re going to be starting really late or really early, you want to kind of put that there. So when I did my Rufo Vega and Big Bend, I put that I was going to have an Alpine start starting around four or five o’clock in the morning. So that way.
Gabrielle (05:43.426)
You know, if the park personnel found it for whatever reason and it’s three o’clock in the afternoon, they know I really should be off that trail by then. Whereas if I was starting it at ten o’clock in the morning, you’re not going to expect me to be off the trail by three. Yeah. And that’s something you could always update to, right? If you take a pen and just write your actual start time on the plan, if you end up starting earlier or later by some significant margin. Yes. So your trip plan should also include your emergency
Gabrielle (06:13.102)
contact information, again, in case it’s used by park personnel. So I always write your name and your phone number on my trip plan. Again, you’re probably gonna be the one who knows that something’s wrong far before the park does, but just in case if they need to get ahold of you, they have that information. It should also include a description of your pack color and your clothing and coat colors as well.
Gabrielle (06:43.694)
Yeah, and that’s just one more reason not to buy the default black backpack and black coat. You wear some pretty bright colors out there a lot. Actually, I wear some pretty bright colors quite often as well. Yes. I mean, A, it’s just a little more fun and B, it also makes you a lot easier to spot. It does. It makes it easier to spot you, but it’s also identifying information. So even if you’re not wearing bright colors,
Gabrielle (07:12.014)
If somebody finds your pack and they know it’s red, like it helps go, OK, this is probably her pack. It’s just identifying information. Yeah, absolutely. So that’s kind of your trip plan. Again, it’s a written plan of what trails you plan to do when. And so, like I said, I write it out Monday, February 1st, going to do Maruho Vega Tuesday, February 2nd, going to do the South Rim.
Gabrielle (07:40.046)
putting those start times, if I’m doing multiple trails, putting all of those trails. If I’m linking them up, I’ll write that out. And then it also includes your emergency contact information and a description of your clothing and your pack. And like I said, you’re going to leave that face down in the front seat of your car. If possible, you also want to take a picture of yourself at the trailhead. And if you’re in a group, you want to take a picture of your group at the trailhead and send it to your base camp person.
Gabrielle (08:10.134)
Of course, that’s not always possible. A lot of times when you’re hiking, you don’t have service, but you want to do that if you do have cell service. And why is it that you’re doing that specifically? That’s also identifying information. And so if you go missing, you can the base camp person can give this picture to park personnel and they can see what everybody is wearing, what they appear to have. And that can help to find people, especially for finding items scattered along the trail.
Gabrielle (08:38.414)
Uh, we can go, oh yeah, so and so was wearing a red jacket. This is probably their jacket. Right. Let’s keep looking in this area or, whatever. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So a little bit morbid, like right into will, but also super important. Yeah, it is morbid, but that’s that’s what it’s for. Right. And hey, that’s the kind of thing that pays off. It does. I’ve listened to lots of stories where pictures help to identify people’s
Gabrielle (09:08.01)
stuff and help to find them. Yep. I definitely thought you were going to say bodies for a minute there. I’m sure it also helped with that, but it has before. And in many cases, though, it also will help them find you while you’re still alive, which is, of course, the ideal state to be found in. Yes. All right. So as another part of the safety plan, you should talk with your base camp person about how often you’re going to be in communication, like how often are you checking in with them?
Gabrielle (09:36.694)
And at what point does Basecamp person call for search and rescue? Yeah. So, you know, before every single trip, we always talk about like, hey, this is how often I expect to be in contact with you. Right. And I think there are two things that are important to make note of here. One, obviously, it’s very important to have a reliable Basecamp person that you can count on to be paying attention. Yeah. To whether or not you are in communication.
Gabrielle (10:05.088)
and that you can count on to be willing to make the call to contact search and rescue. Some people get intimidated by that. Some people are like, is it really an emergency? they’re probably fine. You have to set rules and stick to them. Yeah, that’s important because if if the hiker goes missing, like let’s say that I hit my head, I get knocked out or I get lost, I need to be able to count on you.
Gabrielle (10:33.354)
Even if I can’t communicate, I’m like, okay, it’s been 12 hours since I talked to John. We said we were going to be talking 12 every 12 hours. I know he’s going to be calling and sending somebody for me. Yeah. And you need to be able to count on that because that helps that hiker make a plan for what to do if they get lost or if they get hurt. It does. Yeah. And it also, I think, you know, for the hiker can give them.
Gabrielle (11:01.048)
some confidence and the motivation to do what they need to do to survive. think, you know, having that will to keep yourself alive when you are in a bad situation is so important. Yeah. And and having that trust that someone is coming for you can be the edge that you need to keep going. you do want to make sure that you have someone that you can count on. I know that that can be a tall order at times, but, know, it can be anybody, anybody in your life that you can count on.
Gabrielle (11:30.856)
and the other thing is to be really thoughtful about what is involved in communicating with that person. means thinking about and researching, will you have cell service when and where, and will you need to take time to say, go to the park headquarters in order to get in touch with that person and then making sure.
Gabrielle (11:55.352)
that you don’t skip out on your end and that you don’t send them into a panic because you were tired and didn’t feel like walking up to the Wi-Fi. Yes. When you create a plan, if you say, I’m going to text you in the morning and at night, you have to do that because otherwise the base camp person is going to be worried and they may initiate search and rescue if that’s what y’all have agreed upon. Yeah.
Gabrielle (12:21.964)
Yeah. And if you are sitting at your campsite, totally fine. There’s going to be some very annoyed Rangers and search and rescue personnel. Yeah. And it’s a waste of resources. It is. We only want to be asking for search and rescue when it’s absolutely necessary. So what you and I typically do for each of our trips is we usually agree that we’re going to I’m going to contact you at least every 12 hours. There should never be more than 12 hours where I don’t talk to you. Right. And then
Gabrielle (12:51.982)
Part of that is also how you’re planning your hikes. You’re not going out and trying to do a dawn to dusk hike, which A, is just crazy. I know some people do that kind of thing, but that’s a lot of hiking. But even if you are doing that, you’re making sure that you’re able to communicate during that time. Yeah, so for us, we have an emergency communication device. use what’s called a BivyStick. And so I can send.
Gabrielle (13:17.996)
check-in messages. So I can even actually text you real messages from the Bivy Stick. But if nothing else, I’m hitting my check-in message every 12 hours. So I hit it in the morning when I get up. I hit it at night before I go to bed. And then I also do use it to kind of check in with you along the trail. But we agree upon the 12-hour rule that you should never go 12 hours without contacting me because if…
Gabrielle (13:45.826)
For some reason, the BivyStick isn’t working. You’re not getting those messages. I’m making sure that somehow I’ve gotten some sort of communication to you, whether that means I have to go back to the park ranger station to hook up to the wifi to text you if I’m not confident that the BivyStick messages are going through or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So obviously, you know, especially if you’re going a longer trip, especially if you’re going solo, having a device like that is very, very helpful.
Gabrielle (14:14.136)
for keeping somebody informed of your whereabouts and your wellbeing. I think it’s very important to spend some time getting to know the device. It can be very helpful to maybe print out the instructions or to make a little cheat sheet for yourself so that you know how to use the device, what any lights or signals on the device might mean. It’s also important to understand how satellite communication devices work.
Gabrielle (14:42.698)
in general, we’ll have to do a full episode on that. Yes, we will. But the most important thing to remember is that they can be slow and they can be, I wouldn’t say unreliable, but a little unreliable. So you often want to be over communicating. You know, it’s I’m I don’t mind getting five or six check in messages when I only needed one. I’m always happy to get the extra ones. Yeah, a lot of times.
Gabrielle (15:10.092)
When we’ve agreed on like, you know, we’re going to communicate and least in the morning and the evening, I’ll send an actual text through the baby like, hey, I’m starting the trailhead, not confirm whatever trail it is. Yeah. And then throughout the day, I’ll give you the check in messages just to kind of show you my location. And then at night, if I don’t have cell service, I’ll use the baby to actually text you a hey, I’m back at the car. I’m safe. And the reason I do that is because it’ll show if those messages are read or not.
Gabrielle (15:39.854)
Correct. So that way I absolutely make sure that I am holding up on my end of the bargain where I’m making sure that you’ve gotten communication from me in the morning and in the evening. Yep. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. And so that’s really been a great boon to I think peace of mind for both of us. Yeah. And so what happens? What happens if you don’t hear from me? If it’s been 12 hours and you haven’t heard from me?
Gabrielle (16:09.294)
What are we gonna do? Yeah, so at that point the first thing I’m doing is I’m grabbing the written plan to make sure that I have in front of me when and where you are supposed to be and Then at that point I am contacting the Rangers the park headquarters, and I am saying hey Gabrielle’s out there hiking we had a
Gabrielle (16:40.202)
written agreement that she’d be contacting me on this schedule. It has been this long since I last heard from her. This is where she’s supposed to be. This is where the car is supposed to be parked. There should be a written plan in the car as well. And then, you know, at that point, hopefully one of them just goes and checks and you’re just you’re totally fine. Yeah. Right. But if not, then at that point, we can start escalating towards search and rescue if it’s actually need.
Gabrielle (17:09.71)
Yeah. And if it’s after hours, you can call the sheriff’s office. If you know the county that you’re hiking in or, know, you can call 911 that works as well. Yep. Yeah, absolutely. And obviously we don’t have 911 written on the sheet, but we do often have the other local numbers that I might need written down on that trip plan so that I have them there and I don’t have to go hunting for them while I’m filled with anxiety and really worried about you.
Gabrielle (17:38.592)
Yeah, and that’s kind of something when you have, I don’t want to say a less reliable base camp person, but when you have somebody who’s your base camp person, who’s maybe not quite as on top of it as you are, I do make sure to include the local sheriff’s phone number. So when we went out to Big Bend Ranch State Park and my parents were our base camp people, I wrote out all of the county sheriff’s phone numbers and said, hey, if you haven’t heard from us,
Gabrielle (18:06.328)
call this phone number first, call the park first. This is the park’s phone number. If that doesn’t work or if it’s after hours, call the county sheriff. This is the county sheriff. If that doesn’t work, call 911. So I make it very, very easy for the base camp person, particularly when it’s somebody who I’m like, well, they don’t quite understand all the nuances of hiking like maybe you do. Right. Yeah, absolutely.
Gabrielle (18:35.566)
OK, so let’s kind of let’s deviate just a little bit and let’s talk about how checking in with people, having this communication system in place can literally save your life. Right. Yeah. So you’ve got you’ve got a real world example of this playing out and and making a difference for somebody. Yeah. So let’s talk about a man named Rick Berry. So on November 2nd, 2023, Rick Berry went out to hike in Guadalupe Mountains National Park.
Gabrielle (19:05.036)
So Rick told his son his planned route. His son said it was an awfully long hike and had some reservations about it, but Rick thought he could do it. And he’d been in the park a lot of other times before. Rick was in his seventies when he went out here, so he’s kind of a badass to be out in Guadalupe Mountains, hiking these long hikes. And he was on the northern end of the park over by Dog Canyon, so much less traveled, much less populated.
Gabrielle (19:34.85)
So the morning that he went out on his hike, he sent his daughter a text, and like I said, that was the morning of November 2nd, confirming that he was headed out on the trail. A couple of hours later, he sent his family a text with a screenshot of his location, which I guess was something that he did pretty commonly. And then Barry didn’t, Rick Barry didn’t send anything else to his family for days.
Gabrielle (20:02.976)
So it was a pretty normal thing that he would text them pictures and his family chat while he was out on the trail, or he would at least check in with them at the end of each day. So he didn’t send any pictures to them on November 2nd, which was his start date, and his kids kind of thought this was a little bit unusual. So by the end of November 2nd, his brother sent him a text message just asking about the hike, and he didn’t get a response.
Gabrielle (20:34.231)
So what had happened is that Barry had gotten off trail, his phone had died, and so he didn’t have any way to communicate with his family. So initially his family assumed that Rick was either tired or his phone wasn’t charged. And so they kind of just left it be. They were worried on November 2nd when they hadn’t heard from him by the end of the day, but they didn’t take any particular action. Yeah. So a couple of things have
Gabrielle (21:02.862)
of gone wrong here because they didn’t have a written plan and a strict agreement on what to do when. Yeah, that was definitely a missed opportunity. If they had talked about how often they were 100 % going to communicate, his family could have called for help a lot sooner. But they did know at least that, this isn’t usual that we’re not hearing from him. Right. We’re worried. We’re a little bit more on edge. So that was really good. So by the afternoon of November 3rd,
Gabrielle (21:29.546)
Rick’s family still hadn’t heard from him. And at this point, they were really worried. They kind of knew something was wrong. So they started to call his cell phone at the evening of November 3rd, but the phone was going straight to voicemail. Then on November 4th, Rick’s brother called the hotel he was supposed to stay at on the night of November 2nd. So Barry was just gonna go out on a day hike. November 2nd, he was gonna go out on a really long hike.
Gabrielle (21:58.402)
but then he was supposed to check into a hotel that evening. And I think the important thing to make note of here is that he had informed his family about what hotel he was staying at and that he was going to be there that when he was supposed to check. Yes, that’s really important that your base camp people or person knows where you’re supposed to stay so then they can call the hotel if they need to. And that’s exactly what Barry’s brother did on November 4th.
Gabrielle (22:26.54)
Rick’s brother, like I said, called that hotel he was supposed to stay at and the hotel said he never checked in. Yeah, so that is obviously a huge red flag, right? He’s supposed to be staying there. He never showed up. So that prompted the family to call both the sheriff’s office and the park and the park initiated a search based on that phone call. And so.
Gabrielle (22:54.602)
You know, even though they didn’t have an actual plan of, we’re going to talk this often, his family knew it was unusual that they weren’t hearing from him. And based on that, they started to make some phone calls and they did get a search and rescue initiated. Yep. They did find him alive after five days of being lost in Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Rick went more than 72 hours without water. Incredible, amazing story.
Gabrielle (23:24.19)
We’re not going to get into all of that right now. I wanted just to talk about kind of his communication with his family and how this truly saved his life. Yeah, and I think that’s you know, we’ve kind of called out the key points already here, but just to reiterate the things that saved Rick Berry’s life in this situation were one. He first off, he told his family where he was going to be and when he said I’m going to do this hike. This is the route that I’m planning to take.
Gabrielle (23:53.09)
This is when I’m planning to start. This is where I’m planning to sleep at night. And so they knew all of those things, which are so important to you getting found if you do happen to wander off, which is very easy to do in certain areas of certain Texas parks, specifically Guadalupe Mountains, specifically the north end. Yes. Having seen some of those trails, I am not surprised that this happened. Yeah, they are.
Gabrielle (24:20.366)
pretty rough in the back country there. haven’t been all that deep into Guadalupe, but I’ve heard your stories and yeah, it’s a little sketchy. So it’s really, really good that he told them, but that’s true. Even if the trails are well maintained, you should still be doing that. Yeah. And the other thing that was really important is that even though they didn’t have a specific agreement about how often they were going to communicate,
Gabrielle (24:49.176)
He had a specific normal communication pattern on these trips and they were aware of that pattern. Ideally, obviously you want to be sort of explicitly saying and agreeing this is how often I’ll communicate. This is how I’ll reach you. This is how you can reach me. But at the very least, knowing what is typical and knowing what is not normal can make a difference and in this case really made a huge difference. Yeah.
Gabrielle (25:19.948)
Yeah, so just a great illustration of how having a base camp person can trigger that search and rescue and save your life, because he would have died out there. He was lost. There was no way that he was going to find his way back. Search and rescue truly saved his life. Yeah. So that’s why it is so important to have a trip plan that your base camp people know about and that they’re going to execute, because, you know, they could have initiated a search and rescue a lot sooner than they actually did.
Gabrielle (25:49.326)
but that’s neither here nor there. Right, right. All right, so let’s move into the second part of creating an effective safety plan. And this part is your trip specific considerations. So as you’re thinking about your hike or your trip, whatever it is, whether it’s both, you wanna consider your route. So you wanna consider what challenges do you anticipate on these trails and what can you do to mitigate them?
Gabrielle (26:15.266)
So for example, when I was planning my trip to Big Bend Ranch State Park, my very first solo trip out there, I knew that Mehecano Falls was a trail that I wanted to do, but I knew that it wasn’t super well marked. And I knew it was easier to go down the trail rather than to go up it. And so I planned a route so that I could go down Mehecano Falls, but loop it with something else and not have to come back up it. So that’s what I did to mitigate my risk.
Gabrielle (26:44.502)
on Mejicano Falls Trail. Yeah, absolutely. And the next the next item, this is something I feel like I’m particularly good at finding and identifying is bailout points. So looking at a route and saying, where can I turn around or where can I take a shortcut to head back to a trailhead to my camp, you know, to whatever exit point is handy. And knowing those points,
Gabrielle (27:13.996)
identifying them ahead of time and having in your mind that it is totally okay to use them if you feel unsafe in any way. Yeah, that’s important. You want to look for landmarks along the trail just to help you stay nice and located, kind of planning for, okay, I should see this mountain, I should see this stream, just to help you be aware of where you are so that if you do start to go off trail, you know what landmarks you’re looking for to relocate yourself.
Gabrielle (27:43.07)
Absolutely. And, you know, I think it can be helpful if you can find photos online of views from specific points on the trail. Sometimes that can be really helpful, especially for identifying some of the more distinctive landmarks along the trail. I think there’s a fine art and skill to looking at a topo map and translating that into what you might be expecting to see in the real world.
Gabrielle (28:11.028)
not something that everyone is good at and even people who are pretty experienced can struggle with it. There’s a strong tendency to. I kind of want to say hallucinate to to imagine that you are seeing a match in the real world for what’s on your map. Or to sort of convince yourself that what you’re seeing makes sense and convince yourself that you know where you are, even when you don’t.
Gabrielle (28:38.656)
Yeah. So having actually seen those pictures ahead of time and being able to say, OK, this is what it’s supposed to look like at this point. Super, super helpful. Yeah. Kind of knowing what if you’re in mountainous terrain, what what some of the more famous peaks are. So, for example, I knew I was going to be seeing Rincon Mountain when I was on the Mexicano Falls trail. And that’s a big identifier to help you figure out where you are. The Chisos Mountains have some really distinctive peaks. kind of knowing what.
Gabrielle (29:06.816)
each peak’s name is and what it looks like can really help you stay found or get you found if things go awry. Absolutely. Another consideration is what are you going to do if your phone dies or your apps, your navigation apps fail? And this is a really big one because let’s be honest, a lot of us are not great with a map, a paper map and a compass.
Gabrielle (29:33.356)
And so a lot of us do rely very heavily on our phones to help us navigate, which is not necessarily a great thing. Yeah. Because apps malfunction and phones die. Yeah. I have, you know, I’ve seen people online saying, just rely on all trails, just rely on Gaia GPS. You don’t need to have anything else. And I cringe every time I see it because that is just
Gabrielle (30:02.914)
They’re great services. I love having that option. I love having it available. It has saved time and energy. Yes, for us. It has also not worked at times. Yeah, I mean, just think about Rick Berry. His phone died. Yeah, I don’t know how he was navigating, but you know, his phone died and so it was he wasn’t able to use his phone to help navigate. So this kind of stuff.
Gabrielle (30:30.892)
does happen to real people in the real world. You cannot count. You can’t put your eggs all in one basket. Exactly. So, you for me, I’m still working on my topographical skills. I’m still working on my compass skills. I’m OK with the paper map. I’m terrible with the compass, but I’m getting better with the paper map. And so what I’ve done is I’ll study my route. So that way, if my app does die or fails,
Gabrielle (30:58.496)
I kind of know what the landscape is going to look like and what bailout points I should be going for and what features of the terrain to use to keep me on the trail. Yeah. Yep. And that’s, that’s something that we typically will discuss together as well. Navigation tends to be a little bit more my domain. so a lot of times you’ll have kind of a general idea in place and then, you you’ll double check with me. And I think that’s, that’s always great.
Gabrielle (31:27.758)
to ask somebody else for input, even if you, like me, like to believe that you know what you’re doing. Having somebody else say, yes, that makes sense, or actually, did you think about X? Can be a great way to double check your thinking and make sure that you’re not getting overconfident because overconfidence is really what kills people in the wild. Yes. Nine times out of 10. It’s whether it’s the hubris of an experienced hiker.
Gabrielle (31:57.15)
who thinks that they can handle something that maybe they should not be attempting or the hubris of an inexperienced hiker who just legitimately has no idea what they’re getting into. That’s what gets you in trouble. Yeah. Humility out on the trail is really important. We’re going to talk about hiker virtues at some point in some episode. Yes. Yeah. They. We all need we all need reminding. Yes. Other things to think about are some safety considerations. So as you think about a trail
Gabrielle (32:26.83)
Think about is there a particular start time that you need? So for example, I just recently completed Marufo Vega. It was February when I was gonna do this trail and this trail has a reputation for being a killer. It’s very hot, it’s very exposed. And so even in February, the weather was pretty warm in the afternoons. It was getting up into the 80s, the 90s.
Gabrielle (32:51.254)
And so because this trail is so exposed and because it was so hot, even though it was February, I knew I needed to start really early. I started that trail at 4.45 a.m. I got off of it, I think it was about one o’clock and it was fucking hot. So it was really, really important that I got that really early start time so that I could be off before the hottest part of the day. And in Texas,
Gabrielle (33:17.096)
This is an important consideration. You you need to think about how exposed is the trail? How hot is it going to be? How hard is this trail? And so do I want to be off before a particular time? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And included in that is knowing not just like the bailout points on the trail, but also your bailout time. Yes. Recognizing, OK, how long based on how long it’s taking me to get here? How long is going to take me to get back? And knowing
Gabrielle (33:46.318)
I need to be finished by this time because it’s going to get crazy hot because I’m in Texas. If you’re in some other states knowing, okay, it tends to thunderstorm in the afternoon. I don’t want to be on the side of a mountain during the thunderstorm. so recognizing that it’s okay not to finish a trail that in fact, very often the first time you attempt a difficult trail, you may not finish it. Yeah. And kind of respecting mother nature and
Gabrielle (34:15.754)
And the fact that, you know, the elements will absolutely teach you a lesson if you are unwilling to learn it yourself. Yeah. Turnaround times are important and it can be hard to decide what your turnaround time is in Texas. It’s really easy in Colorado. Like when you’re doing 14 years, you have to be off the top by noon. You have to summit. have to be going back down by noon because those afternoon thunderstorms do roll in or like, you know,
Gabrielle (34:45.12)
we’re not climbing Everest here, but there are really hard turnaround times that guides will have for summiting Everest and say, if you’re not up there by whatever time, I don’t care if you’re 50 feet from the summit, you turn around and you go down and people die when they don’t follow these guidelines. And so obviously it’s a little bit different in Texas, but you do want to think about what time do I need to turn around? What time do I need to be off of this trail?
Gabrielle (35:11.594)
And so at what point do I bail out if I haven’t made kept the pace that I anticipated keeping? Yeah, and playing into all of that, of course, is the weather conditions as we’ve been talking about. Weather conditions in remote areas can be difficult to predict if you don’t have a satellite weather service available to you. Obviously, we’re very fortunate that we can pull weather from our Bivi app. I’ll say it doesn’t always work.
Gabrielle (35:40.142)
Because the one time I did try to pull a report, didn’t work. It’s worked for me. But it’s again, the satellite services, they can be a little unreliable. Sometimes you have to wait around for a satellite to pass overhead and for the signal to become available. Typically, the advice is you want to be checking with the Rangers and the Ranger station the day of. In order to confirm weather conditions, if at all possible, or at the very least
Gabrielle (36:09.506)
the afternoon before if you’re going to be getting, as you said, an Alpine start starting before the station is open. And so that way you have the most up to date weather available. They’re going to have a more accurate report than most most typical weather apps. Well, most typical weather apps are giving you the nearest towns weather. Yeah. May or may not apply to you out in the middle of the desert or on the side of mountain. Yeah.
Gabrielle (36:38.826)
Another safety consideration is how much water are you going to need for that hike and are you going to carry any extra? So you need to be thinking based on the terrain, based on your anticipated effort, based on the weather. How much water do you need to carry to do this hike safely? And then personally, I always carry a little bit of extra water. I carry what I call as my shit water. Yeah. Which is.
Gabrielle (37:03.886)
Always a bottle of 500 milliliter bottle of water that I don’t plan on using It’s not you know as I’m like thinking about this hike and how much water I’m need this I pretend this bottle of water doesn’t exist and So that way if I find myself out there in an oh shit Situation. Oh shit. I didn’t anticipate being out here for this long Or like I have an oh shit sudden like I have to stay out there for the whole night. Whatever something happens. I at least have
Gabrielle (37:33.03)
one extra bottle of water that could potentially save my life. Or I’ve actually given my own shit bottle away before on Guadalupe Peak. ran across somebody who was not prepared to be on that trail, had no business being there. She didn’t have any water and she was halfway up the trail as this old lady. So I gave her my bottle of water and was really glad that I had had that water to give to her. Yeah. Yeah. So not only.
Gabrielle (37:59.854)
Is it protecting you? also enables you to be, you know, that good Samaritan and help somebody out. I have to say that every time you call it your own shit water, part of me thinks it’s like a portable bidet. You’re you’re bringing a spray bottle to clean yourself off afterwards, which actually is not like. Did you know that’s a thing? I do. I do know it’s a thing. Yeah. I just can’t even. Hikers are too lazy to carry toilet paper and pack it out. Like, what the fuck?
Gabrielle (38:29.228)
Well, you know, I mean, I get the appeal. I do. That said, carrying enough extra water for that feels like a lot of extra weight that I’m not super. no, no, no, you get it. You fill it up from a stream. This is a thing that like AT hikers will do. OK, so that because you are supposed to pack out toilet paper, they don’t want to pack it out so that they’ll carry this extra bottle with whatever attachment so they can squirt their butts instead of wiping their butts.
Gabrielle (38:59.828)
I can see the argument for it. All right. Well, let’s let’s move on here. So you want to think about are there any water sources on the trail in case of emergency? As we’ve talked about before, Texas, its springs are unreliable. There’s really no place that you’re going to be able to consistently refill your bottles. But I always look at to see if there are any labeled springs on the trail or on the area that I plan to be in.
Gabrielle (39:28.95)
And so if something goes horribly, horribly wrong, I’m aware of spring locations and at least I can go try to find them and see if they do happen to be flowing. Like even little trickles of water, tiny little puddles can literally save your life if you are in an emergency situation, stranded out there. So it’s good to be aware of their location, but do not count on them as a water source to refill your water.
Gabrielle (39:55.328)
Right, yeah, that’s an assumption that that can kill you for sure. If you are expecting to be able to refill water out of spring in Texas. Generally speaking, if you look on the park websites, it’ll say if this is a spring that’s flowing reliably or not. 90 % of the time, they are not. Well, and apart from that, they in Texas, at least they ask you to not use those water sources because they are an important water source for the animals.
Gabrielle (40:22.976)
And because water is so scarce in Texas, these animals need them. Like there’s no excuse to not carry the fucking amount of water that you need. Don’t be a little bitch. Like if you have to carry three, four, five liters of water, that’s just what you fucking do. Yeah. I’m not going to disagree with you. I’m just saying it.
Gabrielle (40:42.198)
In an emergency, it’s good to know which ones are actually likely to be floating. Yeah, in an emergency, it’s good to be aware of them, but don’t just don’t count on them and say, I’m only going to carry a small amount of water because I’m going to go past the spring and I’m going to refill there. Don’t be that bitch. Yeah, fair enough. All right, what’s what’s left here? All right, so you also want to consider, are there any trail specific items that you’re going to need? So, for example, again, we keep coming back to Marufo Vega because it is such an intense, difficult hike.
Gabrielle (41:11.918)
Gabrielle (41:12.258)
So Marufo Vega is known to be really hot and really exposed. So you are supposed to carry a lot of water, which I did do, but because this trail goes by the Rio Grande, I carried a water filter and water purifier tabs so that if something happened and I got stranded out there or I got lost out there and was there for an overnight or more, I could filter water from the Rio Grande. You weren’t
Gabrielle (41:40.404)
specifically looking forward to tasting the water of the Rio Grande. my gosh, that’s so disgusting. They definitely don’t recommend that you drink water from the Rio Grande because it is a dirty nasty river, but I had the equipment with me so that it could save my life if shit hit the fan. Yep, yep, fair enough. You know, another example is bug spray on the Lone Star Hiking Trail. I don’t normally carry lots of bug spray with me.
Gabrielle (42:07.362)
But when I’m out in East Texas where there’s lots of ticks, lots of mosquitoes, I’m going to carry extra bug protection. So you just want to kind of think about what do I normally carry? What trail am I going to be on? And do I need to pack any extra items that I don’t normally carry with me? Yeah, absolutely. The final part of creating an effective safety plan is kind of your pre-trip checklist, which some of this stuff is kind of like, duh, but it’s always important to think about.
Gabrielle (42:36.02)
And I personally am a fan of writing these checklists out. When I’m packing or when I’m double checking your packing, a lot of times I will make a written checklist or I’ll, you know, I say written. I really mean in my phone, but you know, I will make a checklist that I can, I can look at and validate that I’m not forgetting some.
Gabrielle (42:59.042)
Yeah. So some things to kind of have on this pre-trip checklist is are your devices charged? Like what devices are you going to be using and are they charged? So obviously that means your phone, that means your emergency device. So our bivy stick, that means our power banks. So do you have those power banks and do you have a cord for them and are they compatible with the devices that you’re going to use? Right. Yeah. We’re slowly getting closer to a world in which all of these mobile devices are using the same
Gabrielle (43:28.568)
type of charging port, but we’re not there yet. Yeah. So like if you have an iPhone, you need a cord for that to your power bank. But like if you were an iPhone user who then has a Bivy stick, you’re going to need a different cord to charge your Bivy stick. What’s that adapter called that the Bivy stick uses? I think the Bivy is still on the old micro USB.
Gabrielle (43:49.806)
No, it’s not the little one. It’s the one that our phones use. OK, so it’s on the USB type C, which the newest iPhones are also using. Oh, I didn’t realize that. you have an older iPhone device, you might still be on a lightning charger. And then also there are a number of other older electronic devices that still use the micro USB. So needless to say, you want to stop and actually think what cord do each of my devices use? Do I have all of those cords?
Gabrielle (44:20.71)
And one thing that I’ve been thinking about over the last couple of years is how can I buy new devices that only use the same cord as my phone so that I can ultimately stop taking extra cords? That’s a risk mitigation strategy, huh? Yeah, you know, well, it’s like a future proofing investment strategy here, right? It’s like I’m going to I want to use this gear for a long time. I don’t want to have to keep using old cords. Yeah, yeah.
Gabrielle (44:47.054)
Another thing to check before you leave is does your emergency communication device work? So does our bivy stick work? Yeah, there’s no reason to think it’s quit on us, but we always check it before I head out Ideally, you should be doing this at least a week out if not, you know I often forget and it’s a couple days before I leave but that way you can find out if it’s quit working on you you have time to Plan for that replace it whatever you’re do. Yeah, I I kind of feel like
Gabrielle (45:17.346)
The smart thing to do if you’re not, if you’re using it regularly, we, we, take yours on a trip almost once a month. And so we are using ours regularly. So we always have a good idea. You know, if there’s going to be an issue, we’ll, we’ll probably know. but we still check it before every trip. If you’re not using it regularly, I would probably be taking it out, making sure it’s charged and then testing it every couple of months because there’s nothing more annoying.
Gabrielle (45:46.648)
then finding out two days before a big trip that your device has stopped working. that did happen to us, didn’t it? And I will say, I will say this, Bivi customer service was phenomenal. They overnighted us a new device. Almost no questions asked. Like they were on the ball. Unfortunately.
Gabrielle (46:12.75)
The shipping company, I think this was FedEx that I’m mad at about this. FedEx overnight at the time, for whatever reason, didn’t explicitly mean guaranteed overnight. It could be two days. It ended up being longer. I called them and I said, where is the device? I will come and get it from the distribution center myself. And they said, OK, we’ll hold it for you. And so I drove like an hour to a distribution center to pick it up.
Gabrielle (46:42.868)
only to find out that they had put it on a truck. Yep. And that it would be showing up later that day, which was too late because you were leaving at like nine a.m. And so I got up super early. I was there when like when they opened. But they opened the gates, a bunch of trucks drove out and I was I knew in my head, I was like, fuck, it’s it’s on one of those trucks, isn’t it? These assholes. Yeah. Didn’t honor their agreement.
Gabrielle (47:09.09)
But I was hopeful I went in and no, it turned out that they they were like, well, that’s actually just a request. We aren’t we don’t guarantee that’s anyways. Anyways, the long story that short here is we tested more than two days in advance. Yeah, we kind of dropped the ball on it. Vivi covered our ass and then FedEx let us down. But we could have prevented that if we had been checking a week prior. You know, FedEx would have gotten it to us and it wouldn’t have been an issue. Exactly.
Gabrielle (47:38.764)
Yeah, can’t deny the personal responsibility there does fall on us for not not checking sooner. And so that’s something we do now. We always make sure I think at least a week in advance to check. Yeah. Another thing to think about is, you know, what maps are you counting on using? You should always have a paper map. OK, no excuses. You cannot just use your phone. You can primarily use your phone if you want to, but you need to have that paper map. So do you have the paper map? Do you need to print it off? Do you need to buy it?
Gabrielle (48:06.45)
if you’re using your phone, do you have your maps downloaded or screenshot it or whatever way that you’re going to access them? All of that is important to have before you get out there. There’s nothing worse than when I forget to download my Gaia maps and I get out in the park and I’m like, fuck, I have no service. And I didn’t download these maps. can’t, I can’t use my Gaia app now. And with the paper map, it’s can’t stress enough. There are different types of maps on the park website.
Gabrielle (48:35.336)
And you really want to make sure that what you have is a map that is specifically intended for navigating the trails. Ideally, you your best case is you’re using a topographic map of the area with the trails marked on it. That’s going to be actually accurate. You know, down to the meter, and it’s going to be the most helpful map. You at the very least need a trail map that is drawn to scale. A lot of trail maps are.
Gabrielle (49:04.138)
informational maps, they are not drawn to scale. They may give you a general idea of the shape of the trail and where it is in relation to other things, but if it’s not to scale, you don’t actually know how far away something else might be, how far away that river that you’re seeing on the map might be, how far away that other trail might be, and so it’s important to know what type of map you have and you know, certainly if you’re doing a more intense trail, if you’re doing a backcountry trail, you want a topo.
Gabrielle (49:33.206)
If you’re doing a well-maintained trail that’s intended for the casual hiker, you’re probably okay with just an informational trail map. That’s a good point. And sometimes you have to buy those topographical maps. So, you know, at Big Bend National Park, they have kind of the general one that you’re talking about, but you have to buy the National Geographic topographical map if you actually want really good information. Same. Well.
Gabrielle (50:00.524)
I shouldn’t say same thing out at Big Bend Ranch State Park because the one you have to buy is not very good for hiking off of. But that’s true of a lot of places. You may have to purchase a map to get that good information that you’re talking about. And that’s kind of that’s it. That’s how you create an effective safety plan. So if you kind of go through all of these steps, if you create your trip plan, remember, that’s where you plan to be and when that’s a written plan.
Gabrielle (50:29.076)
If you talk to your base camp person about how often y’all are going to communicate and what happens if you fail to follow that plan, it’s gonna make sure that somebody’s calling and initiating search and rescue and knows where to start looking for you. This plan, this creating the safety plan will also ensure that you’ve thought about any challenges that you anticipate on this particular trail or this particular trip. It helps you think through how you can mitigate these challenges.
Gabrielle (50:58.496)
any bailout points that you might need to consider, any items that you might need for this specific trail. And that pre-trip checklist ensures that you have everything that you need and it’s all working prior to hitting the trail. Do think there’s anything we haven’t talked about here? I mean, I think we’ve covered all of the most important points. These are all kind of life saving points. I feel like any any one of these could theoretically save your life. Yes. And.
Gabrielle (51:26.242)
I think that’s kind of the most important stuff that people need to know things that I wish I had known sooner in many cases. So yeah, I mean, I think I think you really covered kind of the full gamut here. All right. Awesome. We’ll be talking about safety on the trail, kind of more broad considerations. But this is something these are all things that you should be doing before every single trip that you take. All right. Well, here’s hoping that if you’re hearing this, that you can go forth and not fuck up.
And thanks for listening to this episode of this fucking trail. Happy hiking!