There is no one quite as lost as the person who is mistakenly convinced that they know exactly where they are.
There was a predicted break in the weather before this year's polar vortex was due to descend again upon the Ozarks. The temps were going to be reasonable, and there would be sunshine. I decided to venture a bit further afield; to the Devil's Backbone Wilderness, near Dora, Missouri for three days solo backpacking.
What could possibly go wrong? Lots apparently. Mostly my own stupidity, but also unbeknownst to me I was about to be struck by a very nasty illness.
When I arrived at the Devil's Backbone Wilderness, Collin's Ridge trailhead there were two other vehicles there, and their owners returned while I was getting ready to start my hike. They complained about the poor quality of the trails, and asked if I knew anything about it. I told them that the trail went north from the parking lot, but they'd headed south. Did they pick up a map? "Yes..."
So my trip started with my feeling a little bit superior. How could anyone head off in the opposite direction when they had a map? The alarm bells should have been ringing. Pride inevitably comes before a major pratfall.
The Devil's Backbone Trail down to Mary Hollow goes through some heavy pine forest and then along a narrow ridge.
The Devil's Backbone by Gary Allman, on Flickr
The descent was nowhere near as steep as I remembered it, and pretty soon I was at the bottom. There was precious little sign of water there. I could hear some trickling water, but decided to follow through with my idea of trying to find the spring in McGarr Hollow. I turned east and set off.
Now McGarr Hollow is west of where the Devil's Backbone Trail meets the Mary Hollow Trail, and that mistake would be compounded as the day wore on.
I went and found what I thought was McGarr Hollow, and after hiking half a mile up the hollow and not finding the spring, returned back to where I'd heard running water in Mary Hollow.
Looking North Across Mary Hollow, where the Devil's Backbone Trail joins the Mary Hollow Trail by Gary Allman, on Flickr
The water I'd heard was melt water dripping into big pools under the bluffs. I used my new Sawyer Squeeze water filter, and it lived up to the hype. It didn't take long to filter three liters of water. Though, as with the Sawyer mini, the dirty water bags were very difficult to fill. I ended up using a Ziploc bag to pour water into the dirty water bag. It's early days yet, but the Sawyer Squeeze is looking promising.
Filled up with water, I started my hike up the Mary Hollow Trail. Now I knew the McGarr trail spurred off to the left -- I'd just been up there -- so the Mary Hollow Trail had to be straight on. I was a bit puzzled by the lack of a clear trail, but the area was wide and I was sure I'd find the trail as the hollow narrowed.
The truth was that I was now headed off south (there has to be some irony there) down some unnamed hollow.
I didn't know it at the time, but I was wandering further and further off trail.
The sides of the hollow were high and steep by Gary Allman, on Flickr
This hollow, is quite spectacular with very steep 200 ft high, sides. I was busy trying to follow the trail and admire the views. By four pm I was thinking I ought to start looking for a place to stop, and I'd also gotten to a point where the trail -- what there was of it -- crossed the creek and petered out. I quartered the area, but couldn't find it. I decided to go back across the creek and set up camp on a low ridge in among a load of pine trees.
After my usual wandering around looking for the ideal spot, I set up my hammock so that the rising sun would be shining in -- I was at least that aware of directions. Earlier, when checking the lay of the land I had got out the compass and was rather disturbed to find that the compass card was sticking a lot. Tapping it seemed to dislodge the card, but it didn't seem to want to consistently point in the same direction.
Camped near Crooked Branch by Gary Allman, on Flickr
Looking at the detailed topo map, there was one obvious place along Mary Hollow that matched the lay of the land. It conveniently put me exactly where I wanted to be, about a mile from the junction of the Mary Hollow Trail with the McGarr Ridge Trail (We'll ignore the fact I was actually a mile away in the Hollow to the south of Mary Hollow).
Devil's Backbone Hike Feb 2, 2019 by Gary Allman, on Flickr
I cooked my Mountain House Sweet and Sour Pork meal, which I found to be a bit too sweet for my taste, and spent the rest of the evening reading in my hammock.
I woke at three am with a very gurgly stomach and extreme indigestion. The clothing and sleeping gear I was using was identical to that I took out to Hercules Glades the previous week. Then the temps dropped to 23°F. So I couldn't understand why I was freezing cold and shivering; the thought that I might be ill didn't occur to me. I fitfully dozed through the rest of the night and awoke feeling really hot and sweaty. Again, the idea that I might be ill didn't occur.
Come the morning I vowed to never eat the Sweet and Sour Pork again, and I was very glad to discover that the ground I'd decided to camp on was soft and not at all the typical Ozarks stoney ground. Digging a cathole was quick and easy, which was just as well.
I started to suspect that my new water filter had failed and I'd managed to pick up something from the water.
I decided to boil the water for my cereal and for the trail. Then, with a minimum of warning, I was violently sick. I had just enough time to pitch myself out of the hammock. As I threw up chunks of the previous evening's sweet and sour pork, I decided that was definitely a meal I wasn't going to try again, even if the problem was with the water.
A Rather Gray Looking Gary by Gary Allman, on Flickr
As I sat and recovered, I considered my options. Staying put wouldn't work. At some point in the day I needed to get to a ridge and call home. However, I was feeling awful, and time was passing. I decided the best thing to do was bail out and retrace my steps.
I gave myself a severe talking to regarding my total lack of mapwork and navigation on the way in. I was absolutely positive I knew where I was, but I decided to at least mark-off the main geological features as I passed them on the way out so that I could confirm that my assumption was right.
It was a pretty wretched hike out. I knew I had to try and keep my fluids up, but boiled water tastes awful. The trail in the hollow was quite level, and I was going down-stream. It didn't strike me as odd that I needed a twenty minute lie-down when I arrived back at the bottom of the Devil's Backbone Trail.
The hike up the ridge was easier than I expected. But the hike from there back to the trailhead couldn't be over soon enough.
The drive home was okay, and within minutes of my arrival my wife (correctly) diagnosed Norovirus, and everything, including me, was disinfected. I slept for over nine-and-a-half hours that night, and suffered from wildly oscillating temperatures for a couple of days.
Despite our best efforts to quarantine me, my wife went down with it Thursday, which at least confirmed that it was a virus, and not a bad meal or contaminated water.
Conclusions
The following Friday I finally got round to downloading my GPS track for the trip, and I was horrified to see that I was hiking along the hollow to the south of Mary Hollow (My GPS isn't working for a lot of functions but I can still get it to record tracks).
My assumption that McGarr Hollow was to the east of the Devil's Backbone / Mary Hollow trail junction completely threw my navigation out. That was compounded by my not bothering to look at the map until I began searching for somewhere to camp at the end of the day.
It was then that I realized that I'd made a major mistake in not tracking where I was on the map, but I thought I'd got away with it. Ha!
What was even more interesting was that I managed to convince myself I was checking off points on Mary Hollow while I was heading back out. At almost any time a cross check with both the compass and map with a bit of thought about distance traveled would have shown I wasn't where I thought I was.
It's a powerful lesson. As was being taken ill. If I had been disabled and unable to hike out, any search would have been looking for me along Mary Hollow, and there I was, 'miles' off track, in the hollow to the south. I was lucky, things could have been a whole lot worse.
Lessons
- We quickly become dependent on technology, in this case my GPS. I know better than that.
- I need to brush up and actually use my navigation skills. A non-system trail -- and my own stupidity -- helped to maintain my fiction that I was on the Mary Hollow Trail when I wasn't. A working GPS would have alerted me to the problem, but I realize now that I've become too reliant on it. Using the map and compass would also have told me I was off course.
- I made the correct decision to bail when I did. I'm tempted to say "Trust your gut."
Had I gone on and tried to complete the loop, I've no idea where I would have ended up, or when it would have dawned on me that I wasn't on the Mary Hollow Trail. In a way I was lucky to be taken ill, it saved me from getting further into the mire.
- With my hammock, food, water filter, and gear I could have survived easily for several days if I'd been unable to get myself out, even if the weather turned bad. However, being in the wrong place would have delayed my being found. So, I think I see a personal satellite locator beacon with 2-way communications in my near future. Yes, I know this contradicts my statement on relying on technology. However, if it fails I'll know and be able to take appropriate steps.
- I have to face up to the fact that the possibility of my encountering a serious medical emergency while solo backpacking increases with each year (my family has a history of health problems, and that's one of the reasons why I'm out backpacking -- to keep fit).
- Use good quality gear. I've already ordered a new compass to replace the missing Silva. Because of legal issues, you can no longer buy a genuine Finnish Silva compass in the US. I've ordered myself a Suunto MC-2G In Global USGS Compass. Overkill for my needs but it sates my Gear Acquisition Syndrome, however ...
- It's no good having a good compass (and map) if you don't use them.
- It's when you are at your most confident that you are most vulnerable to making stupid mistakes and not realizing it.
- A lack of suitable pockets means that things like maps and compasses tend to be kept in inaccessible places or in the case of the maps, in my hand (where they get dropped). On my next trip, I intend to take my Ribz front pack to see if that helps with keeping essentials to hand. it's not a matter of carrying more, just redistributing where things are kept.
- Use antiseptic hand cleaner at all times!
- Boiled water is revolting to drink.
Postscript. I'm not long back from a two night trip revisiting the Devil's Backbone Wilderness. I took the route I had planned for this trip, and I showed Mary Hollow I know exactly where it's at.
Link: A complete (more verbose) write-up on my website.
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