Quoted By:
I didn't nearly die, but this is the closest I've come to actually having an emergency.
>want to go hiking
>find a nearby trail that is supposed to be beautiful, "~6 miles long," people rate it for "advanced" hikers
>it's forecast to be 98 F outside, but it's in the woods in the shade so it should be ok with water
>my girlfriend and I bring 4 L of water total in our hydration packs
>hike starts well, going at a reasonable pace, trail isn't too hard, drinking plenty of water
>hit a distance marker, only 2 miles hiked and it's been 1.5 hours, we've drank over half our water
>shit
>we pick up the pace, trail starts getting hard as hell, multiple elevation changes so severe they each require 5 switchbacks each 100 feet long
>trail gets muddy as hell
>we are getting exhausted, down to our last 700 mL of water ~3 hours in
>come out at what we think is the end of the trail at a small parking lot next to an old grain mill / dam
>i'm not in good shape so I am nearly at the end of my endurance, this hike turned into a miserable march
>realize that the "6 mile trail" is only the distance from the start of the trail to the dam, and doesn't include an additional 2 miles to the to the final parking lot where we parked our second car
>final 2 miles of trail has no blazes, we have to hike along a river that we knew paralleled the trail from our map
>finally make it to the car 5 hours later with no water left in our packs, suck down the excess water we keep in the car just for situations like this
>it was actually 108 F outside
>didn't piss once all day, I sweat out over 2 liters of water
I've never actually considered calling park rangers for help before until that time, I was nervous as fuck I was going to run out of energy and not be able to recover because we were almost out of water.
Needless to say, I bought a 3 L hydration pack and I'm never going on a hike again without at least 3 L per person on hot days.
