Great backpacking essay

Death of the Hiker is a wonderful essay published recently by Leyton Cassidy, who I've never read before.

It's about backpacking. More specifically, it's about a backpacking trip gone wrong. In a foreign country. In the Alps. On a trail you've never been on before. In a rainstorm. In the dark. Alone.

I've definitely had some of those experiences. I've been on backpacking trips gone wrong, on trails I've never been on before, in a rainstorm.

Happily, though, I've never been alone. I've thought about whether I would ever go backpacking alone. I've thought about it on-and-off over the 50+ years of my life during which I've gone backpacking. I've never gone backpacking alone, although curiously the older I get, the more likely I think it might be, as the people that I regularly go backpacking with get older themselves, and slowly, one by one, withdraw from the hiking group that I belong to.

Leaving only us stalwarts^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hlunatics.

Cassidy's trip ends well, with some important lessons: did you tell anyone where you went? have you discussed, considered, rehearsed what you would do if the trip went wrong?

She says:

So how did I get here? Ignoring the weather forecast with a damp, useless map from some random, unvetted travel company? Why did my brain block out the risks? Why had there not been even a tremor of doubt through the fantasies of being some new Walt Whitman-Cheryl Strayed hybrid?

Nowadays I think a lot about things and how they go wrong.

It's actually my job; my company pays me a lot of money to sit around and think about how things could fail.

I'm better at thinking about how computer programs could fail, than at thinking about how backpacking trips could fail.

But practice is crucial in this sort of thinking, so I'm glad to take some time out of my day and think about how backpacking trips could go wrong.