Today's hike was a perfect scaled-down example of a subtle danger that gets hikers into trouble. I was hiking off trail, in an area I'd never been to before. I climbed a hill and took a different route on the way down. While trying to get back to the truck, I encountered a cliff I couldn't climb. If this had not been such a short hike, I could have been too tired, or too hungry or too thirsty to get back to my truck after encountering this obstacle. It's this type of thing that gets hikers into trouble. The news will say they got lost. They knew where they were, and they knew where they wanted to be. They were just too tired, thirsty, and disoriented to go where they wanted.
I've reached a dead end. I'm surrounded by steep rock walls on three sides. I will have to re-trace my steps (I think my i-gotU had trouble getting GPS signals in this little canyon). If this had been a much longer hike and I was tired and hungry and running out of water, I would be in real trouble right now. I can't go the direction I want to go and it's a long and difficult hike to re-trace my steps. I would be in real trouble now if I didn't have strict hiking rules that keep me out of dangerous situations like this.
Further up the canyon, it's still very narrow. By continuing to hike in unexplored (by me) territory, I run the risk of encountering another dead on. If this had been a much longer hike, I could be putting myself in great danger by continuing to try to find a shortcut back to the truck. People that are out of water don't think logically, though.
This was a short hike on a cool day. I was never in any danger. I thought it was interesting how this hike illustrates what can go wrong during an off-trail hike, though. In rough terrain it is not possible to tell when you might encounter a dead end. If you are tired or running low on supplies, you need to go back to safety using the same route you took to get to where you are now. To do anything else would be dangerous and foolish.
No hikers were harmed in the making of this trip report.