SOTA Safety TIP #2 - Know Your Limits

What

Knowing your limits means knowing what the limits of your skills, capabilities and gear are.  When you plan, or are on the trail, be prepared to push the ABORT Button.  Your assessment includes training, mountaineering skills, assessing your fitness, how much water you have,  layers of clothing, weather, and mission appropriate gear like micro spikes, crampons, ice axe, etc.  Don’t forget to assess the skills of your group.  Many times, SOTA operators are the ones leading the pack, so look out for your team, and don’t let them exceed their limits.

Why

SOTA activators tend to be very goal oriented and this can get us into trouble.  Hikers call it “summit fever”, pilots call it “get-there-itus”.  We tend to push on when we shouldn’t.  Search & Rescue teams are constantly rescuing people that just weren’t prepared in one way or another and continued on anyway.

What I And Others Do

I’ve had to abort a few summit attempts when I've  encountered terrain that exceeded my skill level.  I’ve also aborted when thunderstorms were going to be a factor.  Therefore, I’ve managed to survive to try a different route or summit a another day.  I know what an ice axe is and how it works,  but I’ve never been trained or practiced with one.  To use an ice axe, it has to be absolute muscle memory.  As a pilot, aborting an unstable approach or at minimums when you are in the muck was drilled into me, and I apply that to hiking as well.  Have an alternate plan when things go wrong.  I’ve been able to just pick a different route or summit and still have a great day.  

 

ps. I’m not perfect, I’ve come a little too close to not aborting due to lightning and learned from that so you don’t have to 🙂.

 Visit HamNinja.com/safety for my safety article, and HamNinja.com/safetytips to see all the tips as they are published.  I have more safety tips to come.

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Thanks for the feedback on tip #1, “Bring plenty of water”, last week.  Great ideas, like bringing electrolyte replacements and a way to purify water for those longer hikes.  

 

The Ham Ninja’s SOTA Safety Tips

SOTA Safety Tips is a weekly series of quick tips to remember to improve safety of the hobby.  This was inspired by the SoCal SOTA group’s meetings on this topic and will be sourced from my own and others' experience.  Don’t forget, you also need to support your group and others with this knowledge.  I’ll keep these as short as possible.  Send feedback to safetytips@HamNinja.com.

 

My Experience

I am not a safety or health professional, doctor, or other expert, just an amateur.  Be careful out there and do your research.  I’ve activated 817+ summits since Oct of 2017 in Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and several other states.  Over that time I’ve hiked 2,540+ miles and climbed 626,000+ feet.  I don’t have skills beyond class 3 hiking and really, “scrambouldering” and light snow pack are my upper skill limits and my hikes are normally 2 miles, NTE 18 miles.  I was an Army medic and was a certified EMT.  I have received training on desert survival, and recurrent first Aid training in other roles.  First Aid is a perishable skill, get training..

You can contact me at safetytips@HamNinja.com.