The Safety Gap Almost Nobody Worries About

Four out of five hikers haven't done a first aid course in the last three years. I'm one of them, and you probably are too.

I built a free readiness quiz for multi-day hikers, and close to a thousand people have now scored themselves across six areas of preparation. When I lined up the average scores, one sat right at the bottom, and it wasn't the one people write to me worried about.

Everyone who takes the quiz gets a score out of a hundred for each of six areas. Averaged across everyone, gear came out on top at seventy-eight. Safety came last at fifty-seven, more than twenty points below gear, and one in three people scored under fifty on safety.

Here's the part that got me. A fair few people scored Expert on gear while sitting under fifty on safety. Same person, same quiz. Top of the class on kit, bottom of the class on what to do when the day goes wrong. Two questions did most of the damage.

The first is simple. Have you done a wilderness or remote-area first aid course in the last three years? Eighty-four percent said no.

It's not really about the bandaging. Training matters because when something goes wrong out there (a bad fall, someone's hypothermic, you're not sure if that ankle's broken or just rolled) you've already thought it through once in a room with someone who knows what they're doing. You're making a calm call instead of starting from scratch.

A few years ago I rolled my ankle deep in the bush. I heard it crack, and when I tried to stand I couldn't put any weight on it. We were a fair way from the car, it was cold, and there wasn't much daylight left. I had a beacon on me. But I sat down and thought it through. I wasn't in agony, I knew exactly where I was and how far it was back, and I had two mates with me. So I made the call to get myself out. Painkillers, a big stick to lean on, and I hobbled across a long boulder field on one good leg. The kit in my pack didn't get me out. Knowing what to do got me out.

If you've never done a course, a basic workplace one you can knock over in a day is a lot better than nothing. If you're heading somewhere remote, do a wilderness or remote-area one. They teach you what to do when help is hours or days away instead of ten minutes down the road. I’ve done several over the last few decades and have found them invaluable.

Thirty percent of people who took the quiz carry nothing at all once they're out of phone range. Some phone plans now include satellite messaging, and the SMS side is getting genuinely good. I use it myself. But I still carry a Garmin inReach, because the reliability gap is real enough that I'd rather not find out where it is. A dedicated personal locator beacon or satellite messenger is the standard I'd set. And if cost is what's stopping you, here in Tassie you can hire a beacon for about forty dollars a week.

At the end of the quiz there's an optional box where you type in whatever you're actually worried about. Quite a few people filled it in. Food and water filled most of it, then fitness, gear, and planning. A handful mentioned navigation.

Four mentioned safety.

So the thing people score worst on, by twenty points, is the thing almost none of them are thinking about. I don't reckon that's carelessness. It's that you can only worry about the gaps you can see, and this one doesn't feel like a gap until the day it is one.

THAT’S ALL FOR THIS WEEK

Thanks for reading Mowser’s Musings. I hope this helps you hike further and happier.

Until next week, keep exploring.

Mowser

Discover more. Hike further.

P.S. If you're not sure how you'd score on those two questions, that's exactly what the quiz is for. It gives you a number on your safety instead of a feeling, plus your five other scores and your weakest area named. Two minutes, free, and the report lands in your inbox: take the Multi-Day Readiness Quiz.