Missing hunters in Colorado

[Dan Carey]

Wet wood is not wet very deep on the outer cover. I carry a good knife capable of skinning a piece of wood and big enough the split it if needed, it's a buck 124

 

[Indian Summer]

Autopsy scheduled for tomorrow. I guess we’ll find out. I hope…..

As far as what you carry in your pack for an unexpected night out a fast cut folding saw sure makes gathering some wood a lot easier.

 

[Pharmseller]

I carry road flares in a ziploc. Ain’t nothing a road flare won’t light.

 

[Dan Carey]

I am now a fan of road flares.

 

[Dr.Spaniel]

I carry road flares in a ziploc. Ain’t nothing a road flare won’t light.

What type do you carry? What size?

 

[*zap*]

15 minute road flare burns @ 2000 degrees for 15 minutes. Works under water....

 

[Dan Carey]

Where are flares sold. I don't remember seeing them anywhere.

 

[Pharmseller]

What type do you carry? What size?

No clue. I buy extras at Wally World when my flares I have to carry on my boat expire. Very light. Find them in the boating section.

 

[fngTony]

Road flares will melt a hole through a soda can. That’s what we did before the internet.

 

[Pacific_Fork]

I was hunting in the same drainage that night. It was a hell of a storm and the temperature dropped quite a bit but it was not so cold that you couldn’t hike two miles to the truck. Everyone keeps talking about this like it was 10 miles in the backcountry in a blizzard. It’s not possible to be more than two miles deep in that bowl. There are some bad deadfall spots and I do not know exactly where they were or what was going on but there’s quite a few old logging roads, the main road running up the center, etc that make for fast traveling in there. You fight through a rough spot or two then you can move quickly. You’re never more than an hour and a half, two hours max from the truck. There is no real getting turned around in there. The terrain funnels you down. You’re either going up or you’re going back down to the road. Hunkering down and making a fire in a downpour is not a better decision in this case than walking two miles to the truck. Unless one of them hurt their leg bad enough that they didn’t want to hike out at night or something along those lines, I just don’t see it.

And before everyone argues with me about it, I was dumb enough to not throw any extra clothes in my pack that afternoon because I was going in to pack one out so I was in that storm in a Kuiu gila long sleeve and a Sitka kelvin active short sleeve hoodie. I was three miles from the truck and at no point in that night was I ever even close to thinking that I needed to stop and make a fire to save my life. When I got back to the truck I swapped shirts out and threw a jacket on then went back out for the last load. Yes it was cold and yes it sucked but when we first heard about this, there was not one person in my group of four that were out there that night that even thought hypothermia could be a possibility. But the thought of staying out there all night with nothing didn’t either. That’s the problem with hindsight. It’s easy to look at a situation afterwards and say what should have been done. We have no idea what was going on for them to make the decisions they did. That being said, my initial reaction was lightning. Two phones, onX, InReaches, etc and not one message or location ping seems like lightning to me.

Regardless of what actually happened, it’s a shame two young men lost their lives out there.

Good post! Again I will be blown away if it’s anything other than lighting. Such a hard and sad lesson for us all to learn.

 

[fmyth]

Where are flares sold. I don't remember seeing them anywhere.

I found some at Walmart in automotive aisle.

 

[Fatcamp]

Where are flares sold. I don't remember seeing them anywhere.

Any farm and ranch store.

 

[Steve300xcw]

Where are flares sold. I don't remember seeing them anywhere.

damn near anywhere with an automotive section.

 

[MuleDeerMike]

I was hunting in the same drainage that night. It was a hell of a storm and the temperature dropped quite a bit but it was not so cold that you couldn’t hike two miles to the truck. Everyone keeps talking about this like it was 10 miles in the backcountry in a blizzard. It’s not possible to be more than two miles deep in that bowl. There are some bad deadfall spots and I do not know exactly where they were or what was going on but there’s quite a few old logging roads, the main road running up the center, etc that make for fast traveling in there. You fight through a rough spot or two then you can move quickly. You’re never more than an hour and a half, two hours max from the truck. There is no real getting turned around in there. The terrain funnels you down. You’re either going up or you’re going back down to the road. Hunkering down and making a fire in a downpour is not a better decision in this case than walking two miles to the truck. Unless one of them hurt their leg bad enough that they didn’t want to hike out at night or something along those lines, I just don’t see it.

And before everyone argues with me about it, I was dumb enough to not throw any extra clothes in my pack that afternoon because I was going in to pack one out so I was in that storm in a Kuiu gila long sleeve and a Sitka kelvin active short sleeve hoodie. I was three miles from the truck and at no point in that night was I ever even close to thinking that I needed to stop and make a fire to save my life. When I got back to the truck I swapped shirts out and threw a jacket on then went back out for the last load. Yes it was cold and yes it sucked but when we first heard about this, there was not one person in my group of four that were out there that night that even thought hypothermia could be a possibility. But the thought of staying out there all night with nothing didn’t either. That’s the problem with hindsight. It’s easy to look at a situation afterwards and say what should have been done. We have no idea what was going on for them to make the decisions they did. That being said, my initial reaction was lightning. Two phones, onX, InReaches, etc and not one message or location ping seems like lightning to me.

Regardless of what actually happened, it’s a shame two young men lost their lives out there.

Appreciate the post as I'm sure everyone else here does as well. As unlikely as lightning a strike is, 2 healthy young men both independently succumbing to hypothermia a couple miles from the truck outside of a blizzard seemed less likely. The feeling I got was they died suddenly from either lightning, landslide, boulder slide, etc. Time will tell.

 

[HairyScandinavian]

You can almost go to a random store and accidentally end up with road flares in your basket.

 

[Dogone]

I heard many times that a cat tail was good for starting a fire. I tried it at home, it WON’T light. Much to wet,even if a year old. A propane torch wouldn’t start it. Another old wives tale.

 

[fngTony]

I heard many times that a cat tail was good for starting a fire. I tried it at home, it WON’T light. Much to wet,even if a year old. A propane torch wouldn’t start it. Another old wives tale.

I’ve heard, tried and came to the same conclusion.

 

[Fatcamp]

I heard many times that a cat tail was good for starting a fire. I tried it at home, it WON’T light. Much to wet,even if a year old. A propane torch wouldn’t start it. Another old wives tale.

Many, many years ago a friend accidentally started a huge fire playing around with cattail fluff that had dried and blown off the stalks. Led to an exciting couple hours.

I would guess you just needed to let it dry a bit, because once that stuff gets going it REALLY gets going.