I just saw this on Yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060510/ap_on_re_us/lost_hikers_found

Two dayhikers got lost for three days and stumbled into a camp of another lost hiker who is believed to have died one year ago.

Thought you guys would find this interesting.
It shows the importance of having at least minimun gear at all times.

David Enoch

I saw that one too. This is only amazing because they were unprepared & lucky. Readers Digest has an intermitant line of stories called "Drama in Real Life". Frequently, The drama is how an unprepared doofus managed to survive anyway.

Man, what a way to mess things up. That dang helicopter snatched them out of a burning field (of their own making) - dashing their hopes for a Darwin Award this year. When I read:... I really thought they had this year's Darwin in the bag.

There is a tale about a French General who was being considered by The Little Emperor for promotion to Marshal of France. The Generals supporter's where busy praising him. Great stratergist, brave, honest, loved by his men etc. The Little Emperor looked less than impressed. He threw up a hand for silence. Then he asked a question. " I don't care how good he is. Is he lucky?"

Hubris: The pride that comes before the fall. Tempt not the God's. Lest they Darwin Award your ass.....

What tends to always irritate me when I read about things like this is that EVERYONE has been reading these types of articles in newspapers and sees it on the main drug of choice: television. They know it happens all the time. And yet they put themselves in the exact same situations, time after time. You would think they were running a subliminal message all the time: "It won't happen to you... it won't happen to you..."

I guess when John Taylor Gatto wrote his book called Dumbing Us Down, he really knew what he was talking about. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

A friend of mine once said: "Just imagine the next 200 people you see coming out of WalMart deposited into a wagon train headed for CA in 1848." Now, THAT'S scary!

Sue

A lot better than you suspect, me thinks. People adapt and learn very quickly once the chips are down. Even if they don't quite exibit quite the same level of constructive paranoia and "cool" as E.T.S forum members. Be interesting to see how long someone from 1848 would survive in 2048. Without a friendly native guide that is.....