BY MIKE STEVENS
- Being eaten by a great white shark
Next-to-zero worry due to the fact I’m simply not within whitey’s reach unless they start blasting into the skinny water like orca’s snatching seals of beaches in Argentina. I suppose being on a boat that sinks and recreates the U.S.S. Indianapolis scene as described by Quint in Jaws is within the realm of possibility, but I’m playing the numbers here and the odds are overwhelmingly in my favor.
- Having to abandon ship
Again, the odds. Even if it does go down (literally), we are very aware of the level of professional response our crews are trained to deliver as well as the drop-everything-and-go-help reaction the sportboat fleet and private boaters knee jerks to in times of need. So, it’s not something I really concern myself with. I sleep like a baby on boats and that wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t feel completely safe.
- Bear drama
As a Sierra guy I run across black bears pretty often, and in my experience, even when they are less than 10 feet away, they act as if you aren’t even there. A recent situation that went down in Mammoth shows what can happen (to both bear and idiot) if you are a complete moron around them, but the closest thing to drama I ever experienced with a bear was really no big deal. I was casting from shore at Lake Mary around dusk when a big bear showed up from behind a tree about 15 feet away. It stopped, sniffed my backpack, picked it up, walked up a hill, ripped a hole into it and went to work on my Clif Bars. I emailed Clif Bar and jokingly blamed them for the incident, and they sent me four cases of their products to bury the hatchet.
- Bad kitty
I’ve yet to spot a mountain lion in the wild, but I’m relatively sure they have seen me. I used to read a lot about “through hikers” that trekked the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) from Mexico to Canada, and there were several accounts of hikers spotting the same cat for dozens of miles. As in, a mountain lion was following them for days. One dude finally got so sketched out by it, he shot down the hill to Lone Pine and hitched a ride to the next access point just to ditch the thing. So, not worried about being pounced on by a puma, but unlike a bear, they usually don’t announce their presence, so the thought has crossed my mind.
- Waterborne Illness
I’ve drank gallons of water right out of Sierra creeks for my entire life and never felt ill effects, but I know it’s possible to get sick from drinking untreated H20. I believe giardia is the most likely bug, but I understand it usually takes about a week before it wreaks havoc on your guts, so my attitude has always been “at least it won’t ruin my trip!” It ranks higher on the list than some of the more fun stuff because I still drink creek water, but I do have a filter in my daypack these days in the event I have to drink a lot of it.
- Getting lost
It’s only a concern because it happens to folks every year. Closest I came was coming down from the backcountry near the border of Inyo and Mono county. I was following a trail, and in one of those tired rhythms of watching one boot step in front of the other after a long day, I didn’t really notice the trail disappeared from under me. When I did, I found myself in a big clearing and didn’t know how far back I left the trail. For a minute there, it was not a good feeling, then I just took a deep breath, looked around and spotted the peak that was right behind the lake I was fishing. At that point I was able to reverse-engineer my path and get back on track. Oh, I saw the ghost of John Muir up there that same day on the way up. All good, he was cool. For more on that, visit WONews.com and just search “Muir.”
- Fried by lightning
While in Montana for a family reunion in my early 20s, I was waded (didn’t want to trespass!) way upstream on some creek intending to fish my way back. In classic summer-in-Montana fashion, clear skies gave way to dark, ominous rumbling clouds in minutes. Each thunder clap was louder than the last, and I headed back the way I came once it started pouring. I didn’t get very far before lightning was cracking over my head (I had never heard lightning before), and I could feel hairs on the back of my neck sticking up with each zap. Forgetting about the fact I was walking in water and holding a graphite rod over my head, I made my way back where my ride put two and two together and was already there waiting for me.
A book called Shattered Air by Bob Madgic (about a group getting cooked on Half Dome) really freaked me out about lightning primarily because confirmed in great detail just how bad it sucks to get struck by it, but also because I learned a bolt of lightning can fry you from something like (it’s been a while) 7 miles away. Since I still often find myself “Standing in a River Waving a Stick” (RIP John Gierach) during high country thunderstorms, getting smoked by lightning earns the 4 spot.
- Consumed by the Owens Valley
I’m one of those guys who will know days ahead of time that the lower Owens River is unfishable due to ripping flows only to convince myself on the drive up that it might not be that bad. Upon arrival, I usually find out it’s worse than I thought, yet I’ll still put miles in looking for some mythical wide section that might be calm enough to be able to hold a Countdown Rapala long enough for a fish to eat it. On Sierra Opener Eve following that winter of all winters, the water was a torrent of raging white or chocolate milk, and entire trees would float past me. Yet there I was, standing on bluffs and undercut banks just begging for a collapse that would shoot me a mile or so downstream before turning me into a semi-permanent installment to the lower portion of the next logjam. It may not kill as many people as the Kern River, but the Lower O’s body count is nothing to shake a stick at, and I should really stop messing with it.
- Accidental encounter with a “nope rope”
I’m really not worried that a rattlesnake is going to kill me, but I’m kind of shocked that I have yet to be smoked by one, and it seems like an experience that would suck bigly. I do all the stuff you’re not supposed to: trudge through brushy and rocky areas in rattler country, reach over rocks and logs without taking a look first and so on. This one is simply based on the fact that I’m probably in the zone for this to happen more often than your average Joe. I once asked a doctor what I should keep on me in case I get bit by a rattler, and he said, “the best thing you can have is car keys.”
- Late-night highway run
My high school government teacher was a Sierra guy, and he told me a story about driving north on Highway 395 at night that has stuck with me for almost 30 years. He said he could see headlights ahead that were clearly on his side of the road. They never moved into the correct lane, and he had to swerve into the wrong lane himself and they passed each other on the wrong side.
His theory was the other driver had dozed off, and I think that’s a good bet. Most 395 regulars know that highway is a killer (if you’re not, just Google up “highway 395 fatal accident”) and in covering the region for several decades, I know a lot of it is the result of someone swerving into the wrong lane if not off the road.
I know I stay awake –because I also think about what would happen should my headlights all-the-sudden make contact with some big-game critter—but bad stuff happens often enough that I don’t trust anyone else.
THAT one actually scares me.