I’ve never really been a big hiking person. The way I see it, most places you go are technically hiking. A zoo is hiking with guaranteed animals. A mall is indoor hiking with gradually-increased weightlifting. But the activity we call “hiking” is just the hiking part. Nothing else.
But perhaps you enjoy hiking as a way to get out there and turn your mind off and “find yourself”.
Just don’t get lost finding yourself.
Because how much fun is hiking, really? Yeah, it’s a cheaper activity than anything, but once you factor in getting lost and everyone having to take off and go make a kiddush Hashem to help find you… How long can you get lost at an amusement park, tops? You just go to the office and have them make an announcement. Maybe the woods should have a PA system, where you’re like, “Shmerel, please come to the office. Your group is looking for you.”
This is why I prefer amusement parks -- purely from a safety standpoint.
Take the hiker in Colorado this past fall who was lost for 24 hours. The local Search and Rescue put together a search party, and everyone was looking for him, but darkness was falling and he had not yet been found.
And you’re thinking, “This should not happen. Every hiker should have a cell phone, right?”
He did. And they tried calling it several times. But he didn’t pick up, because, as he later said, “I didn’t recognize the number.”
I’d rather die than talk to someone I don’t know.
I guess I get why he didn’t answer the phone. Because what if it’s a telemarketer?
“Would you like to talk about your car’s extended warranty?”
“I don’t even know where my car is. I’m lost in the woods.”
But it could have been someone helpful.
“Would you like to donate to the policeman’s union?”
“I’m lost in the woods.”
“Oh, never mind.”
But I mean, it’s confusing. You’re always told, “Don’t talk to strangers.” Unless you’re lost; then you can talk to strangers. But only on the phone. Because what are they gonna do? They can’t kidnap you on the phone. Are they going to come out to meet you in a woods swarming with rescue workers?
So he just kept hitting “ignore”. He was like, “Uch, I keep getting calls from this same number! It’s bad enough that I’m lost!”
““Search and Rescue”? I don’t know any Search and Rescue. It’s probably spam.”
Why wasn’t he trying to call people he knows for help?
Wait… Why was no one he knows calling him? Everyone who knew him was like, “Eh, let him stay lost.”
I know that if I were lost, my parents would not call me. They would say, “Let’s wait for him to call us. He never calls. You’ll see.” And my wife would not pick up if she was on the phone with literally anyone else in her life. And if she did pick up and someone else called while I was on the phone with her, she would hang up on me to see who it was. This is why I don’t go hiking.
Wait. Not even the people who reported him lost?
Anyway, it turns out that he had no idea anyone was looking for him. He didn’t know he’d been reported. How do you know if you’ve been reported? He wasn’t around when they reported him. He wasn’t in on this decision. But I mean, his friends could have called him and said, “Look, we reported you missing. If you get a phone call from a number that says, “Search and Rescue,” pick up!”
The truth is that not everyone who’s missing is aware that he’s missing. It could be that everyone else is missing.
Take the story in Turkey of 50-year-old Beyhan Mutlu, who was out drinking and he wandered off into the woods, and his friends couldn’t find him, so they reported him missing. There was a huge search party and everything.
Eventually, Beyhan sobered up and saw the search party, and he didn’t actually know who they were looking for, so he decided to join in. Especially since this person they were calling for had the same first name as him. It was like it was meant to be!
He thought, “I’m going to join them, because I know that if I were missing, I would want people joining in to look for me.”
And no one around him realized this either. Were they not given a picture or something? Maybe everyone in the search party should wear something so everyone knows they’re not the one everyone’s looking for.
Or maybe people should’ve tried calling his phone.
“Dude, your phone is ringing.”
“I’m not answering it right now. I’m busy helping you look for this lost person. Priorities! So how’s it going?”
“It’s going to voicemail.”
Anyway, the search party was calling out his name for a while, when suddenly, Beyhan said, “Wait… Who are we looking for? I’m right here!”
“The last name is the same as mine too? What are the chances?”
There are probably a lot of Beyhans in Turkey. There were probably several in the search party, yelling “What? Oh,” every few minutes. My guess is they were the ones shouting out the last name.
So anyway, it suddenly clicked, and Beyhan yelled, “That’s me!”
And no one believed him.
“What a weird sense of humor. Stop fooling around and let’s find this guy.”
Finally, he found one of his friends in the crowd, and he got his friend to help convince everyone that it was him.
Have you ever had everyone around you visibly upset at you that you’re not missing?
Maybe the moral of today’s stories is that you should always tell the person you’re looking for that you’re looking for him. You at least want him to know that he’s lost.
But that won’t necessarily help.
Take the man from Brooklyn who went hiking on a trail in Arizona this past March to see the niflaos haboreh – the woods, the cliffs, the sunsets… And as soon as the sun went down, he immediately got lost. He didn’t know things got dark at night; it doesn’t get this dark in New York City, and all the streets are numbered.
“How come the trees aren’t numbered? Who designed this forest?”
People don’t really get so lost in New York. You just say, “Hey, I’m walking here!” and everyone just automatically knows where “here” is.
But he did have a cell phone, so he called 911. This is just how hikes work apparently. You go as far as you want to walk, and then you call the search party.
So the rescue workers picked him up and drove him back to society. They also educated him on bringing the right gear, such as a flashlight, and about the conditions of the trail, and they told him to wait a few months for it to warm up and for the days to be longer and try the trail again.
Anyway, the next night, they get a call from the same guy, saying that he was lost on the same trail again. I guess he didn’t know how to get back. They’d driven him that first time.
That said, if you ever find yourself lost in the woods, you should not be embarrassed to call rescue workers, because they’ve definitely seen dumber people than you. Also, there could be dangerous animals that you are ill prepared to deal with, such as bears.
Take the story this May of a high school in British Columbia that was besieged by a bear that was loose in the parking lot, snooping around the dumpsters, trying to decide if the school food would be worth the digestive issues.
Luckily, the science teacher was there, and he happened to know that the best way to scare a bear away is loud noises. So he started banging on doors. And while that did cause the bear to back away for a moment (Science!), that didn’t really do it, because: Food! Until the music teacher started playing his trombone – that caused the bear to run away in a confused panic. Music!
According to the music teacher, “I heard them banging on the doors, and I thought, ‘I can do better than that.’” Not to toot his own horn.
Point is, I don’t know what you’re bringing into the woods in case you get lost, but if you’re not schlepping in some kind of wind instrument, you’re unprepared.
This would maybe not be an option in the Three Weeks, though, unless you play badly. And also if the bear keeps the 3 Weeks. “No! Music! Run!”
I should mention that this story happened during Sefirah.
And speaking of noise, this brings us to our final article for today, titled, “Scientists Are Teaching Drones to Hunt Down Human Screams.” This is a headline that sounds a lot more terrifying than it actually is. It’s actually good news. It’s for safety purposes!
If they can get this done, it would be great for helping to find lost hikers, except that the hikers generally stop screaming for help by the time a search party is put together, and also the search party keeps screaming, so the drones will keep finding them. Unless the hiker joins the search party. But this way you won’t lose a second person at least.
More likely, though, the drones would be drawn to the home of anyone who has kids and is trying to work.
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia, a monthly humor columnist, and has written six books, all published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
