How many decisions do you reckon you’ve made today?

It's probably the conscious ones that come to mind. Do I wear the red shirt or blue top? 1 coffee or 6.

Believe it or not, The Harvard Business Review states that adults can make around 35,000 decisions each day and many of those happen automatically and simultaneously.

When we head out into the wild places we love, or find ourselves in environments with a higher level of risk, some of these decisions (conscious or otherwise) can have some pretty intense consequences.

Today, I’m joined by Hugh Ward, co-owner of the Blue Mountains Climbing School, to learn about an easy tool that we can use every day, to help us make better decisions, smarter choices and have better adventures.

He talks us through the established acronym F.A.C.E.T.S, developed by Ian Mcammon, based upon the work of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tsversky. It was designed to highlight common deficiencies in our decision making (Heuristic Traps) and to offer a tool to temper the choices we make in high consequence environments.

Excitingly, he then steps us through a NEW acronym,  A.C.C.E.S.S. that he has developed with Climbing School co-owner and wife, Bridie Campbell, that works better with Australian outdoor environments. You can read more and DOWNLOAD their handy pocket guide here.

Resources

Article on the Climbing School blog

It was the ABC News that first alerted the outdoors community to Macca's big wall fall near Blackheath in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. With over 30 years climbing under his belt, including many first ascents and stories, some of which are the stuff of legend, he is one of the Blue Mountains climbing community's most well-known characters. 

Five years on from the accident, he joins me today with Sergeant Dal Atkinson, the team leader of Blue Mountains Police Rescue Squad, to speak about what happened and what the challenges of location, access, and weather made this one of the longest and most difficult cliff rescues in New South Wales.

https://youtu.be/IVtaK-v99jM

Dr Paul Luckin is an authority on human survivability. He’s a medical advisor to the Police Search and Rescue teams and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (that’s AMSA), providing time-frames for human survival during Search and Rescue operations.

In part 2 of my conversation with Paul, we look deeper into demographics and practicalities of surviving in the wild. What should people do if in that situation and ask what can be done to help get these messages across.

Dr Paul Luckin is an anaesthetist, with a very unique background.

As an authority on human survivability he’s a medical advisor to the Police Search and Rescue teams and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (that’s AMSA), providing time-frames for human survival during Search and Rescue operations.

He teaches the medical aspects of Search and Rescue, and is on the directing staff of the National Police Search and Rescue Managers Course.

A humble and highly trained specialist clinician and expert in search and rescue, he has served as a Captain in the Royal Australian Naval Reserve in Bougainville, East Timor, in the Resuscitation and Retrieval Team for the victims of the first Bali bombing, and in the first foreign medical team into Banda Aceh following the 2004 tsunami, and much, much more.

In 2015, he was made a Member of the Order of Australia, AM, for significant service to the

community through emergency medicine, and he joins me today…

According to the World Health Organisation, roughly 1 to 2 people die from snakebite in Australia each year. The good news is this is significantly lower than the 1920’s when the Sydney Morning Herald reported about 13 people were dying each year.

Today we hear from Joyce, who bucks modern statistics which tell us that 74% of victims are male, with an average age of 46, and interestingly, with around 54% of bites happened at home.

She’s joined by her friend Frances and together, they share the story of what happened when along a spectacular, grade 5 track, over 3 hours from the nearest road, she describes what felt like a sharp stick hit her ankle.

Learnings from this episode:

• First Aid Training (preferably Wilderness (WFA) or Remote First Aid (RAFA) or Remote Area First Responder is essential for you and also those you walk with or meet along the way.
• How to treat a snake bite - what they did.
• The importance of carrying more than 1 snake bandage.
• When calling for help in the bush in coverage, call 000. Anecdotally, Police (rather than Ambulance) may be better equipped to locate you in a remote location (ie. away from roads/tracks/etc.)
• The incredible benefits of walking with a group where you know the skills and capabilities, rather than strangers (support, first aid, navigation, bushcraft, tasks, team management, etc)
• Understand that your backpack may not travel in a rescue helicopter. Pack smart.
• The value of debriefing with your group after a crisis. Taking a moment to take it all in and be gentle on yourselves.
• Utmost importance of being prepared: packing everything you need.
• Learning to mitigate risks: wearing long pants, gaiters, first aid kit and training, communication methods (for in and out of coverage).

Helpful Links:

• My comprehensive packing lists (day hikes, overnight hikes)
• What's in my first aid kit?
• Bites and Stings app
• Find a club in your state! Bushwalking Australia - 
• Emergency+ App
• What3Words

Dr Kate Baecher is a clinical psychologist specialising in trauma in high-risk or complex environments.

Behind all her training and experience serving with the military and working in civilian life supporting critical incidents, she is somebody deeply connected to nature, where the wild place is her happy place.

She joins me today, and shares about the time she witnessed the death of another climber while on a mountaineering holiday to Mont Blanc, on the border of France and Italy… and how that event led her to develop models for dealing with trauma and psychological first aid in remote and rugged environments.

She’ll walk us through those models and give us some really practical tools on how we can deal with traumatic incidents should we ever come across them when out on our adventures.

Episode takeaways:

• The importance of having psychological first aid skills (these are different to mental health first aid)
• It’s normal to find ourselves in psychological distress after witnessing trauma
• It can affect us all in different ways (no right or wrong way)
• Recognise when we need to seek professional help
• There are some helpful (and SIMPLE) resources available (see the episode webpage) to help yourself and those around you

Contact Kate at: https://drkatebaecher.com/

Transcript available here.

My guest today has a long history of working and playing in some of the most rugged and remote parts of NSW. So, with a few days up his sleeve, a bit of research and the right kind of skills and experience behind him, he set off for another steep n’ deep trip through Kanangra Boyd National Park, bound for Katoomba on the traditional K2K route.

WARNING: The K2K route is described online as a classic 3 day trip in the southern Blue Mountains. This description was written before the fires and floods since 2019. It cannot be compared with other walks of a similar length such as the Six Foot Track, which is on well-defined management and fire trails. The K2K has always been a challenging walk that pushes the Australian Walking Track Grading System of 1-5, into an unofficial 6. That was then (before the fires) and now, it's an even more punishing route.

I've written about this route before with this rescue of Chini who shared her written story.

NPWS Alert re: K2K route

Heraclitus was a Greek philosopher, born around 500 BC. Now, I’m wondering if he was a bit of a bushwalker and a lover of nature, cos he’s the one who said, “No man ever steps in the same river twice. For it's not the same river and he's not the same man.”

He’s also the one credited with saying, “the only constant is change.”

Nowhere is this more evident than in nature: The turning of the seasons, the changes this brings in life cycles of plants and animals, erosion from weather, climate change, bushfires, my greying hair, you name it.

And for those of us who love being out on (or off) the track, it’s something that feels more obvious in recent years: there’s more people, more bushfires, weather events and landslides are changing the landscapes that we love to spend time in.

Learnings from this episode:

• Having a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) as a critical part of your packing.
• The importance of having a 'place to go' within yourself (eg. meditation, mindfulness, faith, etc) when faced with a crisis, helping you remain calm and make wise decisions.
• The value of having past experience in similar terrain you expect to encounter.
• Just because a track is marked online or on apps, doesn't meant it exists in the landscape. Other than the official land manager apps (eg: NPWS App) data can be out of date and user reviews or descriptions extremely subjective. Apps like AllTrails, etc should be used in conjunction with other research and navigation skills. 
• If it's been a while between longer or hard walks, consider your overall health from other factors.

Helpful Links:

• Episode 6 - PLBs and other satellite communication devices // My interview with Linda Berriman from AMSA (the AU govt agency responsible for rescues in Australia)
• Creatine Kinase (CK) testing

There’s something about the immense power of lightning that has fascinated cultures and people throughout the centuries.

How it behaves, how it moves through the sky and the force and damage that it can bring.

If news reports are anything to go by, it would be easy to think that being struck by lightning only happens to golfers or beach anglers.

My guest today is neither of those and shares her story of being struck by lightning while leading an outdoor activity on a school camp.

Checkout this resource from Outdoors NSW & ACT: https://www.outdoorsnswact.org/post/lightning-and-outdoor-activities-update

And here from Bushwalking Victoria's Bushwalking Manual.

Lessons for being around lightning:

• Current advice based on Australian Standard Lightning protection AS 1768:2021; Clause 6.4.2. is:  all outdoor activities should stop once thunder is heard, or in the event of weather tracking devices, the storm is 15 kilometres away regardless of the timing of the thunder and lightning.
• Understand the previous advice of the 30:30 rule and how that has changed
• If in a group, don't stay together - spread out
• Get down from high points like ridges and knolls-be low on the landscape
• Don't shelter in overhangs or caves
• Realise that 'taking shelter' means shelter from the lightning, not the rain
• Always check forecasts

At just under 2000m, Mt Bogong is the highest peak in Victoria. It looms over the small township of Mount Beauty, not too far from Falls Creek, and is a classic multiday trip for bushwalkers - who don’t mind over 1200 metres of vertical ascent - or in snow - for keen backcountry skiers.

Sitting within what’s called the “Bogong Remote and Natural Area” of the Alpine National Park, it’s a place of great natural beauty, whatever the season, and for the well-prepared adventurer, a place of exceptional wildness and epic tales.

In this episode, experienced outdoorsy type, Hilary, takes us along on her journey snow camping and cross-country skiing, when her skis stopped moving forward… but her body kept going.

Download the transcript here.

Episode takeaways:

• Importance of wearing a helmet skiing/snowboarding
• Adventuring with a group verus solo
• The importance of knowing how to manage environmental dangers (eg. cold) during first aid emergencies, how to warm someone up and keep them warm… and having the equipment to do so.
• The value of thoughtful planning and communication between those doing first aid and the patient
• The challenge of lifting/carrying a patient
• Hmmmm, fruit cake
• The trauma/stress experienced by first aiders - being able to look after themselves too
• The power of the green whistle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methoxyflurane
• The value of leaving keys with the car
• Realising that AU’s Medicare doesn’t cover ambulance or helicopter rescue. It’s different in each state so you need to do the research for your situation.
• Why having ambulance cover is essential
• Understanding what ‘back to normal’ can for outdoorsy folk vs ‘normal’ folk
• Understanding that wellness is a process and being realistic about what that means and being kind to yourself
• Injuries don’t just affect our physical body

Glossary

• Chook-footing = cross-country skiing (xc) or back-country
• Post holing = when you step on what you think is firm snow, but sink deep up to the knee or even higher. Exhausting over distance.
• Yard sale = when a skier or snowboarder crashes hard and all their gear goes everywhere. Skiis, poles, backpack. It looks like a yard (Aussie = garage) sale.
• AAWT = Australian Alps Walking Track
• DIN settings = is set on your ski bindings based on your skiing ability, weight, height, boot and conditions. It is the industry-adopted scale that allows your skis to release your boot when you crash (good, causing a yard sale) versus not releasing your ski which can exert extreme pressure and wonky angles on your body (bad).

There is so much more to Mike Atkinson (aka Outback Mike) than what we saw of his 64 days, toughing it out in the wilds of Tassie’s west coast, on the first season of SBS’ Alone Australia (season 2 kicks off 27/3/23).

He’s been having epic expedition style adventures since his first long hike at 11 years old with his family and building towards his first solo trip, skiing from Mt Kosciusko to Canberra, aged 17.

Watching him on ALONE, I was drawn in by his problem solving and seemingly endless tinkering to build a better existence out in takayna/The Tarkine. As you’ll hear in this episode (and can read much more about in his book Modern Day Castaway), his ALONE canoe wasn’t his first.

In this ep we get to know a bit more about what drives this type of life and what it takes in the form of meticulous planning and testing, before committing to something that might cost him everything...  and how he once made the decision to call for help.

BTS: If you listen carefully, you might hear aircraft in the background. Yep… if you’re going to be an Air Force pilot, you live near an airbase!

Download the transcript here.

Episode takeaways:

• Why life is better with adventure
• How Mike approaches problem-solving and mitigating risk
• The value of calling for help early
• What a pilot sees from the air (tips for being visible)
• Decision-making in a crisis - how not to be ‘flappy’
• The importance of satellite communication and the value of 2-way devices eg. ZOLEO, InReach, etc
• Choosing who will be your emergency contact
• When emotions can surprise you and how they could affect decision making
• Preparation and planning
• What adventurers can learn from pilots - making plans for every possible scenario, mental checklists and rehearsing them
• Mitigating rescue resources through smart planning
• The issue of sharing locations to ‘special spots’ on social media
• The down and UP sides of risk
• Why hardship is good for us

Links from this episode:

Mike’s website - outbackmike.com

Mike’s book - Modern Day Castaway

Timelapse video of Mike building his dugout canoe

Mike and his kids do the Snowies 10 Peaks Video

Thanks to sponsor Paddy Pallin

****Check out my 4 day (24-27 April) Intro to Navigation Retreat at Corinna, takayna/The Tarkine here.****