Episode 96 | Building Resilience for Backcountry Adversity

I’d love to hear specifically about others’ practices for dealing with challenges when you are feeling mentally/emotionally overwhelmed in the backcountry and are facing a decision that requires fast action.

+1 to Jon.

(I could not listen to the entire podcast; it repeatedly crashed. After close to a dozen tries, I got most of the way through the six tips. )

My approach:

• Mostly, resilience comes from a lifetime of doing hard things.
• Don’t panic. Best training for this is to make a habit of not panicking. Do triage: Address problems in order of which will kill (or harm) you or your team first. Shelter, fire, water. As you said, if there is an underlying cause of several issues, then deal with that.
• Plan what to do ahead of time. If you fall, how will you land? You won’t have time to think about it when it happens, so best to think about it ahead of time. (Tip: a bent forearm is generally better than extended hand (wrist) or extended arm (collar bone). Protect your head, especially the base of your skull/top of spine. A pack may be a great place to land, especially with a frame.)
• Deep breath. Seriously. A single, exaggerated but relaxed sigh can signal the parasympathetic nervous system to chillax. Tried and true.
• As you say, it’s not just physical fitness. Mental fitness matters as well, and that comes from knowledge (BPL) and practice.
• Finish with a sprint. Training involves long, slow, distance (zone 2) to build capacity, and high intensity intervals (sprints) to expand “wind” (ability to turnover oxygen rapidly, as well as increasing BDNF and mitochondrial health/quantity). This is a deep topic, but that’s it in a nutshell. Charge up small hills, and finish long climbs with a burst. Make it a habit.
• Keep your towel handy, like a seasoned hitchhiker (credit to Douglas Adams for bringing this to our attention). (Ultralighters may substitute a bandana, buff, Swedish towel, Lightload, or ShamWow here.)
• Scout Motto: Be prepared.
• Bonus Tip: This one isn’t for everyone, but fat adaptation (low carb diet) is wonderful in terms of stamina and resilience from having to constantly eat. I don’t have to worry about a missed meal, or even running out of food when the path home changes. I know that I can walk for days if necessary. I still have a flexible metabolism so that I can rapidly replenish glycogen with a pack of ramen or some gorp, but I don’t need to. It’s very freeing. Plus it reduces the main causes of cardiovascular disease (which boil down to insulin resistance).

Learn how to fall. Always know where you’re going to land.

Getting your trail legs. Knowing when not to turn back. There was a question about being sedentary. I think Ryan mentioned trail running to get in shape. I bought a stationary bike last year. It stares me in the face everyday. At first I only got on it for a short burst. It’s the same thing. You’re legs start to hurt but you power on past it. Soon that gets engrained in your head. I was doing power off stalls over the desert when I was 14. I worked for a tough old gal who trained Air Force pilots during WW2. We flew out of General Pattons old base camp. I did some static line jumps at Lake Elsinore when I was 19. We were in an old Norseman and I saw smoke coming from the cockpit. The motor died and the plane dropped. I finally jumped out around 500’ after 7 others went out. It should be a minimum of 2,000’. It wasn’t. I was looking at trees, fences, and the roadway. I picked my spot, a very small area,  turned at the last moment and I came right down the middle. I made 1 jump after that just to get back on the horse, but that was it.

You learn that you’re not going to die, unless you let yourself die. I was never in the military. Many of us are at the age where our friends and parents served in major conflicts A few of the younger guys too. My dad’s buddy lassoed him by the foot, saving his life by dragging him off of Mount Suribachi in Iwo Jima.
You learn from example, then you learn by doing. Develop your skills and have faith in what you’ve learned. Know that others have gone before you. Have confidence because sometimes there is no other choice.