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Rant: My group's 10 mile loop turned into 16 because of a bridge I remembered wrong
So last month I planned a loop near the Snoqualmie area that I've done maybe 4 times. There's this footbridge over the creek that I swore was at mile 6, but it's actually at mile 4.8. We ended up crossing it late, hitting a dead end, and backtracking 3 miles in the dark with headlamps. My buddy kept saying "you said this was easy" and honestly I had no comeback. Has anyone else had a route memory fail this bad on a trail they thought they knew?
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charliebarnes6d ago
Oh man, the worst part is that the mistake compounds. Get to the bridge late, take the wrong turn, then every decision after that is made by a tired brain that's already proven it can't be trusted. My buddy and I did something like this on Tiger Mountain where I was sure the junction was at a certain spot, but we'd already passed it, so we spent the next hour "just checking" side trails that all looked right in the dark. The real kicker is that the guy who was mad at you will now bring this up on every hike for the next five years. You'll be standing at a trail sign and he'll go "hey is this the bridge from the Snoqualmie thing" and you just have to eat it. The only fix is to go back and do the loop right so you overwrite the bad memory with a good one.
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