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Friday Fun Thread for May 5, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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TRIAL by wager of WILDERNESS.

I have been thinking about something: in ages past, men went to war to prove themselves. They still do, today, and the survivors I have seen return more attractive, although they pay an immense price, and that is only counting those that return more or less in one piece. Now, war is more destructive than it once was, and we don't think highly of war in general, for good reason.

Therefore: I have been training for this for the past year or so. I plan to have myself dumped into the Alaskan wilderness in late February, 50 miles from the nearest road or civilization. I'll walk out, and if I make it out alive, I'll have been hardened by my experience. I'll have stared my own death in the goddamn face, braving temperatures of 40 below 0 just to walk out alive.

Do you think that this will make my ugly, autistic ass any more attractive? I've heard it said that you have never lived until you have almost died, and that tough, masculine men are attractive AF. This seems like something that would harden someone...either permanently, as a rock-solid corpse, or permanently, as a wilderness-hardened man.

TL;DR Is dumping myself in the middle of the woods in Alaska in winter gonna make me more attractive, if I survive?

Fifty miles isn't that far? If you are wearing proper clothing and have snowshoes/skis + trail food, you should be able to just, like -- keep walking until you get to civilization?

If you want to do some winter camping that can be fun too, but I'd choose somewhere more interesting than a northern forest -- they're kind of featureless in many ways.

Maybe you should get into mountaineering? Those guys risk death in ridiculous ways all the time ( here's an 'interesting' story I read recently ), but at least they end up with a more interesting story than "one time I walked around Alaska for a couple of days for no good reason".

(The first two paragraphs of that article, for flavour:

MOUNT THOR is located 16 miles above the Arctic Circle in the Weasel Valley on Baffin Island. Our goal was to climb the 4,500-foot west face, tackling the 1,600-foot overhanging headwall.

Previous attempts on Mount Thor’s west face had ended at the base of the headwall. In 1979, a large Japanese expedition attempted the face, but retreated after the death of a climber. Later that summer, after 32 days on the face, three American climbers were driven from the wall by winds in excess of 100 miles per hour. In 1984, a second Japanese team reached the summit via the west face and north ridge. Their climb avoided the headwall, but unfortunately ended with the tragic death of a climber during a stream crossing.

)

I will most definitely be wearing proper clothing and carrying food with me as well. The plan is to make a sled by reshaping the plastic from 55 gallon barrels. I have seen canoes made this way. I’ve got a winter jacket that’s damn near Everest grade, down pants, merino wool base layers. I’ll grab some skis, some expedition weight mittens and boots that can handle 40 below, test it in the mountains next winter when it’s like 0 or 20 below, then have myself dumped in the Alaskan forest north of the Arctic Circle and see if I can make it out alive. I’ll take a map, compass, and perhaps a rescue beacon.

You have never lived, ‘till you have almost died, and after life has a flavor that the protected will never know.

The thing here is the extreme remoteness plus the fact that temperatures can dip as low as 40, even 50 below zero. This is cold as fuck and is something I feel might harden the hell out of my soft ass.

What do you need a sled for? Just pack a bunch of beef jerky and trail mix, you'll be fine.