With the arrival of warmer weather across the United States, outdoor enthusiasts are returning to America's parks and forests to hike and run on the country's beautiful, often remote, networks of trails. But along with the influx of visitors comes a rise in wilderness emergencies, some of them requiring complex and expensive search and rescue operations. In a single week in April in New Hampshire's White Mountains, seven hikers were rescued and another was found dead on a trail after he didn't return from a solo backpacking trip.
A new paper from a Boston University researcher seeks to curb such incidents with first-of-its-kind data on the preparedness of day hikers and trail runners; the results could help educate adventurers on what to pack and know before they venture into the wilderness.
In a survey of more than 600 visitors to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, the BU School of Public Health's John Lambert (SPH'24) asked those returning from a day hike or a trail run about their wilderness experience and the gear they had with them. Survey participants were categorized as wilderness prepared if they were carrying at least one liter of water, seven emergency items from the National Park Service's " Ten Essentials " list, a map or equivalent wayfinding device, and either two rescue devices or eight of 15 recommended first aid items.
His study, published in Wilderness & Environmental Medicine , found most hikers and trail runners—especially those with less previous wilderness experience—were not carrying the necessary emergency gear and were not adequately prepared for higher altitudes. He concluded these were problems parks could alleviate with more targeted educational outreach, known as preventative search and rescue (PSAR).
"From a public health perspective, honestly, anytime outside is great," says Lambert, a BU Center for Climate & Health researcher. "That being said, you still have to be smart about it, and being prepared can save your life or someone else's."
The Brink spoke with Lambert about his research and how hikers can better prepare for the wilderness.
Q&A
The Brink: One of your most striking findings is that the vast majority of hikers and trail runners rated themselves as adequately prepared, but when you actually look at what gear they were carrying and their depth of knowledge, a different picture emerges. Only a minority of day hikers (15.7 percent) and trail runners (25 percent) were wilderness prepared. How do you explain that gap between perception and reality?
Lambert: Some of it is definitely just judgment. Folks might think that they are prepared, and their definition of prepared for themselves may differ from the definition that we were using. Our definition was perhaps kind of strict, but I think everyone would agree that if someone is carrying everything on our list, they're pretty prepared. If you're on a shorter hike, it's possible that you might not need all of that stuff.
I think a lot of it is folks unfortunately not being aware of the things that could save them if they got into trouble or save others if they came across somebody else on the trail who needed help. People might not think about that when they're packing a bag; they might just throw in food and water and not think about all of these other things that could really be helpful. Raising awareness around how important preparedness can be is one of the biggest things that I hope comes out of this study.
Your study appears to be among the first, if not the first, to closely examine trail runners as their own group, separate from hikers, regarding preparedness. What did you learn about trail runners, specifically, and why does that distinction matter between hikers and trail runners?
Trail runners are generally traveling lighter and often covering a lot more ground in the same amount of time. This is, as far as I know, the first research of its kind around this population. We found trail runners are significantly younger than the hiking population, they tended to be in smaller groups—a very high proportion of them are running alone—and to be a little more experienced. They also were more likely to have previously experienced wilderness injury or illness. Similarly, more than a quarter of trail runners reported going significantly off-trail during their run. That's compared to only about 3 percent of day hikers going significantly off-trail. I wouldn't say [those differences are] super surprising, but they are meaningful, because some of these things—like running alone—do potentially put you at higher risk.
Another difference we noticed is that a small but significantly higher proportion of trail runners experienced an injury or illness on the day that they were surveyed. This tended to be altitude sickness and ankle injuries. But that's still a little worrying, in the context of everything else we learned. They actually tended to be more prepared than the day hikers in general: a higher proportion of them were wilderness prepared.
It really shows that trail runners should be reached out to in a different way, or there should be targeted messaging to them, because they're doing different activities and carrying different items. They might have a different mindset. I think there's a lot more research to be done in this area to understand how many other outdoor populations differ.
What were the most important things that separated the better prepared visitors from the less prepared ones? Was it age? Experience? Where they lived?
The biggest thing there was experience. We looked at age and the number of years that someone reported having been recreating in the wilderness—and these were not correlated with preparedness. Folks who were older—I don't know if it was a sense of complacency or comfort, or if it's just something else—they were not better prepared. However, those who had previously experienced a wilderness injury or illness, they were better prepared. And same with the number of days that they were in the wilderness per year: the more days that they were out active, the better prepared they were. People who self-reported higher levels of wilderness experience and longer trips also tended to be more prepared.
Is Rocky Mountain National Park making any changes based on your research?
They're putting together some efforts to potentially redesign the signs and improve the information on there. I follow their Instagram , and I know that they have had some really great posts recently relating to safety out on the trails.
I'm hoping that they use some of this research to do other PSAR efforts oriented specifically toward those populations that we found to be less prepared. The parks already do some really great things, but there are opportunities to have volunteers or rangers engage with visitors and be, like, do you have enough water? Are you wearing the right equipment? Are you prepared for your hike or run today?
One of the biggest findings was that three-quarters of hikers reported informing someone of where they were going and when to expect them back. But that means one-quarter didn't tell anyone where they were going and when to expect them back. This was lower for trail runners; only about 16 percent of trail runners reported not doing that. I think that's one of the lowest-hanging fruits that we found in terms of an opportunity for increasing preparedness. This isn't something you need to carry. This isn't something you need to buy. But this makes a huge difference if something goes wrong and search and rescue needs to be called. Time is critical, and when search and rescue knows where to look first and they're alerted only an hour or two after you're overdue, versus a day later—that could easily be the difference between life and death.
