[pct-l] Bear Creek crossing 2010

[Reinhold Metzger]

Yes Brick,
In 1996, on a JMT hike with the Scouts, with extremely heavy packs before the UL revolution,
one of the Scouts went down in Bear Creek and could not get up because of the heavy pack and
almost drowned before we could help him to regain his footing.
In the old days, before bear canisters, when we used to string, we would sometimes tie the
bear rope to both sides of the river and us it for stabilization as we crossed the river.
Holding on to he rope and using it as a guide did seem to help stabilize you and lessen the
chance of loosing your footing or being swept away.

JMT Reinhold
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Brick wrote:

In 1995 I went swimming at that ford.

By myself, with not anyone around to even recover my body.
There was a fire ring at the crossing, and I managed to get a fire
started while shivering violently, and warm up and dry off a little,
then I went upstream a few miles to cross....At least I had put all my
pack contents inside a trash compacter bag before I went for that
swim.

I thought I was going to die. The cuts from the rocks didn't even
start bleeding for several minutes, I was so cold.