[pct-l] Murphy's Law

[Mark Fitzsimmons]

What Murphy originally said is some matter of dispute, but it is generally accepted that he invoked the inevitability of human error in installation or planning. This human fallibility aspect of Murphy's Law is unfortunately missing in popular culture. In aerospace design we attempt to use a philosophy of "won't fail" by making parts that cannot be installed backwards or any other incorrect way, as a direct result of this paradigm. It's hard to make hiking a "won't fail" process, and I don't think I would like it if it were easy. Please let us know if this horse lady gets in trouble.



  -----Original Message-----
From: Pct-L [mailto:pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net] On Behalf Of Drew Smith
Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2015 4:41 PM
Cc: pct-l @backcountry.net
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Lost hiker

Amen, brother.  That is the true meaning of Murphy's Law - not that things
always go wrong, but that given enough time, something eventually will.
Spend enough time in the backcountry, and some confluence of events -
weather, injury, gear failure, poor navigation, group dissension - will
conspire to create a dangerous situation. One of those things is bound to
happen sooner or later.  The trick is to avoid having two or three of them
combine to create a tragedy.

Drew/Happy Hour