There have been a lot of missing hiker stories lately, and most haven’t ended well, but for one miracle story of the California hiker who was found alive and well after spending . Lukas McClish thought he’d only be gone for three hours when he started his hike on June 11 in Boulder Creek, about 14 miles north of Santa Cruz, so he didn’t load up his with snacks and layers – or even bother putting on a shirt for that matter. But he got lost and spent well over a week hiking up and down rugged canyons, drinking from waterfalls and foraging for berries before teams discovered him disoriented, 30 pounds lighter, but otherwise unscathed.
How did he survive? Luck, probably, and a good dose of hardiness, no doubt. Survival gear? Hardly. McClish credits his survival with drinking a lot of water, but he didn’t even have a – he drank out of his .
While most hiking survival stories involve using a lot of gear – things like a , and – McClish says he was only carrying a couple of survival items: a , which is always useful to help navigate in the dark, and a Leatherman multi-tool. When I read this detail, I instantly felt validated, because I never go hiking without my Leatherman. Now to be clear, I’m not sure I’d survive 10 days with no shirt on drinking water out of my boot merely because I had my multi-tool – I think that takes a special amount of grit.
But if I ever did find myself in that predicament, I can think of a few reasons I’d be happy to have my multi-to.
