Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

Gonzales relays the story of Ken Killip, a firefighter and hiking enthusiast who set out on a multi-day hike with his friend, John York. Their destination was a particularly rugged and remote section of the Rocky Mountain National Park. The two men were at different fitness levels, and York soon left Killip behind. Killip followed in York’s footsteps, too focused on catching up with his friend to check his topographical map along the way. A storm began, and Killip waited for it to subside before going back out on the ridge. Now stressed and fatigued, he “began to miss important cues from his environment” (152). He hurried on, thinking he was summiting Mount Ida, but soon realized it did not match his friend’s description.

Gonzales cites research that shows that lost people rarely backtrack down known trails, even though that is the safest option. Instead, they tend to ignore reasoned thinking and forge ahead, “looking forward into real or imagined worlds” (154). Some psychologists used to think that people are born with an innate sense of direction, but now most agree that to learn to navigate, people must pick up on cues from their environment and continually update their mental models.