There Are 5 Rules To Survive A National Park Trail... (From a Retired Park Ranger)

🥾 Forty years with the National Park Service taught me five rules. Every one of them asks you to do the opposite of what your body wants. In this one I give you the turnaround rule that has nothing to do with distance, the water rule most hikers have backwards, what to do the second you are unsure of where you are, and the thirty seconds of writing that would have changed more outcomes than everything else combined. ⛰️ 🔦 And the fifth rule is the one I never said out loud to a visitor in forty years. Not because it is a ghost story. Because there is no way to put it on a sign without sounding foolish. It comes at the end. 💧 I also take apart the oldest piece of survival advice on the internet, the one that tells you to follow water downhill. It is not stupid advice. It is just the wrong tool in the wrong country, and it is why some recoveries are the hardest ones we ever worked. 🪵 Share this with the person you hike with. These rules were paid for by somebody. Go easy out there. And get yourself home. #nationalparks #hiking #survival