Do I Look Like An Idiot?

From time to time, members of my family, including myself, are given unsolicited advice while hiking. Whether it is on a 4000 footer, or in the middle of nowhere, other hikers seem to overflow with unnecessary information that they feel compelled to share with me/us. This happens so frequently that it was the focus of my son’s 4000 footer completion essay, which he wrote when he was 12 years old. I fondly recall his topic sentence:

“This is just one of the many stupid things I have heard a hiker say to me as I pursued my 4000 footers.”

I don’t remember the numerous incidents he referred to in his essay, but these advising incidents occur far too often for me, and maybe for you too!

VFTT member “New Hampshire” gives a great example of this in his TR “Day of Days.” It is the best description of this phenomena that I have seen in a TR. You may want to re-visit it to get a feel for my poll question.

http://www.vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?t=28378

Some good examples of people treating me like an idiot:

1.About 0.1 from the summit of Chocorua in winter, a couple hours before sunset, a descending leader of a large group pulled me and my BF aside as we ascended. He shouted over the wind, “You have just enough time!”
“Just enough time for what?” my BF asked.
“Just enough time to get to the summit and back to the parking lot,” said the guy.
We must look like idiots.
We joked about it as we enjoyed our hot chocolate at sunset before hiking down by headlamp.

2.“You can’t drink that!” exclaimed a woman on the side of the trail, as my BF drank from his water bottle that he filled from a trickling spring.
“Why not?” he asked.
“You have to treat the water first! Don’t you have a filter?”
“Nope,” glug, glug, glug.
Yup, looking like an idiot, again.

3.”What? You’re hiking alone? Where’s your group? You’re all by yourself?”
I often look like an idiot, especially when I’m alone.

Hopefully, you get the picture. Usually, I look like an idiot. I could go on all day about these infuriating situations that we try to accept with good humor, but enough, already! How does unsolicited advice sit with you?

I think people are usually well intentioned, so I just shrug it off. There are times though when they are quite insistent and I start to get annoyed (one incident I recall is all the comments we got descending the Flume trail, I was about ready to bop somebody on the head with my Nalgene).

I've found hiking with a baby really gets the comments going, although those are mostly positive. Two weekends ago we were hiking Breakneck and Steve was carrying our daughter (now 17 months). He was far enough ahead of me and there were a lot of people, so the other hikers didn't know we were together. I got to hear comments about them all the way up. I did get to listen to a group of hikers going on and on about how risky and stupid it was for Steve to have a baby on the mountain. They look embarrassed when I piped up and told them that it was really okay and that my husband and baby both were seasoned hikers.

wardsgirl said:

I could go on all day about these infuriating situations that we try to accept with good humor, but enough, already! How does unsolicited advice sit with you?

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Oh my goodness, do I know what you're talking about!!

We've had more than our fair share of people giving us unsolicited advice -- not so much in the winter, when we don't see as many people and it's obvious we know what we're doing from our clothing and gear. However, last summer Alex got all kinds of questions and comments from people who spoke to her as though she were a retarded puppy. Drove both of us bonkers.

I guess it's all in how you say it -- nice people making conversation and making sweet statements and very light suggestions is one thing. People in your space talking in an authoritative tone is something quite different. The latter folks make me want to use my hiking pole on them, in a very unpleasant manner.

I usually only get "idiot" comments when I go hiking above treeline in my jeans, cotton T-shirt and Converse hi-tops...

Pearls ? Lumps of cr@p ? Great Trip Report fodder ? How do you know if you shut down as soon as someones mouth opens ? It's like taking a picture on the trail; might be the best or most pointless thing that occurs on the hike, but at the very least it's a chance to regroup, catch your breath and then move on.

Chip said:

[...]

It's like taking a picture on the trail;

[...]

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Says the guy who carries around a PINK digital camera!

J.Dub said:

I usually only get "idiot" comments when I go hiking above treeline in my jeans, cotton T-shirt and Converse hi-tops...

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You have ascended beyond the need of EMS and REI trappings, however. The only true and challenging test left is that of you against the mountain.

Look at those idiots in their $400 eVent parkas and insulated boots ! They must have no clue as to how to take care of themselves in the woods !

Checking my ego

Okay, I'll admit it: I have been occasionally ruffled by unsolicited advice. But I have to do an ego-check. Sometimes it boils down to "how-dare-these-obvious-newbie-hiker-types-fail-to-recognize-what-a-super-hiker-I-am!!!" (Long thought bubble, hey?)

I agree with the other posters who said that most of such unsolicited advice is usually well-intentioned. Or maybe it is coming from their own ego issues, I don't know.

I've even got myself trained to sit on my hands when I hear people pointing out other peaks from viewpoints -- and getting them wrong. If I don't want to receive it, I shouldn't dispense it.

So what if they don't realize that I'm "God's gift to hiking": my mom knows I'm special.

I am an idiot and relish in the fact. It is a great souce of pleasure and entertainment for me. If it were not for my idiocy my life would be boring and people around me would never notice me.

I'm a big, grumpy, mean looking guy that just have to give people a nasty look for then to avoid me. So unwanted advise isn't a problem.

If some whitless moron gets past the nasty look I just continue to look blankly into their eyes and grumble something and will continue looking into their eyes until they shake their heads and walk away wondering what is wrong with me.

Having said that. I really don't mind and enjoy the chit chat when I meet people on the trail. It's also an excuse to catch my breath and rest some. I get to meet some nice people and find out about trail conditions in front of me.

I do suffer fools poorly but I still got the nasty stare to back me up.

I find that everyone else is an expert on how to raise my dog, as well (I'm sure the parents here can relate)

The unsolicited advice I"ve gotten has ranged from "just plain whacky" to "annoying/patronizing" to "annoying/patronizing but useful anyway" to "really helpful" I figure the non-helpful stuff at least provides fodder for good story-telling, so I try not to get too offended and listen. Sometimes I wind up learning somehting, or seeing something from a different angle (water filtration, for example)

Should be interesting to read the responses here, given how willing some posters have been to judge idiots they see on the trail, the folks we read about in accident reports, etc...

I always hike with Chip and his pink camera case. No one says a word to me.

I'm from the "Opinions are like behinds--everyone has them" camp. There are only three opinions I care about, the rest are ignored: my own assessment, companions' opinions, and those of authorities/official sources like a ranger. Likewise I only give unsolicited advice to my companions, and mostly to my kids at that.

Without intimate knowledge of the source, how can you decide if the advice is sound or not? By the time you can make that decision on your own, you probably don't need it. Likewise with regular hiking companions, you learn to know what advice is not necessary.

If Darwin is trying to extinguish you, far be it from me to interfere.

Tim
p.s. I was hoping this was a yes/no poll question

Ah, unsolicited advice.... I get a lot of it. Especially in winter... but pretty much any time I hike solo. (Which is a lot, since I'm really too slow for group hikes.) I try very hard to remember that people are well-intentioned and are trying to be helpful. It becomes more difficult to remember that when the second or third person tells me I should turn around because it's too late for me to reach the summit or I shouldn't be hiking solo.

If I wanted help or advice, I would just pipe up and ask for it. I assume that 99 percent of people out there hiking are capable of speaking and therefore can also ask for help if they need it. There is something to be said for people doing things their own way and learning from their mistakes.

Don't get me wrong, I will happily share advice when someone asks a question or help out with an injured hiker... (I'm not advocating for stepping over the passed out hiker since they can't ask for help.) And I've certainly hiked past people that left me shaking my head... but really, you don't know enough about people to make a judgment about them.

My most recent hike with unsolicited advice was a hike up Mt. Monroe this winter -- on a bluebird day. It was a group hike up the Ammo Trail with three other people... and as always, I urged them to forge ahead on the steeps where I'm particularly slow. We planned to regroup at treeline. At one point, I was within sight distance of one member of the group and within hearing distance of the other two. A woman in a group hiking past me started to lecture me on hiking alone. Thinking I would get out of hearing the lecture this time, I said my group was just ahead. She lectured the next person in my group about leaving me behind and when she passed the other two, said we would have to turn back because it was obvious I wasn't going to make it to the summit. (We all made it to the summit just fine... and actually this was a particularly good day for me pace-wise.)

In talking about this afterward, I think the consensus was I had the most winter hiking experience of the group... but you probably would not have guessed that by looking at the four of us.

Everyone should keep in mind that looks can be deceiving. The overweight/jeans wearing/sneaker-clad hiker carrying a small pack may have hiked that particular trail dozens of times before... may have only a short destination in mind... may be carrying exactly the gear they need. You are judging them based upon what makes YOU comfortable... and that hiker is not you.

So, to sum up... I've certainly done idiotic things on the trail in the past... I'll likely do idiotic things in the future too. But I can promise you that the advice some passing hiker gives me won't prevent me from doing the idiotic thing I have planned anyway. I'll happily figure that out myself and accept the consequences as they come.

- Ivy

As someone new to hiking this past year (actually May 2008)...I don't know the answer to this:

Has the amount of commenting and unsolicited advice increased? It seems to me that the news coverage of hiking accidents and the following "stupid hiker" comments has increased (but, maybe that's just becuase I'm more aware of it)...

Maybe increased news coverage has increased commenting as people just don't want YOU to become a news story? Again, most likely well meaning. As a newbie...I usually take it and store it (most of the time anyway) in the back of my mind for future reference. No...not stupid but inexperienced.

poison ivy said:

Everyone should keep in mind that looks can be deceiving. The overweight/jeans wearing/sneaker-clad hiker carrying a small pack may have hiked that particular trail dozens of times before... may have only a short destination in mind... may be carrying exactly the gear they need.

So, to sum up... I've certainly done idiotic things on the trail in the past... I'll likely do idiotic things in the future too. But I can promise you that the advice some passing hiker gives me won't prevent me from doing the idiotic thing I have planned anyway. I'll happily figure that out myself and accept the consequences as they come.

- Ivy

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Point well taken. I'm humbled

For the most part I enjoy exchanging information on the trail with others; you never know what you might learn. When it is unsolicted sometimes it is useful info. When it is unsolicted and it is not useful info for me I just usually shrug it off, laugh to myself and not perceverate to the point of having the solicitation ruin my hikeMost of the time if someone starts an unwanted solicitation I let them know that when I get above treeline I strip down to my boots and gaitors....it shuts them up real quick and they start hiking in the other direction

I think the funiest piece of unsolicited advice I ever received was from a group of Boy Scouts heading up Lafayette from Greenleaf. It was mid May, I'm quite certain it was the weekend the hut opened, and I had just completed traversing the ridge from Falling Waters. It was nasty up high; about 30 degrees and blowing snow and ice. I was dropping down off the Lafayette cone and just getting into the trees where the weather was far more seasonal. I still had full wind protection on with hat and gloves. Here comes a group of kids probubly 10-12 years old dressed in sandals with no socks, t-shirts and shorts. The only thing any of them was carrying was a water bottle. Anyway I stopped to chat and one of them suggests that I would probubly be a lot more comfortable hiking if I de-layered. All I could manage was a chuckle, a quick thank you and they were off on their adventure. I laughed to myself about that one for weeks.

I just hike my own hike. Having grown up hiking since the age of 3, and backpacking since 5, I don't even offer advice to parents and their kids on the trail unless asked specifically. Sure there are a fair share of idiots dragging their kids through the mountains, but I'm sure many people thought the same about my dad and I. Here was a little kid, a little overweight (some would say "husky"), slogging up and down peaks with my own external frame pack wearing nothing but cotton clothes, sneakers, and a $5 rain poncho from K-Mart. And I had a blast doing it. So I just keep my thoughts to myself.

Being a woman hiking solo is bound to generate plenty of unwanted comments, but that's a different thread entirely. The same goes for those who prefer a slower pace than the rest of the group.

Unfortunately, some of us just have a look that says "I need to be saved from myself." But I guess that's just another way of restating the original post heading....

I tend to get quite a bit of unsolicited advice. I generally hike alone, since I prefer a fairly quick pace and don't take many rest stops. I've can remember many hikes, especially in winter when people have started to give me advice about I should really turn around as wind/snow/weather/trail conditions are horrendous. Funny thing is that I have usually already summitted that peak and other peaks and am on my way back. I usually just nod and thank them and tell them I'll be fine. People that don't take the hint I then tell that I have already been up and hit other peaks as well and I think I can manage.
Some of the advice is definitely welcome though. I guess most people are just trying to be friendly and really believe that I would want the information they are offering. Some are just jerks. Unfortunately you can't avoid the latter.

Little Rickie said:

I am an idiot and relish in the fact. It is a great souce of pleasure and entertainment for me.

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+1

Funny story. Just last night while at my neice's birthday party a well intentioned woman gave me unsolicited hiking advice. She had been speaking with my mother about my upcoming solo Grand Canyon trip and when I arrived at the party. After cornering me to tell me all that was "unsafe" with my plan I managed to escape. She is not a hiker but had "heard" that hiking solo was not acceptable. A half hour later this same person was insisting she was leaving the party and driving her car home even after failing a breathalyzer test. We are all idiots.