“Trust your gut,” they say. It’s the most common advice when faced with the unknown. But at the start of a four-day backcountry trip with two girlfriends, I can’t tell if this uneasy rumbling in my belly is my intuition talking or the spicy roadside burrito from lunch.
We arrived at a wilderness campsite with three sites clustered together. When I hastily planned this trip two nights prior, no one else was booked here. Now, a shirtless man is set up at the neighboring site 50 meters from us.
“Hey there,” we call out as we approach. He says nothing but sizes us up as we portage by. Weird.
When to trust your fear in the backcountry
We should leave, I think. But I don’t say it out loud. It’s one friend’s first backcountry trip, and I don’t want to ruin it by overreacting. On our sun-kissed piney campsite, I ignore my percolating worry about the shirtless stranger, our relative isolation and the lack of cell service. We put up the tent and start dinner. There are three of us; everything will be fine.
The next two hours were surreal. Our neighbor paddled vigorous circles around the small lake, the only way to get a clear view of our site perched above. He then blared 1940s jazz tunes, including “Jeepers Creepers,” the theme song of a 2001 horror movie by the same name. As dusk settled, he started shouting curses from his site.
“This is weird, right?” Mel asked after the second outburst. Hell, yes. But the weirdest part was we were still there at all.
When darkness fell and our neighbor’s flashlight suddenly panned through the woods behind our site while he screamed obscenities, we pulled the plug. Setting a record for the fastest takedown, we hustled out of there, one teeny-tiny blade on a multitool held between us. We camped hidden in a bushy ditch back at the parking lot where we’d been dropped off and fell asleep listening to the cries of coyotes.
The rest of the trip passed without incident, but I’ve often thought back to this encounter. Of all the strangers I’ve met in remote areas—almost all kind, helpful and generous—how did I know this unremarkable guy was trouble from the first moment? And why didn’t I listen?
Tapping into your intuition
Years prior, before I pedaled off on a six-month solo cycling tour in Asia, my mom insisted I take a self-defense course. After pummeling me, the instructor recommended reading The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. The bestselling author is a private security specialist focusing on personal safety, but his advice on disentangling real danger from mere anxiety and why you should never ever ignore your gut feeling is relevant for every outdoor adventurer.
According to de Becker, gut feelings aren’t mystical, woo-woo, unexplained phenomena. Instead, they are the subconscious mind rapidly processing information without conscious awareness. Intuition isn’t a sixth sense; it’s simply unconscious observation.
According to de Becker, intuition evolved to alert us to danger before logic can catch up. Too often, we ignore or rationalize it away.
Sound familiar?
Hindsight is 20/20. Get off the water early and batten down the campsite before an unexpected ferocious storm rips through and feel vindicated. But if I had packed up every time I lay awake, imagining marauding bears while field mice snapped twigs outside the tent, I’d never make it past the first night on any solo trip.
Distinguishing between imagined danger and intuition is crucial to making effective decisions. De Becker describes intuition as a calm, clear feeling prompting specific action. Helpful. On the other hand, anxiety is often diffuse and noisy, overwhelming us with endless what-ifs. Not helpful.
With that distinction, the advice to trust your gut can be an actionable safety tool instead of a well-worn cliché.
Editor-in-chief Kaydi Pyette has wild camped on self-propelled trips all over the world. A stranger once burst into her tent, but it was a curious four-year-old boy who invited her for dinner with his family. She listened to her gut and accepted, of course.
This article was first published in Issue 72 of Paddling Magazine. Gut instinct: reliably guiding you to safety and snack time. | Feature photo: Roderick Chen/Alamy
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