Danger Zone

Posted by Madden Driver Coghlan

"No knives, no lighters, no matches, no forks. For the rest of the trip you are banned from anything not soft and rounded." These, or something like them were my words to our camper who officially became known as Danger Zone on our final day in the backcountry. Although it was only on this final day, after weeks out on trip that the name became official, Danger Zone had been earning it since the first day of our very first backcountry trip.
"Driver...Kolus...he broke his leg or something!" I could not believe what I was hearing. We had literally been in the backcountry for 6 hours at most, and I was already faced with a nightmare scenario. Of course, arriving at the scene of the injuring, we quickly assessed the situation and realized that the 7in long and on average 1/4in deep gash on the back of Danger Zone's leg was far from a fracture of any kind. The mechanism of injury? A sharply broken branch sticking off of a downed tree that was being used as leverage in an attempt to break firewood. This was something we could handle. Apply some pressure, clean the site, apply bandages...no problem. Of course, after day three of repeating this process twice a day it was slightly annoying. Thus, I will admit, there was a certain amount of guilty pleasure that came from announcing that "this should not hurt at all" before grazing over the open wound with an alcohol swab..."oops, just kidding. I meant this is probably going to hurt."
When we returned to town after the final day of that trip we took Danger Zone to the local ER, just to be on the safe side. There his wound was looked over by an EMT who could not have been older than 14, and we were told that it looked fine. A doctor gave Danger Zone some painkillers just in case...which I threw away on our way out...and on we went...in search of another way for Danger Zone to hurt himself.
It was only a few days later that Danger Zone, looking out for the safety of his peers, suffered his second self-inflicted wound. Noticing a camp stove perched precariously on the edge of a picnic table, Danger Zone suggested that they turn it off and move it to a more stable location. The flame goes out, Danger Zone reached for the stove...and grabs the top...the burner. To his surprise, the metal coils that moments ago had been engulfed by a small blue flame, were still hot. The result: a world class blister that required popping and dressing twice a day.
"You know what? This trip went pretty damn smoothly." What a stupid thing to say. I sat next to my c0-worker on a bench, looking out on a peaceful mountain lake. This was the final day, of our final backcountry trip. Unfortunately, neither of us had the foresight to knock on wood, and moments later we were jolted by a commotion in the woods to our right. Coming toward where we were seated were several of the campers, and behind them in the woods was what appeared to be a large ball of fire...and what turned out to be a flaming bear box. Apparently, one of the fuel bottles had leaked inside the bear box. While deciding how to handle the situation, instead of simply asking for help, one brilliant 15 year old made the joking suggestion that Danger Zone light the leaked gas on fire. Danger Zone, thinking himself clever, decided to scare the others by flicking his lighter near the fuel. The lighter was itself out of fuel and thus Danger Zone correctly assumed that it would admit no flame. What did happen as his thumb flicked the small wheel on top, was that a tiny spark jump from his lighter to the white gas cover the interior of the bear box. The result was that the highly flammable gas almost instantly engulfed the metal box.
The flame itself went out relatively quickly after the fueled was burned off. What was left in the box were a serious of heavily burned garbage and food containers, and the melted and charred skeleton of my day pack. In the aftermath, the name Danger Zone became more than official, and eventually my day pack was replaced...by a much nicer REI model...