Question about the time my boots floated away at 3am in the Wind River Range
Two summers ago I was camped near Island Lake in the Wind River Range and made the rookie move of leaving my boots outside the tent. A middle of the night rain squall rolled in fast, and when I crawled out at 3am my left boot was already gone and the right one was halfway to the lake like it was trying to escape. My buddy was zero help, he just yelled 'let it go man' from inside his sleeping bag while I ran around in socks with my headlamp at maybe 40 degrees. I found the left boot wedged against a rock about 60 feet downhill, soaked all the way through, and hiked the next 9 miles in wet socks with plastic bags over them because that is what you do when you are too dumb to bring a backup. The plastic bag trick actually worked way better than I expected and my feet stayed mostly dry the whole day. Now I hang my boots from a guyline every single night no matter what the sky looks like. Does anyone else have a 'never again' rule from a trip that taught you the hard way?