Alaska Year 1 Accidents
In my first year of doing outdoor stuff in Alaska, I've had two notable accidents. The first occured while crossing the north fork of Campbell Creek on my way to Long Lake. I slipped on ice at the edge of the creek while clambering out of the creek bed. I landed hard on the ice and snapped my radius near the elbow. (Your radius holds your tricep in place, so breaking it immediately opened a gap in the bone as my tricep contracted. As a result it was easy to tell that it was broken in the field.) I then slid down the ice into the stream on a chilly 17°F day. I self-evacuated the 5 miles back to Basher Drive trailhead.
My next accident was on a glissade down from Flattop. I had too much momentum when I ran out of snow - I thought I had just enough momentum to come to my feet, but instead ended up tumbling down the mountain for about 30 feet. I ended up with abrasions and bruising on my right arm, both knees, and right shin. I also hurt my ankle and took blunt force trauma to my right side between my ribs and my hip. I remember the impact to my right arm very clearly - I hit hard, my entire forearm went numb, and mid-tumple I thought "oh no, did I just break my arm again". Thankfully I did not. I self-evacuated back to the Glen Alps trailhead.
Two accidents in a year is a pretty terrible safety record. If I'm going to be doing similar activities for another say 30 to 40 years, then with this rate of accidents it's likely that I will hurt myself very badly at some point. (The second accident really scares me here - the outcomes were better than the first accident, but it was pure luck. If you're tumbling down a mountain and hit your chest or head in the wrong way, then it can easily be fatal.) And in the grand scheme of "activities with objective hazard that you can do in Alaska", I've been doing quite mild stuff - essentially class 3 hikes. If I did activities with more objective hazard then the risk of severe injury would be much greater.
There are approaches to decreasing the risk - decrease the objective hazard, or decrease the subjective hazard. My accidents have definitely made me reconsider the amount of objective hazard I'm comfortable taking on. Will I really get that much more enjoyment from bagging class 4 or 5 peaks versus class 3 peaks? Do I need to take up backcountry skiing in avalanche terrain when I already have a ton of fun cross country skiing on mild terrain? Maybe not. In Alaska there's always someone doing something cooler than you, and I need to learn to be okay with that.
Even if I keep objective hazard relatively low, however, it's clear that my subjective hazard has been too high. In thinking about my accidents I've learned a few lessons. First, never go alone. In both of these accidents I was alone. I thought I had learned the lesson after my first accident, but then I was "just" doing Flattop, so I went alone. Even easy peaks in Alaska have some objective hazard! There are a couple of benefits to not being alone - first, you have someone else to help you if you get hurt. When my arm was broken, simple things like zipping my jacket on my own suddenly became difficult. In a more serious accident, being with a group of three or more people would be even better - if someone gets hurt then one person can tend to them and one person can coordinate with rescue control center. With four people the fourth can handle the scribing for the person tending to the injured person. (Monitoring trends over time is an essential part of figuring out how someone is hurt in the field; taking good notes is essential.) A less obvious benefit is that a good group can help you manage risk. It's easy to make bad snap judgements in your head that wouldn't have stood up to group scrutiny. I do think that this can go both ways - a bad group could egg each other on into danger. Cultivating a group of people I trust is going to be an essential part of my risk-management strategy going forward.
Another lesson is know wilderness first aid. I've now taken a wilderness first aid class, though taking the class is only the very beginning of being able to apply wilderness first aid successfully in the field. A lesson related to this one is: pack more stuff. In my first accident I was out with only a camelbak. I didn't have a first aid kit, I didn't have trekking poles (which might have helped me stay steady stepping out of the stream), I didn't have extra gloves (my gloves got soaked in the stream), and I didn't have food (which, after taking wilderness first aid, I now know is very important for staying warm). I now use a 32 liter pack for day trips unconditionally. During my second accident I had trekking poles to help me hobble back to the trailhead.
The next lesson is the most fuzzy one - I'm still working on turning it into a good set of rules to follow. I've been calling it "default no". It comes in a couple forms. First, impatience. In my first accident I had just got back from vacation, the Alaska fall weekend days were slipping away, and I was impatient to get outside and do something. In the second accident I was trying to slip in a quick hike early in the morning before going to Palmer for the day. If I'm trying to cram in a hike, then I simply shouldn't do it. There will be other days. The other form of "default no" is "if something makes me uncomfortable, don't do it". I looked at the glissade down Flattop and thought "gee that looks steep", but I could see other glissade tracks, so I went ahead and did it. As soon as that "looks steep" thought hit, I should have committed to not doing it. Obviously you could take this principle too far - if everything makes you uncomfortable then you might end sitting at home all day. But clearly this is not an issue for me, and I need to dial things back. I practice the necessary skills more and come back when I feel comfortable.
Practicing the necessary skills deserves its own callout. There are a lot of things that I, growing up in a more mild outdoor environment, didn't even realize were skills. Side hilling on very steep slopes. Walking up a snowy slope. Scrambling on loose rock. Using trekking poles correctly. (I used the hand straps on my trekking poles incorrectly until recently, which costs you some stability.) It's easy to identify more advanced skills like "proper crampon use" and realize that you should practice them, but in tricky terrain something as simple as walking is a skill.
So, I learned some lessons. Am I safe now? Unfortunately not - putting everything into practice is difficult, and one mistake could cause another accident. For now I'm going to keep my objective hazard low while I work on my skills and work on building a trustworthy group of that I can learn with.