As we learned during COVID, 'enthusiast' is not the same as 'expert'. This guy failed by-the-numbers and the only thing that saved him from being big-cat food was dumb luck. Good luck with the Lyme disease.

There’s a shocking number of people who will just go off into the woods with their clothes and a phone.

I went hiking with a date once who expected to be fine walking a ten mile trail with no water bottle. Some people have no real world experience of how much water you need when you’re exerting yourself for hours on end.

10 days without food hits differently when you are hiking through mountains 16 hours a day vs sitting on your couch

The better headline would have been:

Man survives being lost in California mountains for 10 days by drinking from his boot

Lol he doesn't know the number until it's over. In the meantime he's just going day by day

Rule of 3's. You can go 3min without oxygen, 3 hrs without shelter, 3 days without water, and 30 days without food. It is a bit of generalization, but its close enough to set priorities in survival situations.

I'm pretty convinced from watching every season of alone that catabolysis was likely the main factor rather than eating berries.

Well there was another "survivalist" that tried the same. He died.

Loses 276 pounds, article claims he maintained his normal weight..... Lolwut

Sure you could cup your hands, but then you're missing out on that delicious boot flavor.

I'm thinking either he used it as a canteen to carry more water further, or as a rain barrel to capture it, not just as a cup to drink from at places where water was readily available.

well you can't piss in your own hands.

He's enthusiastic, not experienced, about the outdoors. He told no one, had no bearing or equipment, and got lucky that he was found. The article was being gracious about his abilities to be outside - and he survived a week and a half with nothing so the article can't say he's bad at it.

Because he had done it before, and just like a worker does a singular job often or you drive the same route to work all the time, familiarity can breed complacency. That's when accidents happen.

He was so enthusiastic that he forgot the bottle!

I’m guessing “enthusiast” really doesn’t mean “goes hiking all the time”, but rather “likes the idea of going hiking all the time”,

Plus... this isn’t a remote area—you can walk across the whole range from Santa Cruz to Los Gatos in less than a day. Even if you were too panicked to think of an obvious strategy like “follow a stream” or “always walk downhill” and were essentially stumbling around blind, it seems like you’d be bound to run into a hiking trail or other landmark by chance alone within a day or two.

Just because he does this often, doesn't mean he's good at it. Not wanting to be connected, doesn't mean you can't take your phone. Just turn it off. Loose your bearings? Just go downhill and follow streams. You'll have water and eventually, it will lead to a road. A canteen is super basic for anything more then a basic walk.

He lost his bearings.

No phones, no distractions, just a man living in the moment, getting stalked by a large cat just like his ancestors.

The Santa Clarita diet would be better for humanity though