So... I've spent a goodly amount of time traveling, some of it alone, and I am mostly interested in why you would go on such a trip alone? This is, like, the first rule of stepping outside of civilization: Don't go alone. Is it just young white dude hubris? Or were you trying to prove something? Or paid a lot of money and your friend canceled last minute? You did something stupid and got hurt. But you didn't have to do something stupid to get hurt... you can have simply stepped wrong. Or encountered an animal that was simply in a bad mood. Or choked on a PowerBar. I'm curious about the thinking behind, "I'm going to go alone out into the wilderness, against all the advice of people who do this a lot, and common sense. Because ____________ ..."
There is nothing inherently wrong with going out in nature by yourself. You made how many assumptions in this comment? How can you expect somebody to earnestly reply to this when you’re coming at it from a point of preaching and antagonizing?
Dude. There are a multitude of reasons why he might want to travel alone. Whatever those reasons may be, the act of doing it is in no way stupid. He was on one of the most populated hikes in America. Read the first line of this trail description. 3 million people a year and there are all of about 4 hikes in Zion. Sure it can be exceedingly dangerous in bad weather, but he checked the weather beforehand. There were a multitude of people along the way. Look at the pictures. If this was some random and difficult hike in the backcountry I would be singing a different tune. But it's not. The risk behind this hike was small. We all take on levels of risk that are acceptable to us. Any of the things you mentioned can happen anywhere. Anyone with half a brain, when attempting something solo, adds up the risk levels, and says "yeah I can deal with that". He did a fine job of that and came out ok. Jumping off the rock was fucking stupid but everything else was alright. There's no need to discourage people from being so risk adverse.
"There's no need to discourage people..." Interesting you read that meaning into my question. I was always trained (Boy Scouts, etc.) that you just don't go into the wilderness alone. Bring a buddy. I know there is a whole culture of solo hiking. Sure. But every one of these people is making some value judgments about their safety before they step out of their vehicle. I asked an honest question of how he'd done the personal math. I didn't discourage anybody from anything.
An honest question wouldn't have been prefaced with statements such as This is, like, the first rule of stepping outside of civilization: Don't go alone.
or Is it just young white dude hubris? Or were you trying to prove something?
An honest question wouldn't include against all the advice of people who do this a lot, and common sense
in the very question. You're leading someone to answer the question with guilt. I would absolutely consider this to be discouraging wording. I'd guess that this is why ButterflyEffect called your response "preaching and antagonizing". I personally agree with him.
Other people gave you a better answer than I was planning to. If you really want to see my thought process, go read all the threads where I asked people for suggestions of what to do - I mostly ignored those suggestions, but they'll give you a good idea where my head was at!
Cool. I'll check em out. I know solo hiking is a thing. It's just I was always trained that it adds an unnecessary element of danger to any generic hike. So why do it? I was just looking for your personal math on it. And, I guess, wondering about why you had to eventually call for help... was the trail not as heavily traveled as you'd thought? And that the place where you got injured was due for a flash flood that evening due to rains predicted in the weather report. These seemed to me like things that would have been evaluated in your "personal risk math", and I was honestly interested to see if you still agreed with your original risk assessment, or if the risk-math calculated differently after the fact. No judgement here. Just curious about your thinking before and after the event, and if it changed.