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Comment by user_ | Hacker News Reader

Care to share any of the stories? I think you'll find a receptive audience :)

The best one is probably this from the early 2000s.

They relied on a paper map only, no smartphones with GPS back then and they did not have any Magellan GPS. Taking a wrong turn somewhere, they added like 40 km to their intended trek, which in that terrain meant two days.

They ran out of food and she was so starved that she ate entire tube of her skin cream. Together with a few bugs that made their way into their tent.

Her description: it looked like yogurt with raisins, but I am not going to describe the taste.

No health consequences.

Southern France/Northern Spain is not a total wilderness. That level hunger after a two day detour implies a serious level of poor planning.

Well, it was their second tour of the Pyrenees. They have come back almost every year since 2001 and learned from their mistakes.

Eating skin cream after two days without food? There are people who recreationally fast for that length. There's something missing from this story.

She is tough, but very lean. Not that much body fat, so low reserves.

As for fasting. I fast sometimes, but I would not try fasting on a long hike in mountains like Pyrenees. Probably not even Tatras.

Depending on what's in the skin cream, it might not be an unreasonable thing to do. They often contain not much more than plant fats and stablilizers. Probably the perfume will make it taste foul, but it won't kill you.

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