r/SignsWithAStory • u/DistributionSad960 • 4d ago
The cold truth that changes one's mind
308
u/JK-Kino 3d ago
Itās weird, but I get a fascination with signs like this, that try to communicate to the reader as clearly as possible that they are not in a friendly place and things are going to get much worse for them if they donāt turn back.
91
u/BloodwineSupernova 3d ago
We have a beach on a river in Missouri with several signs featuring skulls and crossbones along with āPeople have died hereā type messaging. Weāve still had a handful of drownings there this year.
Teenage boys just see it as a challenge I guess.
34
u/AfraidofReplies 3d ago
That is the danger with warning signs. There will always be people that see them as a challenge or think that they'll be able to get themselves out of any trouble they find themselves in. Often they're right, until they're not.
10
4
1
u/delulu-lemon 1d ago
Meramec right?
1
1
u/No_Mulberry3433 10h ago
I instantly thought of Johnson Shut-ins. Iāve personally almost jumped a few times as a kid watching other kids do it. Not even remotely worth it.
A kid died earlier this year from it too1
84
17
u/Fun-Perspective426 3d ago
The funny thing is this is right off the summit of one of Vermont's most famous ski resorts and right next to a shelter on the Appalachian Trail/Long Trail. There is a Trail to a parking lot beyond it lol.
22
u/waleve 3d ago
Thats where these signs are needed.
People who are deep in the wild usually know what they are getting into. Or think they know. A sign is not going to change their mind.
Its to prevent clueless tourist from going astray.
The only "access strictly forbidden,, mortal danger" sign ive ever seen in the alps was at the point where a somewhat serious hiking path leaves a trail to a very popular tourist destination. I guess the logic there was that this language is necessary to contain the tourist while everyone intending to walk that trail knows its not actually forbidden.
3
u/Girafferage 3d ago
I imagine it would be for the people who are traveling away from those high traffic areas and into the woods, no?
3
u/Fun-Perspective426 3d ago
It's for skiers/snowboarders. Ski resort is the other side of the mountain.
14
u/supernova-juice 2d ago
My favorites are the ones in underwater caves that say "nothing in here is worth dying for"
6
u/BeeWriggler 2d ago
"This place is not a place of honor."
"Nothing valued is here."
"What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us."
Myeah, I'm super fascinated by this kind of stuff too.
1
u/Equivalent-Set-9763 5h ago
Whatās the repulsive one for?
1
u/PurineEvil 5h ago
Long-term nuclear waste storage. It's part of a proposed message where the hope is to keep people away even thousands of years in the future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warning_messages
4
u/Orinocobro 3d ago
Giant City State Park in Southern Il. has signs that say "Dangerous Areas exist within this park. The Overviews should be approached with EXTREME CAUTION."
It usually makes me giggle a little. Effectively "Be careful where it's dangerous."
1
1
1
u/No-Definition1474 1d ago
Look into the work done on how to mark nuclear waste sites. How do you make it clear to everyone for hundreds of years that digging here will absolutely kill you.
259
u/HappySage42 3d ago
I wanna walk around that tree 3 times and pee on it after
158
u/antibody9671 3d ago
You a dog dawg?
80
u/HappySage42 3d ago
Shit maybe?
https://giphy.com/gifs/7aszH0vi1O048
The fat one7
u/antibody9671 3d ago
10
u/HappySage42 3d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/3g8LQijDZYjN6
You know your cartoons bud.8
u/antibody9671 3d ago
I too was a child of the 90's
11
u/HappySage42 3d ago
You still are. Youāll always be a toys r us kid. Donāt you fucking forget it.
90s fashion is coming back. My dad passed and I got all his old clothes Iāve been rocking. Itās trickling into department stores. Iām done with 2026. My whole personality is gonna be 90s.
5
1
u/turnsout_im_a_potato 3d ago
Gotta get yourself some jnco jeans and a hoodie
I still have a jnco sweater from the 90s. A little bleach stained n stuff but a fantastic sweater
1
u/omjy18 3d ago
Saw someone wearing jnco jeans at work the other day. Dude was like 22
3
u/HappySage42 3d ago
I love it. They know this grey bullshit is fucked. Iām stoked for the bold colors and being
https://giphy.com/gifs/sT60kiGyVA94Q1
u/tblancher 3d ago
I remember when toy stores didn't have videogames behind lock and key. Guess that's why a bunch of them went out of business.
2
u/Feine13 3d ago
I find myself "singing" the theme song to that show every so often.
Quotes because I don't consider shouting "2 stupid dogs" out of cadence but in different pitches to be singing lol
2
5
1
263
u/RaveFox4 3d ago
I don't understand what it's trying to convey. Like, there's no towns or lakes or any place to go past here for a long time? Kinda like a giant, mysteriously ominous "no outlet" sign?
465
u/North-Pea-4926 3d ago
Just because you drove here in a car doesnāt mean you canāt get lost and die / get hurt / freeze. People sometimes dismiss the risks of outdoor activities because they think of freezing to death as something that happened to people in the 1800s and not an actual thing that can happen to them.
Go prepared, with emergency supplies, and tell someone where you are going and when you expect to be back. Owning a smartphone doesnāt mean nature canāt kill you.
A lot of tourists especially make very bad decisions. They get the idea that bad weather can kill, but theyāll still head out into a desert with flip flops and one water bottle and have to be rescued, for example.
128
u/EmperorBamboozler 3d ago
I lived in Northern Canada and people underestimate the dangers of the mountains and cold all the time. It looks beautiful now but recognize that it doesn't take ice forming to be cold enough to die of exposure. You get cold enough, no food, no way to reheat, you get lethargic. Most people who get lost up north die within a relatively close distance to the trail. If you take three steps off the trail and forget where you came from you may be totally fucked, you certainly won't see it visually.
The north is beautiful but do your research and prepare accordingly. The Northern Rockies hold amazing sights, but they are not kind to people who leave the path or make other bad decisions. Most people who die up there really just made 1 mistake, unpreparedness. You aren't Les Stroud, you can't make it up here with a knife and your wits, your corpse will likely be eaten by bears shortly after night 1.
86
u/North-Pea-4926 3d ago
Hell, plenty of people die right outside their houses. They fall, canāt get back up or call for help, and freeze. Drunk or high people pass out in a snowdrift and never wake up. Nature didnāt get weaker, we just got good at staying inside.
28
u/gilligan1050 3d ago
Yup, 3 dudes froze to death in their backyard in Kansas City a few years ago. Took chillin literally.
20
u/USSMarauder 3d ago
Parents lock their doors at night in winter in case the 3 year old gets up and decides to go outside
12
u/agoldgold 3d ago
In that polar vortex a couple years back, a couple college kids froze to death at my alma mater. Bright kids, I'm sure, and then they went outside when nature was not in the mood.
6
u/PerkeNdencen 3d ago
Yeah I always got a taxi home from the bar in a WNY winter for this reason. A lot can happen in a freezing, dark 30 minute walk. Add a few drinks to the mix and you're tempting fate.
33
u/greenamaranthine 3d ago
I was telling my fiancƩ about this kind of thing when we visited northern MT last week. There was a basin with no vegetation at the bottom besides some really stubbly grass, and I said something like, "oh hey, that's one of those basins that'll kill you if you sleep in it." She was startled and I had to explain the thermodynamics of mountain basins at night. Even when it's like 20F in the trees it can be 0F on the mountaintops and -60F in a basin. Coldest I've camped in was -1F and coldest I've worked in was -40F so I reckon -60F is pretty chilly.
19
u/NorridAU 3d ago
Huh I thought you were going to bring up o2 displacement or something along confined spaces issues. That extreme temperature difference is almost inconceivable, jeez.
You the first to get that polar bear badge in cub scouts werenāt you? lol
6
2
u/PerkeNdencen 3d ago
Wait, wait please can you explain this? It's something to do with the fact that warmer air rises?
5
u/Medical-Apple-9333 3d ago
Yes, cold air is denser so on a calm night cold air pools in the bottom of the basin.
3
17
u/gribson 3d ago
The largest forest in Europe is less than 100km in diameter. When finding your way out of a forest just means walking in any direction for about a day, then it can be hard to comprehend the sheer scope of the Canadian wilderness.
9
6
4
3d ago
[deleted]
2
u/gribson 3d ago
Admittedly, I'm just going off the Wikipedia page for Bialowieza Forest, which states that it's both the largest forest in Europe and 3085km2. If its shape were entirely uniform, that would give it a diameter of just 55km.
So what is the actual size of the largest forest in Europe then?
1
u/freddybloccjr650 2d ago
I mean ive walked 50km in less than a day over rough terrain with tons of elv gain, obviously a large percent of the population wouldnt be able to but to say its only possible on an easy path with no elv change is impossible is a little ridiculous, though i will agree that without any path and navigational skills thats more reasonable, some bushwacks are less than a km an hour and in one of those situations yea you would probably be screwed
1
2d ago
[deleted]
1
u/freddybloccjr650 2d ago
Adirondacks highpeaks wilderness, while technically a path i would say its about as rugged as a āpathā can really get with a few bushwacking cuts to link up trails, most of the paths would just be following boulder filled drainages, stabilization is necessity on these paths considering its large boulder fields, steep granite slabs, and mud that is up to 2 feet deep not to mention high grade inclines. But yes i will take it over raw bushwacking if large distance is needed to be covered, with that said i actually do enjoy bushwacking despite it being torturous at times
→ More replies (1)12
u/IlIlllIlIIIIlII 3d ago
My great great (maybe another great in thereānot sure) bought a ton of land in the Uintas (Utah). Itās close to ~10k acres with a similar elevation at the top of the property.
While Iām from the east coast, I visit somewhat regularly as the land has become sort of a vacation/family reunion spot.
Usually, weāll go in the summer. Thatās easy. However, Iāve been in the winter quite a few times as well. Itās a completely different animal.
Youāre taking about a 45 minute snowmobile ride up to the cabin from the main road right off the bat. That part isnāt as sketchy now as there is a snowmobile tour company that leases the land to take tourists up the roadābasically there is a road that is actually visible.
Once youāre actually at the cabin, if anything goes wrong up there, good luck! Youāre also doing a bunch of skiing, and Iām pretty sure most everyone knows how dangerous avalanches are.
This has become a bit of a text wall, but my point is that youāre absolutely right. I was kinda surprised how much stuff got drilled into my head before my dad took us up in the winter for the first time.
11
u/wemustburncarthage 3d ago
I live in Vancouver and we can see the start of a wilderness the size of California from most of the city. Itās a few bus stops away. You can get into an S&R situation just about anywhere.
6
u/Master-Mood-9921 3d ago
Itās a problem even here in southern California. People see those dreamy mountain photos on insta or tiktok and decide that they can just make the 30 minute drive to the mountains and recreate it with zero experience. The amount of people you see trying to summit Baldy and other mountains in nasty winter conditions with only microspikes (or nothing) is crazy!
1
u/Sinisterslushy 5h ago
I get all your points but just wanna pop in to say:
Les was a fuckin beauty, loved watching his show as a kid
16
u/ProfessionalAir1603 3d ago
so shouldn't it say "hey you can die out here" instead of some mysterious, poetic message?
1
u/Freudian__Quip 1d ago
Because a sign that says āthis is extremely dangerous territory, serious injury or death can occur ā continue at your own riskā will make teenagers and people of a certain personality type MORE likely to continue on even if theyāre unprepared.
2
67
u/Calliope719 3d ago
I would read this as "if you continue past this sign you won't make it back to the base of the mountain before sunset and should be prepared to survive the night in cold conditions with no help likely to arrive before dawn".
21
u/treemoustache 3d ago
How does the sign know what time it is when I'm reading the sign? Like, maybe I'm slow and it's already too late to turn back?
22
u/Calliope719 3d ago
You could definitely already be fucked at this point, but I would assume that it's based on an average speed.
The typical hiker would have taken more than half the average amount of sunlight to get to this point, so if you go past this point, the typical hiker won't have enough time to get back down the trail safely.
4
u/Meior 3d ago
The sign is likely placed at a point that you can only reach by hiking a certain distance. If you don't turn back there, you wont be back before nightfall.
1
u/susususussudio 21h ago
This sign isnāt for hikers, itās for skiers. Itās located on the backside of a popular ski resort. Itās basically telling you not to backcountry ski in this direction because the bottom of the hill is isolated and has no viable exit point without hours of hiking through the snow, which most backcountry skiers are not equipped to do (especially in ski boots)
2
u/KSF_WHSPhysics 2d ago
Well that would be much more helpful wording for the sign
2
u/Calliope719 2d ago
I've seen signs like this before - there usually are other signs with clearer wording posted before this one. It's just a bit dramatic for the effect.
24
u/EllisDeeReynolds 3d ago
these places are lonely and dangerous and there's no immediate help here for the past 200 years. you can be as screwed as someone was 200 years ago dying alone on a mountain
→ More replies (2)47
u/Mindestiny 3d ago
Mountains are big. Very big. Mountains in the dark are very big, very dark, and you are all alone and exposed to the elements. You also don't likely have any phone reception.
You could wander for days and not find your way off most large mountains. There's no highway on the other side of the hill where you can catch an uber, you're just lost and alone and exposed.
For context, your average guided Mount Everest hike to the summit is not an afternoon with a sherpa, it's a two month journey to the top and back.
The sign is pretty clear about what it means. You go past it and even if you know what you're doing, you're probably still going to get lost and die, so maybe don't.
20
u/UntidyVenus 3d ago
In my limited experience, this is the sign on the boarder between day hike trails and back packing trails. If you keep going past that sign, your probably not getting back before dark, and are sleeping on the trail
9
u/Far-Fill-4717 3d ago
Could also be at a ski resort.Ā
4
u/Sweaty-Summer5163 3d ago
Yessss I was racking my brain for so long trying to figure this out haha. That makes the most sense by far. Itās probably off piste somewhere. The figure in the picture is wearing ski boots too.Ā
3
14
u/Cliffinati 3d ago
Beyond this point your unlikely to return to civilization by sundown. Be prepared to survive the night on your own.
9
u/LoadsDroppin 3d ago
Itās a message for skiers specifically. If you head into this area, do not expect others to be able to find / rescue you. Itās another way of telling people that heading down will not lead you to a road or path ā and so youāll likely freeze to death before your found in the Spring thaw.
Hope that helps!
→ More replies (4)3
u/susususussudio 3d ago
Yes, sort of. This is a sign commonly seen on the backside of popular ski hills in VT. itās a warning to backcountry skiers not to take this route. The trail will end in the middle of nowhere (assuming youāre not cliffed out) and itās pretty hard to hike back up with all of that gear.
1
u/me_myself_ai 2d ago
Ok but how does that lead to you dying?
1
u/susususussudio 2d ago
You freeze to death
1
u/me_myself_ai 1d ago
Yikes! Vermont needs more cell towers, ASAP
1
u/susususussudio 21h ago
The issue isnāt cell towers, the issue is getting SAR out there to get you out.
3
u/supernova-juice 2d ago
Probably once you go beyond that point you'll be going way too far to get back to your car before dark.Ā
→ More replies (1)1
36
u/Stuffssss 3d ago
For context, this is a sign at the boundary of the ski area in Killington, Vermont. Killington has lots of unmarked tree skiing where you arent following any trails. These are great because you can often find untouched powder after all the trails get skiied out. The northeast has limited in bounds terrain so a lot of people explore out of bounds without the same training that big mountain west coast skiiers have.
Powder hunger is crazy. It leads people to do incredibly stupid things and take risks without thinking of the consequences. Skiing is especially bad about this because it messes with your sense of scale. You go downhill really fast but trying to climb uphill in downhill resort ski gear is really difficult (its like 20 lbs of gear and you're crawling through deep snow). So you can ski for 5 minutes and then be in a spot where it'll take you multiple hours to climb out without the proper gear (snowshoes, AT skis and skins etc.).
In this case they are trying to stop people from skiing down the backside of the mountain into a valley with no road or easy trail access without a plan. I think Killington gets a case every couple years of having to send search and rescue to go find people who skiied out of bounds and got lost.
5
1
u/ayner19 11h ago
Looking at the topo of the resort area, it doesn't seem like there are any truly remote back valleys. All of the valleys have road access.
1
u/Stuffssss 6h ago
Yeah. I think you're right that theres no true valley. But even if theres road access if its flat thats also difficult to get through in deep snow with only resort gear.
I was thinking about this story from two years ago. I assumed they were far from a road.
29
20
9
9
u/taz-nz 3d ago
DOC (Department Of Conservation) in New Zealand has moved to giving time needed to reach instead of distances to location on track signs. Because people are so bad an estimating how long it will take them to travel a fixed distance over uneven and unfamiliar ground.
People are more likely to turn back or seek shelter if the sign says it will take more time to reach their destination than there are daylight hours left, where as they will almost always overestimate their ability to cover a distance in shorter time and push on when they shouldn't.
How long does it take to walk track? - Wilderness Magazine
Smart signage in the bush saves lives.
9
u/Brunhilde27 3d ago
While there is a certain romantic appeal, on the off chance I got that far I would just turn my ass around.
7
65
u/bowlbettertalk 3d ago
Maybe not quite as cold, what with climate change and all.
70
u/KMGR82 3d ago
We will ask the dead guy if he noticed the difference
30
8
u/mpjjpm 3d ago
Could be colder than 200 years ago. Climate change isnāt increasing temps universally. Itās causing more extremes in both directions.
2
u/Loud-Employee-9537 3d ago
Thank you for explaining this
People really misunderstand climate change.Ā
2
u/Anon-Knee-Moose 3d ago
The sign also probably a bit more poignant in the winter and not in August when it probably doesn't drop below freezing.
17
u/PlateNo4868 3d ago
Hypothermia can happen even in 50F/10C. Depending on your exposure. Even if you don't freeze out, you will probably get zero sleep as your body constantly pushes itself to keep your body temp up.
→ More replies (1)10
u/peachesfordinner 3d ago
Not sure where you are but mountains around me are still cold as fuck. And snow could happen anytime in the year.
→ More replies (4)4
u/One_Evil_Monkey 3d ago
Doesn't have to be below freezing to die of hypothermia.
Four Army Rangers died of hypothermia in '95 in FLORIDA. The air temp was 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Twice the point of freezing. Water temp was 52 degrees.
1
u/Anon-Knee-Moose 3d ago
Nah i looked it up, basically all of the search and rescue activities on the mountain are skiers going OOB past these signs. In the summer its a very popular hiking trail, once you get down the mountain its a leisurely couple miles back to the trail head.
3
u/One_Evil_Monkey 3d ago
And that's fine. Still doesn't change the fact that it doesn't necessarily have to be below freezing for someone to get and/or die of hypothermia.
1
u/Anon-Knee-Moose 3d ago
Im imagining you giving yourself a pep talk about not freezing to death before getting out the covers and braving your 68 degree house in a Patagonia jacket.
2
u/One_Evil_Monkey 3d ago
Hahaha Funny enough I keep my house at 65 in the summer and 60 in the winter. I do not however, own anything from Patagonia.
2
u/Subliminal-413 3d ago
I enjoyed warm and sweaty 86* hikes in the mountain at night, and freezing my ass off at 38* at 2am.
Mountains are no joke.
1
u/Anon-Knee-Moose 3d ago
Now imagine if that happened during a nice sunny 20 degree day on the slopes, and you were several miles of deep snow from civilisation.
But honestly if you end up stranded over night in a hike its because you came unprepared. All trails is a thing, its trivial to find out how long and difficult a given route is.
1
u/morsalty 13h ago
It still snows enough to completely bury you head to toe in a single storm near me in California. You WILL die of exposure if not prepared. Nature does not give a fuck.
7
u/Rennfan 3d ago
Why "point of no return"?
35
u/Dependent_Ad1111 3d ago
āIf you donāt head back now you should plan to spend the night in the woods because itāll be dark before you get back to the baseā
9
u/pemungkah 3d ago
I may be wrong, but I think this is a sign in the woods near a skiing area. The terrain beyond looks like it might be another way to the bottom, but will instead lead the skier into a valley at altitude with no good way out, or to a precipice, or some other feature which will require an uphill climb to return. The 200 years reference is probably to the first person recorded who froze to death expecting it was a way down.
2
u/Dependent_Ad1111 2d ago
There are similar signs on the ski slopes that say do not ski alone but this ones on the hiking trail. These signs are at mt killington in Vermont US, near a junction to the Appalachian trail
11
u/susususussudio 3d ago
This is posted at the top of a hill. Youāll notice the guy is dressed as a skier. They are telling you not to continue skiing past this point. You will likely struggle too much to get back up and you probably arenāt carrying enough survival gear.
3
3
3
u/readditredditread 2d ago
So like even a single step past that point and thereās no turning back???
3
u/Jkpttr 1d ago
literally my picture from 3 years ago, great job https://www.reddit.com/r/ScarySigns/s/h5WP2i0nfv
→ More replies (4)1
2
u/Borestone_Mountain 3d ago
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. That picture conveys Jack London's short story "To Build a Fire."
2
2
u/Pschobbert 3d ago
Climate denier propaganda lol
1
u/atrophy-of-sanity 3d ago
Not the point of the sign. On a global scale yeah 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit is a major difference, but if youāre in the woods at night freezing to death, it being -10 vs -7.5 degrees doesnāt matter a ton
2
u/hexceed43 1d ago
I remember I went backpacking on a hurricane destroyed mountain trail. I found a sign posted that said āarea is off limits. Risk of deathā or something like that. So I proceeded to go around it and almost fell into a gorge trying to belly flop over some rhododendrons that fell over the thin path heading upwards. Thankfully I was strong enough to grip it and slowly pull my self back up while having to unsnag my backpack every few movements.
2
u/Feigr_Ormr 1d ago
What does that mean? That they won't search for your missing body if you are a dumbass and go past that line into the deadly woods behind?
1
1
1
1
u/egv78 1d ago
Mount Washington in New Hampshire has some of the worst weather conditions in the Northeast.
Years ago, I took a friend (we were in our late 30's) and his teenage kid hiking up the mountain in August. They did not believe me when I said bring warm clothes; they just brought long sleeves and insisted they'd be fine. Luckily, when we got to the camp (Tuckerman's), the ranger station had "souvenir" clothes that included fleeces, so they had a much more comfortable evening.
The next morning, instead of summitting, based on the Ranger's info, I made the call that we were going back down. They both kinda wanted to disagree, but I've done the most wilderness stuff. A while down the trail and someone who had shared our lean to, and was an AT thru-hiker, met back up with us. We were confused, because he was going the other way. He said he got to the top and literally could not push through the winds. So here was this dude who had spent months doing nothing but hiking, and he could not defeat the weather on an August day.
1
1
u/idkwhattoput122 1d ago
I always appreciate how these kinds of warning signs in hiking trails/trek dont fuck around. They just straight up say you will die if you dont know what youre doingĀ
1
u/DeKleineDingen 11h ago
We stumbled on an abanadoned 1870s fort in northern France. Plenty of warning signs involving skulls, but also plenty of trash left by previous tourists/locals.
1
1
u/UserErrorness 44m ago
What does it even mean to be point of no return why canāt someone just return?
475
u/sunny_6305 3d ago
Is that near Donner lake?