Regarding bad options

Once I got lost on hike deep in the Sangre de Cristos mountains, on a stretch where the slopes were overgrown with brush and trees. The trail had disappeared under my feet, and it was getting late. I stumbled into an abandoned campsite that seemed haunted -- why just walk away and leave all your stuff? Did they make the mistakes I did, and never make it back?

The sun had begun to sink below the next ridge, but I could see the bright sky and the last sunlight still lit the eastern slope. Ahead of me was a river of boulders that had cascaded down from above. No water, just boulders bigger than me, piling up to the top of the ridge. I'd have to hop from one to the next, hundreds of feet up, to get high enough to hope to get a glimpse of my campsite, or the trail. If I slipped on the moss, I'd break my leg at the very least, and no one would ever find me. Worse was what might live there. It would take me hours to climb that.

The only other option was to hike down the overgrown slope through dense brush I knew hid rattlesnakes, bear and elk, toward the foot of the ridge, to try to follow the river back to camp. I knew both options could end with me dying alone in the middle of nowhere. But at least the river had water, and it knew where it came from.