Nature can be unforgiving, but in many of history’s worst outdoor tragedies, it was not nature alone that killed — it was a human miscalculation. A wrong decision in thin air. A delayed evacuation before a storm. A shortcut on unstable ice. A single underestimated risk that turned fatal.
Mountains, oceans, forests, deserts — none of them are inherently malicious. Yet they amplify error. In controlled environments, mistakes are often survivable. In wilderness settings, the margin for error narrows sharply. A small oversight can cascade into disaster within minutes.
