High Sierra Topix

While walking down the trail your holding your bag of food in one hand, and a bag
of booze & coffee in the other, you cannot stop an put them away because the
section of the trail you are on is very rocky and narrow.
You suddenly slip and loose your footing falling, luckily your able to grab a branch
of a tree, but now your hanging, suspended 50 ft in the air and the only way you
can possibly climb up is to drop one of the bags.
Your two nights away from the trailhead, you have 2 bars & a some gorp in your
pack belt.
You lost you fishing pole during the fall.
Which bag would you drop:

A. 2 Breakfast, day time snacks, and 2 dinners

B. Your goodie bag: All your booze, coffee, chocolate, and maybe other vices

Drop B. I like my comforts, but I'll make the safe, conservative move in this case.

The coffee and booze get ditched! But hey- you are a lot more coordinated than I am- how to you grab a branch without dropping what is in your hand anyway? Me- if I fell like that - all items in both hands would be long gone. Decision made.

PS I never take booze anyway. My dilema is usually when the bear can is full, do I put coffee or "real food" in the bag that I hang in the tree? I usually hang the coffee because I figure bears would less likely get satisfaction from coffee. But it is a mighty hard decision.

Definitely keep the booze and goodies!! However the "other vices" you speak of may make the decision to drop the food very agonizing at points.

the boring answer--drop the booze and coffee. I think I've cut down coffee enough that I won't get a coffee withdrawal headache like I used to.

Mike

Hang there and think about it a while!

Only two nights away?
Drop the food and save the "goodies"...
No doubt about my priorities, can easily do without food for a day - maybe still catch a few trout sans pole - still have my reel/hooks - right?,
and can probably barter for food if...

OR wrote "the boring answer--drop the booze and coffee", wow, not what I though
I would hear with 2 night left.

Plan C..

Drop them both so i can climb back up with all hands. If it's only 50' down, there would probably be a way to retrieve them later.

I'd clip both of them to the carabiner dangling from my pack strap and climb.

Yeah, I'm boringly practical.

If for some reason the carabiner wasn't an option, I'd probably huck both bags toward the trail and hope, and hike like heck if neither made it.