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Welcome to the latest episode of Survival Shorts where we explore stories in the world of survival with analysis and expert commentary.

Today we're going to discuss an incident that has raised some interesting questions about the personal

responsibilities of hikers in emergency situations.

We're going to share what happened and then we'll have a survival expert walk us through exactly what we could do differently in a similar scenario.

I spoke to the journalist who initially reported on this story for backpacker.

We want to make it clear that this story is based on the court documents from this case and we did not interview the defendant involved.

My name is Adam Roy and I'm the executive editor of backpacker.

So Phil Powers, a hiker who had a pretty serious mishap and survival scenario.

I know you wrote about it for backpacker so can you give me a rundown of what happened?

Philip Powers was this 37 year old hiker from Arizona and he ran into trouble on a hike in 2018.

He set out from this trailhead in this area about an hour northwest of Sedona.

His goal was to hike 17 mile trail. His guidebook rated it as moderate.

At first you know you hiked to what's called the Taylor cabin which is this stone hut from the 19th century.

This was about 14 miles in.

A few miles beyond that he ran into trouble.

He basically lost the trail couldn't get back on it.

...