Alli Harvey’s writing should be moved from Outdoor to Lifestyle, because she writes about her unhappy life more than anything outdoorsy. She’s not happy running on the East Coast or Anchorage. In a campground with Alaskan partyers, she fails to convince them to quiet down. Not happy.
In reexamining alcohol in her life, she writes of drinking three beers and two nightcaps. She complains about how her body feels the next morning. It’s called hung over, but she doesn’t say that.
Anything on the effects of alcohol on the body while in the backcountry? This is an outdoor column, after all. The warm feeling alcohol gives you is a deadly illusion. Alcohol has you losing heat twice as fast, hypothermia a real possibility. Using her go-go-go personality to go talk to local EMS about winter alcohol use? No, that didn’t happen.
For 30 years, I’ve sold gear to car campers and climbers alike. I always talk safety, using my own failings to illustrate the point. Given the toll alcohol takes in Alaska, I am amazed there was not one word in Harvey’s column about the dangers of alcohol use in the backcountry. It is simply irresponsible.
— Angela Ramirez
Anchorage
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