Usually one is prepared for every eventuality one can foresee. When I climb or hike long distances, I carry enough drugs to allow me to move or last until help can arrive, for instance. What gets people into trouble is simple.

We make a number of decisions which can be justified but may not be the best. C- decisions. And as C- decisions stack up, each understandable but maybe not the best, each building on the last, an F situation inevitably occurs.

Hiking I could come to a Y which is not on the map. Even though it is the less traveled, I could think that one leg of it seems to lead toward my destination, the other away, and I take it. Turns out that leads to a rather nice campsite a mile in. Not wanting to retrace that mile, I take off cross country to intercept the correct trail. That trail, however, has turned, and I'm going cross-country parallel to it and past where it turned. I go for several miles and intercept nothing. Now I'm lost. I don't want to walk back the several miles I have just covered, and then the mile back, so I turn 90 degrees, once more knowing I have to intercept the trail somewhere along the way. I intercept a trail, exhausted, not knowing which way to take to find anyone. It's late, getting dark. I am within radio range of my friends, but we cannot figure out where each other is. A whistle would help, but we didn't figure we'd need one with the radios.

A fictional situation, but one which describes what can happen. Each decision made some sense, and yet led to a difficult outcome.