A very enjoyable chapter. Like someone else mentioned, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, as they say.
I'm always impressed by the educational detail you bring to the story. I must not hike at high enough elevations to have experienced the pressure-release issue. Oh, and those folks who hike without any supplies, even water, are known to me as "search and rescue material".
So, is that a common expression I hadn't heard of, or is it a Wolf original? It made me laugh out loud, probably because I related to it too closely for too many years