Question re:last year's Guyot death

[dclynch]

During the analysis of the death of the hiker in the severe cold snap last winter, I never saw anything about building a snow cave, either here or in the accident report in Appalachia. Since the hiker was generally well equipped, wouldn't this have been a viable option?

Disclaimer: I've never been in a snow cave and don't know if it was even possible his location. I am not criticizing, but just curious.

 

[Papa Bear]

I think there are a few points on this questions:

1) He already had a shelter (his tent) and survived the night, presumably in good enough shape to attempt to hike out in the morning. He could have stayed put and may have survived longer, but his judgement was to move out.

2) Stopping and constructing a snow cave on Guyote would have involved at least as much, or more effort than just hiking, and he would have been wetter and more exhausted than he was at that point. Besides, he was probably too far gone with hypothermia by this point anyway.

3) He had no shovel.

Pb

 

[weatherman]

The weather was just SO extreme (likely -40 or under, with no sun at all and freezing fog) that staying put was probably not a viable option, and in those temps a snow cave may have been very hard to build even with a shovel (or a snowshoe used as a shovel, which he did have). The snow was probably either like rock or dry sand. Getting out quickly was probably the right decision... sadly, the time, route, and distance combination did not permit survival.

 

[BrentD22]

Snow shelters...

Snow shelters are extremely difficult to build. I spent hours one afternoon with a bunch of teens building the ugliest, smallest snow shelter. The work was so difficult that I decided that either for fun reasons or in times or emergancy that a snow shelter was never being built by me ever again!

 

[BrentD22]

Snow shelters...

Snow shelters are extremely difficult to build. I spent hours one afternoon with a bunch of teens building the ugliest, smallest snow shelter. The work was so difficult that I decided that either for fun reasons or in times or emergancy that a snow shelter was never being built by me ever again!

I've since dug out a small hole in the side of a snow drift, but that would not have helped because his tent would have been warmer.

The best idea (assuming while hypothermia he could) would have been to pitch tent and then build up the snow around the tent. What keeps you warm is having energy otherwise known as calories. If he spends all his energy building snow shelters he will then have no energy to keep warm, even in a snow shelter.

 

[dug]

Building a snow shelter at that elevation, with snow of that consistancy, would be darn near impossible...at least with take a very, very long time with great effort. I've built a few in my time, and they take literally hours. I don't see where that would have been aviable option. Yes, they are very warm, but he had the equipment to keep warm (tent & sleeping bag & winter clothes).

 

[hikerfast]

Kenny called me from the summit the night before in his tent. He was fine and excited to be there. Next morning his tracks indicated he was blasting along towards south twin(he was a marathon runner). What we think happened is, he hit the top of south twin and couldn't cross because of the winds. He probably spent some time waiting and then finally crawled over the summit. By that time his tracks indicated he was hypothermic and was weaving and finally fell down and that was that. I don't think a snow cave really was anything that he thought about in the way the death occurred. We think the hypothermia came on while fighting to get over South Twin, and happened fairly quickly.