Interview with Marcy survivor

I had a long interview today with the snowshoer who got turned around on Marcy's summit and spent the night in a snow hole. He did suffer frostbite.

Click here to read the story.

Great interview, thanks for sharing the link. Incredible and scary stuff, I hope he recovers fully and is out there hiking again soon.

-Chris

Incredible indeed. There are two really wonderful aspects to this story. One is that it is detailed, riveting, and educational. The other is that it is told by the *survivor*.

Phil,

Thanks for sharing the story. Much appreciated.

Alan

Just enforces the need to be prepared to spend a night n to have the where withall to keep your head.. and yes groups should take a lesson in sticking together or at least maintain socme form of communication n understanding that no one is out of reach.

Thanks for sharing, I'll be passing this on as well.

Agreed - staying with your hiking partners and checking in face to face throughout a hike is paramount in winter .

Thanks for sharing.

Phil thanks for this well-written interview, I am forwarding it on.

Thanks Phil, it reminds us all that above tree line not only visibility can go from clear to nil from one minute to the next but that a group should act as one. One can only imagine how are feeling today the other members of that Marcy climb!

BlackSpruce said:

One can only imagine how are feeling today the other members of that Marcy climb!

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I was thinking the same thing.

All well and said, but how many of us have been on a hike with a group and have been the last to arrive on a summit? It may appear to some that 5 minutes between hikers is not a long time but when you are the one trailing at the end, it seems like eternity before reaching the group? Any thoughts? Constructive comments?

I was on Marcy this past Saturday. I noted again climbers alone or in groups just go for the summit without taking in their surroundings and certainly not even thinking for a split second about the immediate future or paying much attention to their companions. Once above tree line it’s every man for himself, it's summit fever coupled with wonderment. Most of us learn without dire consequences how not to succumb to it but a few others are not so lucky!

kmac said:

All well and said, but how many of us have been on a hike with a group and have been the last to arrive on a summit? It may appear to some that 5 minutes between hikers is not a long time but when you are the one trailing at the end, it seems like eternity before reaching the group? Any thoughts? Constructive comments?

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The range of opinions on this subject was explored pretty well a couple years ago in this thread about an incident in Vermont.

kmac said:

All well and said, but how many of us have been on a hike with a group and have been the last to arrive on a summit? It may appear to some that 5 minutes between hikers is not a long time but when you are the one trailing at the end, it seems like eternity before reaching the group? Any thoughts? Constructive comments?

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So true. I don't mean to unfairly scrutinize the report, but when reading it I wondered why they didn't wait to regroup at the jct on Little Marcy below the summit. To me that seems like a reasonable place to stop and wait (and one I've stopped at many times before ). The fifteen minutes he spent struggling in a spruce trap seems like more than enough time to slip by that if the group had stopped there to wait they would have become concerned and retraced their steps to the summit to look for him.

This was a tragedy narrowly averted but one that could easily happen. The reality is that things can go wrong on any hike, no matter how familiar one may be with the trail. I've been on hikes where I've decided to bail down and let the group go ahead...with the understanding that I was taking responsibility for myself from this point onward..but this was after explicitly communicating this to the group. In the report, direct communication was broken and that's where things went wrong, IMHO. If I were in their shoes, I'd most certainly be feeling terribly about the breach.

una_dogger said:

So true. I don't mean to unfairly scrutinize the report, but when reading it I wondered why they didn't wait to regroup at the jct on Little Marcy below the summit.

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I felt the same way, but this was posted on ADKHighPeaksForum today (http://www.adkhighpeaks.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16979&page=3):

"I was the DEC volunteer on patrol on Marcy that day when I was approached by the two sons hiking back up the mountain just above treeline reporting that their father was missing. Neither of the young men were clothed/prepared/experienced enough to be conducting their own search off trail, above treeline, under the conditions that day. As soon as I received all of the pertinent information I could from them they were instructed to hike out and meet with responding rangers. As it was, they did not get out of the woods until dark. Further time spent doing their 'own thing' when I was already on site initiating a search and rescue response would have accomplished nothing other than putting themselves in further danger."

That changed my opinion of the other hikers, they apparently did what they were supposed to do.

Yup - that explains a lot - thanks for posting, Dan.

Published today a few more details here:

http://www.adirondackdailyenterpris...urvivor-recounts-night-on-Marcy.html?nav=5008

Thanks Phil.
Having just been on a HP, the article and this thread have caused me to reconsider exactly what I DO take on winter hikes. I could be better prepared by adding a couple more items.