Self Rescue on Downe's Brook

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The article states he spent the night "just off the trail". If rescuers passed him twice why didn't he make more effort to be found. Don't most cell phones have a flashlight feature? I assume his had a charge because he unsuccessfully tried to call and text. Did he carry a whistle?

If I was spending the night in the woods and spotted rescuers (twice). I would make every effort possible to be found.

I would be surprised if you could hear a whistle of a rushing stream. Last week I saw someone panning for gold in a stream, next to the road I was walking along back to my car after a bushwhack. From about 10 yards away, I had to shout just about as loud as I could for him to hear me when I said hello.

It's also a bit presumptuous to assume that he didn't make every possible effort to be found.
 
How about if you're really injured and might not survive the night? I have no problem with the guy telling his wife to call SAR at 9pm, but he had better be back when he says or be willing to suffer the consequences (which are not as severe as the alternative scenario).
Such a call time will result in lots of false call-outs to SAR and is also no guarantee of quick help. One is often back to the TH later than planned and IMO one should allow extra time when setting up a call time. If one is concerned about an injury with a short survival time, one should carry some form of satellite communicator.

"SOS" button on Garmin InReach.

And in reference to the earlier day, there are only a few injuries that will kill you overnight. Old story: A guy was on a 3-4 day solo ski trip in the Pharaoh Lakes wilderness (ADK). This was in the 80's. He left a route map with his wife. On like day 2 he took some kind of fall and broke his leg, so no motion. He managed to set up his tent, get in, and survive until he missed his return time. Wife called the Rangers, they followed the map, he was exactly where he was supposed to be, got rescued, lived.

In my book, this guy is a super hero role model.

Maybe DougPaul will share a different opinion. His injury was very severe; I do not know if he would have survived the night..
Given the technology of the 80's, his instructions to his wife were reasonable.

My injury was a broken femur. However, there were no signs of shock or externally visible swelling and I had bivy gear (a pad, a down jacket and a bivy sack, IIRC) so I probably would have survived the night. I was also "smart" enough to have my accident on a popular trail so I was easy to find. Another skier arrived shortly after the accident and he could have skied out and summoned help, but my cellphone worked. Even with the cellphone, it was probably ~3 hours from the accident to being loaded into an ambulance at the TH. (The TH was part of a commercial XC skiing area which probably minimized the response time.)

The info for this incident is pretty sparse, but given what we know:
<in my opinion>:
* His call time was too soon. The next morning or day would have been a better choice.
* An out-and-back would have been wiser--it gives one the option of a turn-around via a known route. Once you are past the half-way point in a loop turning around becomes poorer and poorer option. In the worst case, it can almost double the distance.
* Streams are at their highest in the evening and lowest in the early morning--perhaps he had to wait for the stream to go down. (One should also take this into account when planning a route.)
* There is no indication in the report that he had a decent light. A good light might have enabled the stream crossings and might have enabled signaling the SAR personnel (any light would have been highly visible).
* If possible he should have bivied on or right next to the trail so he would be found by any rescuers or any other hikers passing by.
* Except for the early call time, he didn't do too badly--after deciding to wait to attempt the stream crossings, he did appear to survive the night without harm and made it out on his own.
</in my opinion>

Doug
 
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206-26-bb said:
Any person determined by the department to have acted negligently in requiring a search and rescue response by the department shall be liable to the department for the reasonable cost of the department's expenses for such search and rescue response, unless the person shows proof of possessing a current version of any of the following:
(a) A hunting or fishing license issued by this state under title XVIII.
(b) An OHRV registration under RSA 215-A, a snowmobile registration under RSA 215-C, or a vessel registration under RSA 270-E.
(c) A voluntary hike safe card.

http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/xviii/206/206-26-bb.htm

Remember - it is not a fine, but reimbursement for costs incurred.

Tim
 
One is often back to the TH later than planned and IMO one should allow extra time when setting up a call time.

We don't know when he planned to be back at the trailhead. I assume that the 9pm call time included a couple hours for unforeseen delays.
 
While no one is screaming he's negligent, I am doubtful that he had a light. Especially if he was just off the trail and noticed rescuers and he tried calling out to them.

As someone else mentioned, given the snow they have received late in season and description of the trail in the WMG and that it faces generally north and gets very little sun, it's a poor choice unless you planned on lots of rotten snow and difficult crossings.

Both he and the scout did not consider the extra snow melt filling the stream bed. The Eagle Scout sustained an injury while ascending Washington but pressed on. He was fit enough otherwise that he likely could have done his planned hike & returned on the AT which (it's been over 20 years since I've been on that section between Madison & PNVC) if I recall has bridges where the crossings are.

I didn't bring it up but the scouts continuing uphill reminded me of Dr. Dahl's misadventure. He had knew surgery sometime before his hike in the fall, tweaked his knee but kept going up with the idea the road would be a better surface for descending. (It is, I've used in when only a couple of inches of snow made the rocks treacherous & icy, not filled in like true winter.) While the road is smoother, it's a very exposed, long walk & it shouldn't be considered in bad weather.

I am curious in this day in age, what people do for research before doing a hike. How many of the people leading Facebook Group hikes use the WMG & how many just use Alltrails, online trail condition reports, and Instagram?
 
While no one is screaming he's negligent, I am doubtful that he had a light. Especially if he was just off the trail and noticed rescuers and he tried calling out to them.

I wonder if he tried to avoid some of the brook crossings by bushwhacking along the opposite side of the brook from the trail. The SAR folks would have been moving quickly and looking down at their feet, not looking for dim lights on the other side.
 

No. Dr. Bernard Dahl 10/23/1999 I'll see what I can dig up that does not promote the Dr. new business It was debated here a lot in 1999.

Here is a Boston Globe Article, the Dr. has a paragraph on page 5: http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2008/08/17/a_beautiful_place_to_die/

It's attached to a thread from the VFTT archives: https://www.vftt.org/forums/showthr...utiful-place-to-die-quot/page2&highlight=Dahl It pissed be off in 1999,when the thread came outa nd even now. His website is no longer up though.

What the Dr. & the more recent Kate Matrosova fatality have in common is that both had made some guided mountaineering trips on other continents. While they were accomplished, on those kind of trips, the guides make all the decisions on whether you summit, descend to another camp or just stay in your tents for the day. The guides don't share how they make the decisions. A nice day on Kilimanjaro or Longs Peak, Hood or Rainier is better than a bad day on Washington. The weekend of Kate's accident was forecasted to be bad for a few days. In Dahl's case, it was raining down at PNVC, the person(s) he was supposed to go with bailed & he still went up. As is usual in late October, a cold rain at PNVC was sleet and freezing rain higher up.
 
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I do not believe you are issued a violation, so no - it is a bill. Compare with https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/XXI/265/265-60.htm which specifically uses the word "violation" and "fine" (speeding.) Speeding is a violation, with or without the need for search and rescue or other response. Hiking unprepared is not a violation or you could have "hiking traps" where you get "pulled over" and inspected if you aren't carrying a backpack.

IANAL,
Tim
 
I don't believe I stipulated thay a violation was issued. There is a sum imposed, and it's imposed because of a violation of a law. Fair? :)

No. There is no violation of a law.

Would you agree it's [a sum imposed as [a penalty inflicted on an offender through judicial procedure] for [an infraction of law]]? I think you know I love semantics. :)

I object to penalty, offender, and infraction. That's like issuing a violation with a fine for hitting a deer while operating a motor vehicle in complete compliance with all known laws. It's happened to me. Deer took a running leap over the guardrail and landed on the front right corner of my car ;) That's like saying "I'm guilty of speeding, and subject to a fine, unless I bought my SpeedSafe card."

The law exists solely to grant the State Of New Hampshire the authority to collect on expenses incurred for services rendered, along with an insurance-like shared cost model of the HikeSafe card.

Tim
 
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That's like saying "I'm guilty of speeding, and subject to a fine, unless I bought my SpeedSafe card."

I have one of those, so does DayTrip. It's blue and white with black letters and there is one on the front and back of my car. You can get them with trails, or a lighthouse or UConn or Children on it. The people in Massachusetts have them too, theirs come with Red Sox or the Bruins logo & they get to speed and disobey all the other laws too. the NY and NJ ones are a hybrid between the two.
:D:D:D
 
You can't speed in "Downtown Gorham" or Downtown Anywhere else. Police are few and far between, tourists are like cockroaches, we're everywhere. NH is interesting because you might be a transplant from MA or a native. The green plates, they're just road cones. The Red Cockroaches from the Pine Tree State, well, they never leave the Pine Tree State.
 
No. Dr. Bernard Dahl 10/23/1999 I'll see what I can dig up that does not promote the Dr. new business It was debated here a lot in 1999.

Here is a Boston Globe Article, the Dr. has a paragraph on page 5: http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2008/08/17/a_beautiful_place_to_die/

It's attached to a thread from the VFTT archives: https://www.vftt.org/forums/showthr...utiful-place-to-die-quot/page2&highlight=Dahl It pissed be off in 1999,when the thread came outa nd even now. His website is no longer up though.

Thanks for the link. I must have ignored it back then, or it just blended in with all the other similar rescues.
 
Gorham NH has/had the rep that any out of state plate was an arrest me for speeding plate;)

Ha. Coming down Randolph Hill it drops to 30mph and there was often someone hiding out. For the first 15 years of knowing my wife as we neared the Sortie Durgence Por Camion (pretty much all the French I know) I'd hear "slow down, Gorham cops are a**holes!"
 
The way in which the HikeSafe program evolved has been discussed to death in these pages (among others) already. The summary that applies here is:

NH State Legislature has tasked NH F&G with reponsibility for Search and Rescue.
NH State Legislature has not provided any funding for the same.
NH F&G is self-funded through fishing, hunting, OHRV registration, boat registration, etc.
Hikers were taking up a disproportionate amount of the Search and Rescue resources while not having bought anything from F&G.

Thus, the law was passed which allowed NH F&G to bill, and the State Attorney General to enforce, for actual costs incurred, and to sell HikeSafe cards (same idea as fishing and hunting licenses, without the resource management) with the idea that if

* you are deemed negligent, you can be billed, unless you've purhased a HikeSafe, or other service, from NH F&G
* you are wreckless, you can be billed, regardless
* you are neither negligent nor wreckless, you should not be billed (HikeSafe or not)

Since I buy an annual fishing license (BikeHikeSkiFish), I do not need to buy the HikeSafe card to be 'covered'.

IANAL, but I do believe this is an accurate summary.

Tim
 
The way in which the HikeSafe program evolved has been discussed to death in these pages (among others) already. The summary that applies here is:

NH State Legislature has tasked NH F&G with reponsibility for Search and Rescue.
NH State Legislature has not provided any funding for the same.
NH F&G is self-funded through fishing, hunting, OHRV registration, boat registration, etc.
Hikers were taking up a disproportionate amount of the Search and Rescue resources while not having bought anything from F&G.

Thus, the law was passed which allowed NH F&G to bill, and the State Attorney General to enforce, for actual costs incurred, and to sell HikeSafe cards (same idea as fishing and hunting licenses, without the resource management) with the idea that if

* you are deemed negligent, you can be billed, unless you've purhased a HikeSafe, or other service, from NH F&G
* you are wreckless, you can be billed, regardless
* you are neither negligent nor wreckless, you should not be billed (HikeSafe or not)

Since I buy an annual fishing license (BikeHikeSkiFish), I do not need to buy the HikeSafe card to be 'covered'.

IANAL, but I do believe this is an accurate summary.

Tim

That's an accurate summary as far as I can tell. One other thing to mention is that you don't have to be a safe hiker to buy a HikeSafe card.
 
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