Distressed Hiker in Smokies

Hurricane Sandy brought an early snow storm in the Smokies at high elevations. 32 inches of snow was dumped along the AT, Mt. LeConte, Clingman's Dome, etc. Some hikers were trapped. A friend told me two hikers got rescued at a shelter, but I haven't seen an article for it. Here an article of a rescue operation currently underway. I been to the Tricorner knob and that stretch of the Smokies is pretty darn isolated. Anyway, I guess point is to always be prepare and know your limitation. I had plans to go backpacking this weekend and was going regardless of the snow, but my hiking partner still mending a torn ligament in his ankle. I decided not to go alone. I guess I could experiment in making my own dehydrated meal kit this weekend..

http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/201...rk-rescued10775

I know it's easy to criticize from the comfort of my living room, but this seems like another needless risk imposed on first responders by someone who was not paying attention before heading out into the wild.

Call me too sensitive, but a friend of mine was killed, along with two other people, during a search when their helo went down. The lost hiker was never found, but his partner who abandoned him walked out.

I don't care how macho you are or how much you think you know. Heading out into what was forecast to be the biggest storm in decades was just plain stupid. I know that first responders understand the risks they take and that may be part of why they like the job, but really, a bit of common sense can save not only you, but whoever it is who comes looking for you.

This isn't to say I've never done anything foolish or dangerous, far from it, but sometimes you just have to wonder what someone like this guy was thinking.

TomD, just so you know this guy wasn't just out for a weekend hike. He was thru-hiking the AT southbound.

http://www.wbir.com/news/article/240315/2/Stranded-Appalachian-Trail-hiker-has-been-rescued

I'm curious to know how he survived in that situation and what he was doing as he await for responders. Tom, responders know the danger when they sign up for the job. My dad asked me why would two rangers go looking for him? Seems me if ranger stood by did nothing is like equivalent of firefighters waiting for house burn down before going get body out..

They wouldn't be rangers if they didn't go out, at least not in any meaningful sense of the word. They were fortunate in having a definite objective and knowledge that someone was in definite distress. Cell phones are taking the "S" out of SAR...

Not in my neck of the woods, they aren't.

We've only had a couple of searches where cell phones were used - and the subject was thoroughly lost so we told them to build a fire so we could find them. Since we search at night that worked.

I'm shocked the cell phone actually worked... On a summit cell phones usually works a little. I barely get one bar on a summit, but on a trail far from a summit, zilch. No signals. nada. On that stretch where he was found, my phone was in airplane mode when I hiked through it. I only keep my phone only primary for pictures as I don't have a camera but i keep it in airplane mode, so I don't receive texts or calls or my battery get drained while searching for signals.

Perhaps I should expand on my comments somewhat. Cell phones are not perfect, and they definitely don't work consistently (especially mine), but more and more often they are the means for initiating an operation. This replaces the classic opener - "ranger, ranger, find my child! - Where might your child be, ma'm? - Somewhere in GSMNP!" Thus the first responders may have an entire park or mountain range to search.

In the cell phone initiated scenario, you know positively that someone is (or thinks they are) in trouble, about where they are located - just vastly more information than we typically had in the "old days." Still better are PLBs. Particularly intriguing are the newer models with messaging capabilities.

The millennium isn't here yet, but cells do help.

There was a hiker lost in the Rincon Mountains a few weeks ago. She was alone, with little water and had thought that she was hiking the Miller Creek Trail when, in fact, she was on the Turkey Creek Trail. About halfway to Heartbreak Ridge she realized her mistake and decided to go cross-country to the Miller Creek Trail; a distance of about 6 miles through cliffy, dense chaparral. She ran out of water and energy and was benighted and thus overdue home. The Pima County Sheriff got a call and then Saguaro National Park was notified. She was located by pinging her cell phone using it's GPS feature and was helicoptered out. The following quote about pinging is from the website at:

http://pursuitmag.com/locating-mobile-phones-through-pinging-and-triangulation/
"A cell phone “ping” is quite simply the process of determining the location, with reasonable accuracy, of a cell phone at any given point in time by utilizing the phone GPS location aware capabilities, it is very similar to GPS vehicle tracking systems. To “ping” in this context means to send a signal to a particular cell phone and have it respond with the requested data. The term is derived from SONAR and echolocation when a technician would send out a sound wave, or ping, and wait for its return to locate another object. New generation cell phones and mobile service providers are required by federal mandate, via the “E-911” program, to be or become GPS capable so that 911 operators will be able to determine the location of a caller who is making an emergency phone call. When a new digital cell phone is pinged, it determines its latitude and longitude via GPS and sends these coordinates back via the SMS system (the same system used to send text messages). This means that in instances where a fugitive or other missing person has a GPS enabled cell phone (and that the phone has power when being polled, or pinged) that the cell phone can be located within a reasonable geographic area- some say within several feet of the cell phone.

With the older style analog cellular phones and digital mobile phones that are not GPS capable the cellular network provider can determine where the phone is to within a hundred feet or so using “triangulation” because at any one time, the phone is usually able to communicate with more than one of the aerial arrays provided by the phone network. The cell towers are typically 6 to 12 miles apart (less in cities) and a phone is usually within range of at least three of them. By comparing the signal strength and time lag for the phone’s carrier signal to reach at each tower, the network provider can triangulate the phone’s approximate position."

I am sure that the system has a lot of blind spots but it worked for this woman. Sure beats just yelling.

cell towers are typically 6 to 12 miles apart (less in cities) and a phone is usually within range of at least three of them.

This statement may be true in across most of the USA east of the Rockies. It most definitely is not true in the hinterlands of OR and WA, where the local populations are very small, mountains are very plentiful, and celluar phone companies have zero incentive to erect large numbers of cell towers.

Here in Oregon, I'd guess that density of cell phone coverage described in that quote applies to less than 15% of the state. CA has very similar issues in the Sierra Nevada and NoCal.

I believe that only applies to the older, non-GPS enabled phones. The newer ones appear to be able to connect with the E-911 system, or at least be located, without needing cell phone towers. This is my understanding of the system. I am sure that someone (most everyone?) on this forum knows a lot more than I do about the subject; perhaps they would care to chime in. Hell, I have only had a cell phone for four years and still don't know too much about how to use it; I grew up with rotary dials and calling the operator for long-distance.

Remember Lily Tomlin's hilarious routine "Is this the party to whom I am speaking????". Even if the accuracy of the system is degraded by fewer towers, it is still ahead of the practices of twenty or so years ago. We had a search in the Rincons for an overdue lady about 1983 or so. All we knew was that she was overdue, and that the ranger staff at SAGU was concerned about the adequacy of her equipment. We had teams all over the Rincons; my partner and I were inserted somewhere around Cow Head Saddle and others were blundering around the entire park, including a team near Rincon Peak. The lady was just fine, having exited the range without having made contact with anyone, but at least I got a nice helo ride and hike out of the effort - some report or another was moderately delayed - what a shame!

The point is that many operations now are much more highly focused and effective.

The only SAR-related funeral I have attended was for the pilot and copilot of a helo that crashed on their last planned flight of the day; they had just ferried some members of our organization back to base camp.

In front of our county courthouse is a firefighters memorial. the date of August 26, 1972, is listed for about seven individuals. I checked back issues and sure enough, it was helo related - an entire fire crew and pilot crashed while working a blaze in the local mountains.

No wonder I got hazardous duty pay when using helos....

Ewker, thanks for info that he was thru hiking. I'd been scratching my head for why the guy would be up there since the snow had been forecast several days earlier. AT Journeys had an article recently about another Southbounder who got caught in a very bad storm (but made it). Glad to hear he's safe, and that his rescuers are safe as well.

video and interview with the hiker

http://www.wlos.com/shared/news/top-stories/stories/wlos_rescued-hiker-speaks-out-9414.shtml

Thanks Ewker. His situation may have been unavoidable just because of where he was when the weather hit in terms of having any options (like staying home in the first place).

This is why I carry my cell phone. I don't know, but I'd suspect that signals are not days apart on the AT.

There's also the NOAA SAME Radio forecasts. Again, I don't know about reception along the AT, but here, in the Ozarks, the coverage is pretty good. A good receiver will pick that signal up where cell coverage isn't very good.

It seems like there was time for that hiker to get a weather forecast far enough ahead of the storm to find a place to hunker down, if they had been trying. There might be places out west where you can hike for 5 days and never pick up a cell or radio signal, but once your east of the Rockies that gets pretty hard to do, if not impossible.

The storms we've had here the past few years have been vicious and you have to monitor the weather for any outdoor activity you're going to do. I've mentioned it before, but in my experience you've got no more than 72 hours between forecasts. Longer term forecast aren't that good yet, and may never be.

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A "Ping" is sort of like a tiny text message. It doesn't require the bandwidth needed to carry a voice conversation, so even a very weak comparative signal will relay a message given enough time. But you do still need a tower link to transfer the request and response both ways.

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I set up a demo of a very simple web app that tells you what your phone (or desktop web browser) thinks is your lat/long. You can try it here:

http://navigraphic.com/locate.html

This app requests and sends back to your device the same lat/long data your phone would send in response to a ping that request your lat/long. If it's not available it will tell you.

That's not to say it will work everywhere a "Ping" would work. They are different protocols and the "web" protocol sends and expects in return a lot more data that a "Ping".

Actually, Sandy's track and that it would combine with other weather systems (a cold front from Canada and a "trough" moving east from the Pacific NW) to, among many other things, dump considerable snow on the Appalachians, was forecast as early as 6 days beforehand. Blog from Univ. of Washington Atmospheric Sciences Department professor.

One problem is that the US NWS uses a forecast model that is far inferior to the EU's model. The EU model predicted Sandy doing exactly what it did, while the US model initially had it going out to sea. That doesn't mean that the NWS was unaware of the EU model, but they may not have included it in their local forecasts. Also, of course, many of us are skeptical about weather forecasts and especially the many reporters who tend to hype every storm as "the storm of the century."

However, since press reports never give the whole story and are often quite inaccurate, we have no way of knowing this hiker's circumstances and what really happened. It's good to study the situation for lessons to learn for the rest of us, though!

We didn't know it was going to snow until it did. The Smokies didn't issue a winter advisory storm until Sunday. Least I didn't noticed an advisory until that time. This was released by GSMNP's twitter feed Sunday. The local weather station just had rain in the valley, but didn't mention possible snow storm at high elevation in the Smokies.

I didn't know about snow in the Smokies until it happened. If folks who live close by or 3 hrs away didn't know how would a thru-hiker going SOBO. I guess if he was carrying a radio he might but how many thru-hikers do carry one?

I live about 45 minutes from the park's headquarter and the time can vary base on how many tourists are clogging the road. The local news station in Knoxville only reports weather for my town, Knoxville, and surrounding communities. It doesn't show mountain weathers. Leading up to a trip to the Smokies, I use a different weather source for mountain weather. I follow the GSMNP's twitter information account. They will tweet important things such as trail closure, site closure, wrecks, etc. I first noticed the winter advisory from their tweet on a Sunday. I can imagine he didn't know the snow wasn't coming until it did. Otherwise, he could have got off the AT by Low Gap or Cosby Knob and descend to Cosby or Big Creek campground. Instead he climbed the 2nd highest mountain in the park and got trapped. At least he survived and I'm really curious to know what he had on hand and how he got through the night.

I watched a couple of newsclips of his rescue. He had a tent from what I could see and a parka, but not sure if that was given to him by the rescuer before he was winched up into the helo. He didn't have shoes on for some reason-probably soaked is my guess. No snowshoes either, which pretty much stranded him from what he said-took him hours to go a short distance.

I agree ETSU, he probably had no idea what was coming. When I was in NZ, I rarely got the forecast after heading out and there, the weather changes almost daily in some parts. Some of the mountain huts have radios for climbers to check in with the rangers and get weather reports. That is really helpful.

I gotta say, too, a major winter storm dumping FEET of snow in October in GSNP is almost unheard of. I've seen a few inches of wet snow at Carver's Gap (Roan Mountain/NC-TN border)in October, but not 2 feet, which is what my parents reported accumulated from Sandy. I'm sure Thru-Hikers were hardly the only people caught off-guard by the storm.

MNS

If the local media weren't passing on the weather forecast (their bad!), how is a hiker supposed to know? That's why I suggested withholding judgment on his activities; he can't be expected to have consulted the weather blog on the Washington Post!

Interesting that the media out here were really interested in what was going on but the media in the affected areas were not! Thanks for passing on that information!

The hiker had his own tent and parka. He was sitting in the tent with his boots off when the rescuers arrived.

Few, but perhaps a few more on that trail. I hiked most of the AT with a tech-challenged friend who asked me to pick out an MP3 player for him and help set it up. I put a lot of his music on for him, but what he ultimately ended up doing instead was listening to NPR and other stuff on the radio --- because on the AT you can so often pick up strong FM radio stations.

But practically speaking, I think very few thru-hikers are going to be listening to the radio, and often enough so as to pick up a rapid and significant weather forecast change in time to make a difference. What I did on the AT instead was to periodically get a weather forecast (internet via cell service). I certainly didn't (couldn't) do this every day, and I was definitely much more informed of weather forecasts than most thru-hikers as a result.

Until I watched the video I was a bit surprised to read that he was waiting in his tent. My inclination in really, surprisingly bad weather in there would be to try to get to the nearest (wooden) shelter, whether on the AT or somewhat off. When I went through the Smokies in March of 2010, they had tarp and similar plastic sheeting across the open fronts to make these shelters pretty good in the nasty weather. Unless you're really low on food (and sometimes even then), the smart thing in tough but transitory weather is to put on all your clothes, get in the sleeping bag, and wait it out. I had to do something similar in New Mexico last year.

In the sort of dump he got, however, it really is better to find some place to hunker down when it's that hard to move, and maybe even consider building some sort of snow shelter (debris hut comes to mind in those conditions, depending on how much snow was falling and how wet it was). Probably his solution of just putting up the tent was the right one, just wake up periodically to knock off accumulated snow on a tent that certainly was not 4-season.