2 rescued on Chocorua

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They came down Brook Trail. What trail had they gone up?

Will they be charged for this rescue?
 
Part of the problem with levels of snow being what they are is that we don't leave much in the way of tracks to follow. It seems the trail turned and they kept walking, and when it's dark, it's understandably easy to do.

I'm not justifying them! But in the summer, the trails are usually pretty obvious, and in the winter, the trails are usually packed down.

Brian
 
Dave Bear said:
The article said they went up the Piper Trail. Guess when the sun went down they must have lost there bearings?

Don't know if charges are being discussed but certainly sounds like they should at least get an earful!
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It is easy on a summit with many trails and even similar names, such as Monadnock with its White Cross and White Dot, to get confused. But to come down on the complete opposite side of the mountain? It was still daylight when they made that mistake. Lessons learned, I hope.
 
Glad they are okay, a guided trip down, thanks to SAR shouldn't be too expensive, although a fit penalty might be forcing them to buy lights, a WMG & a pair of compasses.

lower summits like Monadnock & Chocorua on a map seem easy to hike in a couple of hours RT (Most Monadnock trails this would be true) but the bare summits as Erugs mentioned are a maze of trails.

IMO, Chocorua is more of a hike than a few of the 4K's due to the lower starting elevation.
 
They intended to descend the same trail they climbed; the Piper. The Piper is on the east side of the mountain. To be on the Brook Trail mistakenly, you would have to make 3 wrong turns at junctions with signs, if memory serves. Furthermore, when does it occur to you that you are facing a setting sun and therefore not on the east side of a mountain?

Kudos to F&G and glad they are safe :)
 
forestgnome said:
They intended to descend the same trail they climbed; the Piper. The Piper is on the east side of the mountain. To be on the Brook Trail mistakenly, you would have to make 3 wrong turns at junctions with signs, if memory serves. Furthermore, when does it occur to you that you are facing a setting sun and therefore not on the east side of a mountain?

Kudos to F&G and glad they are safe :)
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The Piper trail approaches the summit from the north. It works its way around the west side of the summit and joins the Liberty/Brook trail at the base of the final ledge and the trails go up to the summit by the same course. When descending, if you drop off that summit ledge slightly to the left at a spot that has a shorter drop than does the Piper approach, by just a few feet you can miss completely the directional sign and you would be heading down the Brook trail. If it was your first time up there it would be easy to do especially if you were in a hurry, concerned about the time. Again if you're not familiar with the trails you could miss the Liberty/ Brook intersection and continue right on down Brook. One time when going up Brook I met a couple that had come up Hamlin/Liberty and had missed the turn when going down. They had a long walk back up to get to their trail.

Last Friday I was coming down Piper when I met a couple heading up. It was 2:00 PM and they had at least two hours to reach the top if they went that far. They were very lightly equipped and I wondered how they would make out. When the sky is overcast it is not always that obvious where the Sun is and if you're not an experienced hiker it's not always the first thing that will come to mind.

When going up it's not so complicated. You take a trail that leads up, but when going down the choices become much more complicated.
 
I never saw the movie, but I’ve read several times — I think the first time was in a Judith Crist review in TV Guide when I was a kid — that the final shot of the film shows the sun setting in the east.

Just checking now, I see that Wikipedia calls that ‘‘the famous supposed-goof.’’
 
Ed'n Lauky said:
The Piper trail approaches the summit from the north. It works its way around the west side of the summit and joins the Liberty/Brook trail at the base of the final ledge and the trails go up to the summit by the same course. When descending, if you drop off that summit ledge slightly to the left at a spot that has a shorter drop than does the Piper approach, by just a few feet you can miss completely the directional sign and you would be heading down the Brook trail. If it was your first time up there it would be easy to do especially if you were in a hurry, concerned about the time. Again if you're not familiar with the trails you could miss the Liberty/ Brook intersection and continue right on down Brook. One time when going up Brook I met a couple that had come up Hamlin/Liberty and had missed the turn when going down. They had a long walk back up to get to their trail.

Last Friday I was coming down Piper when I met a couple heading up. It was 2:00 PM and they had at least two hours to reach the top if they went that far. They were very lightly equipped and I wondered how they would make out. When the sky is overcast it is not always that obvious where the Sun is and if you're not an experienced hiker it's not always the first thing that will come to mind.

When going up it's not so complicated. You take a trail that leads up, but when going down the choices become much more complicated.
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I agree with a lot of this, but...

The Piper is almost entirely on the east slope, all the way to the saddle with First Sister, south of the summit. Imagine when you break out from the trees and see the summit. You then hike south and completely exposed for a 1/4 mile(?) to the summit. On the summit you're looking down on the long expanse of exposed rock that you just hiked. Wouldn't you expect to hike across that on the descent? Wouldn't it occur to you that you're on a trail that you didn't hike on the way up, and not retracing your way across that long stretch of exposed rock? The fact that you're on unfamiliar trail alone had ought to catch your attention.

I'm not into roasting anyone and I've made mistakes...this is how we help beginners. Many times I've overheard people saying things like "do we need a map?"..."no, just follow the signs,you can't miss it".

Mt. Chocorua is my "home" mtn. I hike it ~20x a year. It ranks with Washington and Lafayette for inexperienced and unprepared hikers. Next time I hike it I'm going to observe it through novice eyes and take mental notes about places to loose the trail, miss junctions, etc.
 
Marks & maps

I won't roast anyone either. Few if any of us have not gotten ourselves turned around, especially on unfamiliar terrain.
Faced as we are with this ongoing problem. and realizing that tourists will be tourists, about all we can do is give them the chance to become hikers. In New England, where the mode of hiking is well-marked trails, we should make sure the trails are in fact well-marked so as to be followable from blaze to blaze. On bare rocky summits where blazes may be the only indication of a trail, and fog happens, they may be only five yards apart. This starts to repeat earlier threads so I'll go to the other part of my post, which is maps.
Based on the practice of the NH Div Parks & Rec. and other groups, I'll say that one of the best things anyone can do to reduce the # of lost tourists is to offer maps at trailheads, either free (Parks) or cheap (most others). There is no guarantee they will be taken, used, or used wisely, for those are acts of the visitor over which we have little to no control. However, the maps do help those wise enough to use them return to the same trailhead whence they started, and thus become more like hikers and less like clueless tourists.
 
I agree with Creag and Forestnome who note that signage is important. Especially on peaks that see more novice hikers. Let them have a good experience to begin engaging them in having the right gear.

The Hike Safe program is good, but I don't think catches the eye of many because of the more formal corporate nature of the promotional material.

A experienced hiker friend of mine got off the Champney Falls Trail this summer by accident. I hadn't thought that possible, but he picked up the link to the Sisters and knew where he was then, so it was not a terrible error.

I tend to be chatty on the trail, moreso when I am on a "popular" trail like those on Mondanock, Chocorua, and Washington and see more people who might be doing their first hike. I hope my comments are nutty enough so that I don't come off as a know-it-all.
 
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On my last hike of Chocorua (back in early November) I ascended the Piper and descended via the Brook, Liberty, Hammond and Weetamoo. Although I've done that route before, I had some difficulty in the upper ledges where the blazes seemed very faint and hard to spot. A freshening up of the blazes would be welcomed.
 
forestgnome said:
Wouldn't you expect to hike across that on the descent? Wouldn't it occur to you that you're on a trail that you didn't hike on the way up, and not retracing your way across that long stretch of exposed rock? The fact that you're on unfamiliar trail alone had ought to catch your attention.
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A lot of people (dare I say most?) don't pay much attention to trails and don't remember much about them. If you tend to do a lot of planning, you might remember that the trail is on the E side of the mountain so you will lose light early, it follows a brook so there is probably less wind and fewer views than a ridge route, etc. Many people are lucky to remember the name of the trail - after all, it was the only one at the parking lot.

I think that guidebook times get people in trouble because they are often not appropriate for the people who need them most. One time I was about 10 minutes up Mt. Pemigewasset and met a woman who was wearing cycling gloves because she didn't like touching trees with her bare fingers. She said something like she been hiking 20 minutes and resting 20 minutes, and since it was an hour to the top she was halfway because she had only 20 minutes left. I couldn't think of a nice way to explain that trails aren't escalators so I just went on.
 
Does anyone remember the guy whom got lost on the Liberty Trail back in the 80's whom was carrying a portable TV? Correct me if I'm wrong but the story went something like this. This particular fellow had headed up the Liberty trail with two other hiker friends for an intended overnight. He was carrying a rather large pack which included a portable TV. His fellow hikers landed up hiking ahead of him which left him seperated from the group. After having been left on his own he lost the trail and began rambling through the woods. I believe it was late springtime with relatively decent weather. I also believe he spent a few nights in the woods in which during a Search effort ensued; although he was never rescued because he landed up finding his own way out. The part of the story I found interesting was what transpired during his stay in the woods. Since he had a rather large heavy pack and he was trying to find his own way out he got tired of carry the beast upon his back. Therefore he started discarding items he felt unnecessary in order to lighten his load; but hung on to the portable TV. During one of the nights of his stay in the woods alone he sat down to watch TV. Part of what he watched was the evening news. To his comfort after the ordeal was over he actually admitted to seeing a story on the TV about his own rescue. In other words he knew someone was looking for him. Although this did create some concern on his part. The following day he found the trail again and actually walked out to the same trailhead he had entered the woods. Upon reaching the trailhead the Rescue team was at the trailhead in the midst of a shift change. The now found hiker upon seeing the rescue crew exclaimed "I hope you guys aren't gonna hit Me!".
 
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