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There was a lot of interest in the two rescues of an Ohio man from the Five Ponds Wilderness recently. I interviewed the man to get his side of the story. From his account, he was in genuine peril. Yet now he faces criminal charges. The case certainly raises questions for other hikers. For instance, if you run into trouble, how can you know whether your predicament qualifies as an emergency under DEC's interpretation of the law? Since DEC refuses to discuss the case, the answer to that remains a big unknown. It may be that the defendant said something to DEC investigators that led them to conclude he wasn't in dire straits. But until the facts come out, we can only speculate.
The text of the story follows. Sorry for funky text breaks. I will post a Web link (with graphics) as soon as I can.
Enjoy!
Phil
Army saves man
in wilds—twice
DEC arrests Carl Skalak after he
sets off emergency beacon second
time, but he insists both evacuations
were legitimate.
BY PHIL BROWN
EXPLORER STAFF
When Carl Skalak Jr. canoed into the Five Ponds Wilderness in
mid-November, he got caught in a blizzard. And then the river froze. He made history of sorts by activating a personal locater beacon (PLB) that sent a
signal to the Air Force via a satellite.
On Nov. 14, he was flown out of the wilds by a Huey helicopter dispatched from Fort Drum, an Army base near Watertown. Skalak, 55, of Cleveland, thus became the first person in the continental United States to be rescued after setting off a PLB. The devices were approved for use in the Lower 48 just last summer, after a trial run in Alaska.
“The system worked like a gem,” said Lt. Daniel Karlson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which operates the satellites that relay PLB signals.
On Dec. 3, three weeks later, the system got its second test. Again, a Huey flew to the rescue. The person in distress: Carl Skalak Jr.
This time, not all of the authorities were pleased. The next day, the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) charged Skalak with two counts of falsely reporting an incident, a misdemeanor. He spent a night in jail before posting $10,000 bail.
DEC spokesman Steve Litwhiler said the agency believes that Skalak didn’t need to be rescued either time. The charges allege that Skalak “was found in a healthy condition, not in apparent need of emergency evacuation, and with no imminent or occurring catastrophic or emergency condition present.”
Skalak begs to differ. In the first instance, he said, “the need of an emergency evacuation was pretty clear. With the river frozen up, there was no other way out.” The second time, he said, he would have risked frostbite or worse if he tried to hike out of the woods on his own. “It’s not like I went in there and rang their bell because I just had a blister or something.”
When Skalak first entered the wilderness, on Tuesday, Nov. 11, he planned to relax, take photographs and read a book by Sigurd Olsen, a conservationist who often wrote about the spiritual value of nature. Skalak drove his truck to a remote put-in on the Middle Branch of the Oswegatchie River in the western Adirondacks. He then paddled his solo canoe for more than two hours to Alder Bed Flow, a still stretch of the river in the Five Ponds Wilderness, and set up camp.
It started to rain Tuesday night. Sometime Wednesday afternoon, the rain changed to snow, and it continued to snow on Thursday. “When I woke up Friday morning there was like four feet of snow on the ground,” Skalak said. “More importantly, the river froze.”
Skalak said the weather forecasts had not warned of a snowstorm. Now he wasn’t sure what weather to expect. And he didn’t know how long it would take the river to thaw. Eventually, he decided to activate the beacon, which he had bought for $600 only days before his trip. He reasoned that if he waited and the weather turned worse or if he ran out of food and became debilitated, he would make things harder
on himself and his rescuers.
The Air Force Rescue and Coordination Center received the distress signal at 10:45 a.m. and notified the Herkimer County Sheriff’s Department. DEC started a search but never reached Skalak. In the end, officials asked Fort Drum to send in a helicopter, which picked up Skalak at about 5 p.m.
At the time, no charges were filed. In fact, Lt. Col. Scott P. Morgan, commander of the Air Force rescue center, said Skalak made the right decision. “He did exactly what he should,” Morgan told the L.A. DailyNews, “because he didn’t wait until he went beyond his capacity. . . . We weren’t going in and trying to find someone that was in extreme distress.”
A few weeks later, Skalak returned alone to the Adirondacks to retrieve his canoe and other gear. On Friday, Nov. 28, he hiked from the put-in, starting up an old logging road and then bushwhacking
for hours through thick balsams to the river. Because it had rained for several days beforehand, his boots and pants got soaked during the bushwhack. By the time he reached the campsite, it was 2:30 p.m.—he had been hiking for 5½ hours. He then made a disheartening discovery: His canoe was missing.
Skalak suspects the canoe was stolen, since he had tied it down. He now contemplated the risks of bushwhacking back to his truck. Because he was unsure whether he could find the old logging road as easi-ly as he found the river, he thought he might have to bivouac in the woods, probably in subfreezing temperatures. He didn’t want to attempt the trip in wet clothing and wet boots. He had notified the local forest ranger that he expected to be out of the woods on Saturday. He also left a topo map on his
truck’s dashboard outlining his route. He hoped rangers would come to his rescue once they realized he was missing. And so he decided to stay put—at least until his clothing and boots dried.
“I figured the smartest thing to do was to sit tight,” he said. “I was warm and dry inside my sleeping bag and tent.”
He had enough food only for an overnight trip: a sandwich, a box of rice and 8 ounces of salmon. Nevertheless, he made it last from Friday night until Monday. Meanwhile, the temperature was dropping
into the teens. To keep warm in his bag, he put warm water in bottles and placed them between his thighs.
Nobody came to his rescue, and his boots and clothing never dried out. At 5 a.m. Tuesday—cold, hungry, out of food—he activated the beacon again.
Twelve hours later, Skalak was picked up by helicopter and flown to Fort Drum. The next day, he said, he was arrested and handcuffed after an interrogation conducted by several DEC rangers and investigators. He pleaded not guilty in town court in Old Forge and plans to continue to fight the charges. He is due in court again this month.
“They suggested that I should be walking out of the woods with wet boots in subfreezing temperatures,” he said. “I didn’t think that was a prudent thing to do.”
Steve Litwhiler, the DEC spokesman, refused to discuss the case except to say that the agency believes Skalak could have got out of the woods both times without help. The federal government seems to take a more lenient attitude toward the questionable use of PLBs. Similar devices have been used for years on ships and planes, but there have been few arrests for misuse, according to Lt. Karlson of NOAA. “We’d
rather that people have confidence in the system and not worry about making that judgment call when they’re at risk,” Karlson said.
He regards false alerts as the downside of operating an emergency system that has a huge upside: He expects thousands of people will be saved by PLBs over the years. Skalak’s rescues sparked much discussion on “Views from the Top,” an Internet bulletin board for Northeast hikers. Some of those posting messages fear that personal locater beacons will encourage hikers to go into the woods unprepared, knowing that they need only flip a switch if they run into trouble. “Give it time. Let it become more popular,” said one hiker. “Charging for rescues will start. Then the lawyers will get involved—lawsuits when a rescue isn’t fast enough.”
Neil Woodworth, attorney for the Adirondack Mountain Club, which represents 40,000 hikers, said outdoor enthusiasts, should be properly prepared before entering the woods, but he sees nothing wrong
with using a beacon in a real emergency. “I don’t see any difference in using a personal locater beacon, a cell phone or a walkie-talkie,” he said. “I don’t think the method of communication matters, but any
emergency call has to be reserved for true emergencies.”
Was DEC being heavy-handed in arresting Skalak? What are the implications of the arrest for other hikers? If they run into trouble, how can they know if their predicament is a legal emergency or not?
Apparently, these questions will not be answered until the case unfolds. DEC is not talking, and Woodworth said he could not comment on the specifics of the Skalak case without knowing all the facts.
The text of the story follows. Sorry for funky text breaks. I will post a Web link (with graphics) as soon as I can.
Enjoy!
Phil
Army saves man
in wilds—twice
DEC arrests Carl Skalak after he
sets off emergency beacon second
time, but he insists both evacuations
were legitimate.
BY PHIL BROWN
EXPLORER STAFF
When Carl Skalak Jr. canoed into the Five Ponds Wilderness in
mid-November, he got caught in a blizzard. And then the river froze. He made history of sorts by activating a personal locater beacon (PLB) that sent a
signal to the Air Force via a satellite.
On Nov. 14, he was flown out of the wilds by a Huey helicopter dispatched from Fort Drum, an Army base near Watertown. Skalak, 55, of Cleveland, thus became the first person in the continental United States to be rescued after setting off a PLB. The devices were approved for use in the Lower 48 just last summer, after a trial run in Alaska.
“The system worked like a gem,” said Lt. Daniel Karlson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which operates the satellites that relay PLB signals.
On Dec. 3, three weeks later, the system got its second test. Again, a Huey flew to the rescue. The person in distress: Carl Skalak Jr.
This time, not all of the authorities were pleased. The next day, the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) charged Skalak with two counts of falsely reporting an incident, a misdemeanor. He spent a night in jail before posting $10,000 bail.
DEC spokesman Steve Litwhiler said the agency believes that Skalak didn’t need to be rescued either time. The charges allege that Skalak “was found in a healthy condition, not in apparent need of emergency evacuation, and with no imminent or occurring catastrophic or emergency condition present.”
Skalak begs to differ. In the first instance, he said, “the need of an emergency evacuation was pretty clear. With the river frozen up, there was no other way out.” The second time, he said, he would have risked frostbite or worse if he tried to hike out of the woods on his own. “It’s not like I went in there and rang their bell because I just had a blister or something.”
When Skalak first entered the wilderness, on Tuesday, Nov. 11, he planned to relax, take photographs and read a book by Sigurd Olsen, a conservationist who often wrote about the spiritual value of nature. Skalak drove his truck to a remote put-in on the Middle Branch of the Oswegatchie River in the western Adirondacks. He then paddled his solo canoe for more than two hours to Alder Bed Flow, a still stretch of the river in the Five Ponds Wilderness, and set up camp.
It started to rain Tuesday night. Sometime Wednesday afternoon, the rain changed to snow, and it continued to snow on Thursday. “When I woke up Friday morning there was like four feet of snow on the ground,” Skalak said. “More importantly, the river froze.”
Skalak said the weather forecasts had not warned of a snowstorm. Now he wasn’t sure what weather to expect. And he didn’t know how long it would take the river to thaw. Eventually, he decided to activate the beacon, which he had bought for $600 only days before his trip. He reasoned that if he waited and the weather turned worse or if he ran out of food and became debilitated, he would make things harder
on himself and his rescuers.
The Air Force Rescue and Coordination Center received the distress signal at 10:45 a.m. and notified the Herkimer County Sheriff’s Department. DEC started a search but never reached Skalak. In the end, officials asked Fort Drum to send in a helicopter, which picked up Skalak at about 5 p.m.
At the time, no charges were filed. In fact, Lt. Col. Scott P. Morgan, commander of the Air Force rescue center, said Skalak made the right decision. “He did exactly what he should,” Morgan told the L.A. DailyNews, “because he didn’t wait until he went beyond his capacity. . . . We weren’t going in and trying to find someone that was in extreme distress.”
A few weeks later, Skalak returned alone to the Adirondacks to retrieve his canoe and other gear. On Friday, Nov. 28, he hiked from the put-in, starting up an old logging road and then bushwhacking
for hours through thick balsams to the river. Because it had rained for several days beforehand, his boots and pants got soaked during the bushwhack. By the time he reached the campsite, it was 2:30 p.m.—he had been hiking for 5½ hours. He then made a disheartening discovery: His canoe was missing.
Skalak suspects the canoe was stolen, since he had tied it down. He now contemplated the risks of bushwhacking back to his truck. Because he was unsure whether he could find the old logging road as easi-ly as he found the river, he thought he might have to bivouac in the woods, probably in subfreezing temperatures. He didn’t want to attempt the trip in wet clothing and wet boots. He had notified the local forest ranger that he expected to be out of the woods on Saturday. He also left a topo map on his
truck’s dashboard outlining his route. He hoped rangers would come to his rescue once they realized he was missing. And so he decided to stay put—at least until his clothing and boots dried.
“I figured the smartest thing to do was to sit tight,” he said. “I was warm and dry inside my sleeping bag and tent.”
He had enough food only for an overnight trip: a sandwich, a box of rice and 8 ounces of salmon. Nevertheless, he made it last from Friday night until Monday. Meanwhile, the temperature was dropping
into the teens. To keep warm in his bag, he put warm water in bottles and placed them between his thighs.
Nobody came to his rescue, and his boots and clothing never dried out. At 5 a.m. Tuesday—cold, hungry, out of food—he activated the beacon again.
Twelve hours later, Skalak was picked up by helicopter and flown to Fort Drum. The next day, he said, he was arrested and handcuffed after an interrogation conducted by several DEC rangers and investigators. He pleaded not guilty in town court in Old Forge and plans to continue to fight the charges. He is due in court again this month.
“They suggested that I should be walking out of the woods with wet boots in subfreezing temperatures,” he said. “I didn’t think that was a prudent thing to do.”
Steve Litwhiler, the DEC spokesman, refused to discuss the case except to say that the agency believes Skalak could have got out of the woods both times without help. The federal government seems to take a more lenient attitude toward the questionable use of PLBs. Similar devices have been used for years on ships and planes, but there have been few arrests for misuse, according to Lt. Karlson of NOAA. “We’d
rather that people have confidence in the system and not worry about making that judgment call when they’re at risk,” Karlson said.
He regards false alerts as the downside of operating an emergency system that has a huge upside: He expects thousands of people will be saved by PLBs over the years. Skalak’s rescues sparked much discussion on “Views from the Top,” an Internet bulletin board for Northeast hikers. Some of those posting messages fear that personal locater beacons will encourage hikers to go into the woods unprepared, knowing that they need only flip a switch if they run into trouble. “Give it time. Let it become more popular,” said one hiker. “Charging for rescues will start. Then the lawyers will get involved—lawsuits when a rescue isn’t fast enough.”
Neil Woodworth, attorney for the Adirondack Mountain Club, which represents 40,000 hikers, said outdoor enthusiasts, should be properly prepared before entering the woods, but he sees nothing wrong
with using a beacon in a real emergency. “I don’t see any difference in using a personal locater beacon, a cell phone or a walkie-talkie,” he said. “I don’t think the method of communication matters, but any
emergency call has to be reserved for true emergencies.”
Was DEC being heavy-handed in arresting Skalak? What are the implications of the arrest for other hikers? If they run into trouble, how can they know if their predicament is a legal emergency or not?
Apparently, these questions will not be answered until the case unfolds. DEC is not talking, and Woodworth said he could not comment on the specifics of the Skalak case without knowing all the facts.
