Hiker OK After Getting Stuck On Mount Moosilauke

[kevinmac]

Glad you are ok. Thank you for sharing your story.

 

[DougPaul]

Read the K2 book by Ed V which suggests wands as even more precise than GPS (and not susceptible to battery or satellite failure)

I have EV's book, but haven't read it yet.

Wands and GPSes are just tools--each has its pros and cons.

Wands certainly can work if you avoid their possible failures:
* unable to find wands
* unable to distinguish your wands from other parties' wands
* wands blown down or away
* wands covered with snow
* someone else has removed your wands

A large bunch of wands also weighs more a GPS.

Yes, wands can have cm repeatability (but not accuracy). But given that the human foot is 20-35cm long, it is hardly necessary. My 60CSx is rated to have an accuracy of "<10 meters, 95% [probability] typical". My measurements in the GPS bakeoff (http://www.vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?t=14406) showed an average cross-track repeatability of 4.6 meters in a valley and under tree cover. It is very rare that getting within 10 meters is not close enough to find one's route. (It could make finding a snow-covered cache a bit difficult, but such caches should also be wanded.)

Satellite failure? Puh-lease! There are 30 operating satellites aloft right now, the spec calls for 24 satellites. (The extra satellites increase accuracy.) If a critical satellite is out of service, all you have to do is wait a short while for operational ones to come into view. I usually see six or more satellites with my 60CSx, you only need four to get a fix. (I'm seeing 10 satellites from my living room right now.) GPS is an essential component of current US military capability--it is being continuously updated, improved, and replenished and is very unlikely to be neglected in the foreseeable future.

Let me also note that headlamps and radios require batteries, stoves require fuel, and humans require food and water. All are prone to failure when they run out.

Doug

 

[Ed Poyer]

Great save, Rick

I'm so glad that you made it out okay. You had excellent preparedness and skills, and the clear headedness to use them. It's easy to snipe from behind the internet bushes, but you have the courage to stand forward and discuss what went right, and what went wrong. This is a useful and informative thread.

Thanks for posting, and glad you are okay!

Ed

 

[RickB.]

I'm so glad that you made it out okay. You had excellent preparedness and skills, and the clear headedness to use them. It's easy to snipe from behind the internet bushes, but you have the courage to stand forward and discuss what went right, and what went wrong. This is a useful and informative thread.

Thanks for posting, and glad you are okay!

Ed

Thanks, Ed.
I will do a TR at some point in the near future.

Edit: Collectively, my replies in this thread have served as a TR so I won't be posting one separately.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Just back from NZ and visiting tonight with Steven Martin, with whom I have been maintaining the Glencliff Trail for the past decade plus. Steven along with Cath Goodwin increased the height of a few cairns and added a couple new ones near treeline on the upper Carriage Road two years ago, where many of us have experienced difficulties finding the trail in winter whiteout conditions, perhaps similar to what you encountered. But, short of building massive carins all of the way to the summit, which the DOC would probably not endorse, I think that the summit area of Moosilauke will remain as tricky as anywhere in the Whites, including the Northern Presi's, for the conditions that you experienced. As a fellow 60+ year old and a member of PVSART, I salute you for keeping a cool head in pulling off a successful forced bivi and self-rescue in the truest sense of adventure and mountaineering.

 

[ALGonquin Bob]

Good to hear that RickB had the know-how to survive that, and that he walked out on his own. I was on Kinsman Ridge Saturday, and had no wind then. If Moosilauke had similar conditions Saturday morning, he would have had a very nice and satisfying walk out... other than thinking about beating the rescue crews to the trail head!

 

[RickB.]

Just back from NZ and visiting tonight with Steven Martin, with whom I have been maintaining the Glencliff Trail for the past decade plus. Steven along with Cath Goodwin increased the height of a few cairns and added a couple new ones near treeline on the upper Carriage Road two years ago, where many of us have experienced difficulties finding the trail in winter whiteout conditions, perhaps similar to what you encountered. But, short of building massive carins all of the way to the summit, which the DOC would probably not endorse, I think that the summit area of Moosilauke will remain as tricky as anywhere in the Whites, including the Northern Presi's, for the conditions that you experienced. As a fellow 60+ year old and a member of PVSART, I salute you for keeping a cool head in pulling off a successful forced bivi and self-rescue in the truest sense of adventure and mountaineering.

Thank you.
The larger cairns above timberline should be enough for all but the worst of conditions. I swept snow off their uphill sides on the way up and verified that I could (easily) see from one to the next. When I lost visibility, but knew the route to be nearby, I searched back and forth in 50-100' sweeps, changing elevation with each, hoping to bump into one of those beauties. Eventually, I widened the sweeps, using my compass to reverse course when starting to swing north on either side of the cone. My GPS captured a couple of points during this and it seems I crossed the Carriage Road multiple times but visibility and depth perception were nil. In getting to my bivy site, I crossed the Gorge Brook Trail, also unaware.
The Glencliff Trail and upper Carriage Road are lovely and well-maintained and I would change nothing.

 

[RickB.]

Good to hear that RickB had the know-how to survive that, and that he walked out on his own. I was on Kinsman Ridge Saturday, and had no wind then. If Moosilauke had similar conditions Saturday morning, he would have had a very nice and satisfying walk out... other than thinking about beating the rescue crews to the trail head!

At daylight, when I verified the visibility, I packed up and struggled through some spruce traps to timberline and then the summit. The sunrise was spectacular but I had frosted fingertips and dared not take a photo (Ed Webster, I'm not). I was amused at some level by the conspicuous trench that was the Carriage Road and speculated that, if I'd dropped a basketball, it would have rolled on trail all the way back to the car.
When my hands were back, I stopped along the Carriage Road to take off a couple of layers and did snap this.

But my descent, as you suggest, was not nice and satisfying. I got down the trail in under an hour, driven by getting word to my loved ones and curtailing any rescue underway.

 

[Grumpy]

Very, very nice photo, RickB! Especially considering the circumstances ...

G.

 

[Kevin Rooney]

I agree with Grumpy. What I see/feel is the golden glow and promise of a new day - but I didn't spend the night in a snow case with a case of frosty fingers and other body parts.

 

[Chip]

Very, very nice photo, RickB! Especially considering the circumstances ...

G.

Ditto ! Wow ! That's an award winner ! (maybe with a little horizon rotation and cropping ?)

Glad you made it out okay !

 

[RickB.]

I agree with Grumpy. What I see/feel is the golden glow and promise of a new day - but I didn't spend the night in a snow case with a case of frosty fingers and other body parts.

That's what I feel (and felt), too, along with a chill...

Ditto ! Wow ! That's an award winner ! (maybe with a little horizon rotation and cropping ?)

I planned to get on that (horizontal fix), not sure about the cropping (oops, wrong forum).

 

[Chip]

I planned to get on that (horizontal fix), not sure about the cropping (oops, wrong forum).

No big deal. It looks a tick high on the right to me. Pretty freakin great regardless under the conditions.

 

[Paradox]

Glad you are well and safe.

I have taken to placing a handwarmer in my camera case specifically to keep my lenses from fogging, it works nicely. Considering your experience and my experience on Mansfield I will be trying to tuck a handwarmer next to the battery compartment of my 60CSx.

 

[DougPaul]

I have taken to placing a handwarmer in my camera case specifically to keep my lenses from fogging, it works nicely. Considering your experience and my experience on Mansfield I will be trying to tuck a handwarmer next to the battery compartment of my 60CSx.

Chemical handwarmers give off water vapor. Might want to keep that camera in a ziplock. Shouldn't matter for the GPS.

Doug

 

[Dave Bear]

Nice picture Rick! Interesting little sprig covered with snow in the middle looks like a cross but I suppose you can see what you want to see if you look hard enough! Curious, did you have hand warmers to help through the night? Haven't heard of them used for electronics John but that's smart!

 

[Stan]

Nice picture Rick! Interesting little sprig covered with snow in the middle looks like a cross but I suppose you can see what you want to see if you look hard enough! Curious, did you have hand warmers to help through the night? Haven't heard of them used for electronics John but that's smart!

If you look closely, you can see giggy's visage in the snow encrusted fir on the right.

Anyone who has been benighted will share a particular joy with that photo, "the golden glow of a promise of a new day", to quote Kevin Rooney.

This event contrasts nicely with the term "prepared" as recently applied to another hiker in distress on Moosilauke.

 

[RickB.]

Nice picture Rick! Interesting little sprig covered with snow in the middle looks like a cross but I suppose you can see what you want to see if you look hard enough! Curious, did you have hand warmers to help through the night? Haven't heard of them used for electronics John but that's smart!

Thanks.
Hand warmers played a large role in my getting through unharmed. I put a pair around my toes and deployed others over the course of the night in my mittens and against my body. The latter may or may not have sustained my body temperature but they were my sole luxury! After the bivy sack and warm clothing, hand warmers are right up there on my list.

 

[MarkL]

Wow! Well done Rick! I definitely would not have fared as well as you. From your details, I see my delay in buying that Adventure Medical bivy is just plain deadly foolishness. I have a shadow of an inkling of what you might have been feeling up there. I was on Moosilauke the previous day and was having visibility and trail-finding problems too. More than once I had thoughts that I might get stuck up there, but having map, compass, plenty of daylight and visibility of about 100 yds, panic was only able to nibble rather than gnaw. Still, I did note that if things got worse, I might spend the night burrowed into the midst of a few completely-encrusted-together trees. Fifty to 100' vertical below and east of the summit is about where I lost the GBT and cast around a bit! I actually gave up on finding the GBT and bailed out towards cairns on what I thought was the Carriage Rd. I'd come up. [not much of a road above treeline, but at least there were cairns.] Turns out, that was the GBT!
---Just a slightly enhanced conditions report, not a TR:----
http://www.vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?t=34158

 

[Hiking with Kat]

A question on the best survival gear to bring. I notice you mention you had a bivy that you used to your advantage. I also bring a bivy with me when I hike but lately I've begun to wonder if I should be bringing a sleeping bag as well or instead of the bivy. My concern is balancing weight with safty and what NH Fish and Game would consider prepared.