Hikers Rescued off Blue Job Mountain

[JacobH]

http://www.wmur.com/newsarchive/30533238/detail.html

Hikers Rescued After Getting Lost On Blue Job Mountain

4 Hikers Found Early Friday Morning

POSTED: 7:36 am EST February 24, 2012
UPDATED: 8:01 am EST February 24, 2012

STRAFFORD, N.H. -- Strafford police said four hikers were found safe early Friday morning after they got lost while hiking on Blue Job Mountain.
Police said they received a 911 call at about 10:20 p.m. Thursday reporting that four hikers were lost. Police said earlier in the evening, a man had dropped three people off who wanted to hike to a fire tower on Blue Job Mountain. A short time later, the hikers called the man and told him they were lost. The man went to the mountain and found the lost hikers, but then all four of them got lost, police said.
After receiving the 911 call, officials told the hikers to turn off their cellphone to conserve power and light a fire to to keep warm. A Strafford police officer took a 4-wheeler, equipped with a GPS, to the area to search for the hikers. After spotting smoke from their fire, the officer found the hikers on the backside of the mountain at about 12:30 a.m. Friday.
None of the hikers was injured. Police said they were not dressed properly for the weather and with a storm approaching, there was an added urgency to locate them.


Read more: http://www.wmur.com/news/30533238/detail.html#ixzz1nJD76ZvJ

Glad they are safe. There are quite a few herd paths and unmarked trails all over Blue Job and Little Blue Job. I can understand getting lost. I think if I was lost on Blue Job, though, I'd just hike up to the top and take the marked trail down. That might not occur to someone who was unfamiliar with the area?

 

[cooperhill]

Trails aren't all that well marked (& as JacobH says lots of 'unofficial' paths) and it's probably easy to get lost if you are unfamilar with the area. The story is a bit vague on details but sounds like they started out late and didn't return the way they came (one of two trails back to the parking lot) but took the trail that leads down to "Little Blue Job Mt." Nice work by Strafford police.

 

[MichaelJ]

Some pertinent details from the NHF&G press release:

"Three men in their early 20s had set out at about 5:30 p.m. from the Blue Job parking lot."
"The men, from Rochester and Wakefield, were hiking without lights, backpacks, or any safety gear, and were wearing only sneakers."

Not to be judgmental, but the title of the press release was "Unprepared Hikers Rescued from Blue Job Mountain."

 

[JacobH]

To be fair, one could hike up to the fire tower and back in 20 minutes if you were moving quickly. It's less than a half mile each way if I'm not mistaken, with 400 in ele gain. I don't think there is a difference in distance or ele if you take either side of the orange-blazed loop. Going to Little Blue Job and doing a "full loop" is about 1.5 miles total. All of the trails to the Little peak are unmarked and crisscrossed with herd paths, bike paths, snowmobile/atv trails.




I tried to line up the scale with the actual start of the "new" parking area and aim towards the fire tower. It's maybe 2500 feet, tops. Little Blue Job is the bald area farther north. My guess is, as Cooperhill said, they wandered north off the trail towards Little Blue Job. The unmarked trail in that direction is very well established as this is effectively the dog walking park of Strafford.

Of course, if they had absolutely no gear whatsoever and only sneakers (and got lost), my guess is they hadn't considered any of this. As you (and F&G) say, without being too presumptuous, they definitely weren't prepared for a late afternoon walk in February in unfamiliar woods.

 

[RoySwkr]

Hiking Blue Job in the dark is harder now that you're not supposed to use the jeep road. I went up the L branch with snow on the ground without using a light, but wanted one coming down the R branch. Without snow, I used a dim light the whole loop.

Unless there's more snow than I think up there, high top sneakers are not that different from 3-season popular hiking boot styles. Apparently they had fire starting stuff (smokers?). They perhaps needed a compass if the sky was too overcast for the Big Dipper. And no flashlights sounds "unprepared".

 

[KRobi]

Just watched the news report and interview of the hikers, and the grandfather they originally called for help. Clearly unprepared!
If going up a mountain or being on a trail makes you a "hiker" than I guess they were hikers, but that would be in name only.

 

[Maddy]

I could never understand why so many hikers call home prior to calling 911 when they are lost or injured. What if if it's your one shot at connecting?
Why would you want to blow it or waste battery power chatting with grandma? In this case it was grandpa. There must be a psychological explanation why people do this. It seems to happen rather often.

 

[MichaelJ]

Maddy's comment makes me wonder - why *do* so many people's calls for help end up being a last gasp before the battery dies? Do people bring along their phones as safety gear then leave them turned ON while they hike? In areas with little or no cell service, that will just drain the battery super-fast. And if you're using a smartphone and recording a GPS track, for example, put it in Airplane Mode. Otherwise all that seeking for towers just wipes the battery and it's dead if you need it.

 

[Maddy]

Maddy's comment makes me wonder - why *do* so many people's calls for help end up being a last gasp before the battery dies? Do people bring along their phones as safety gear then leave them turned ON while they hike? In areas with little or no cell service, that will just drain the battery super-fast. And if you're using a smartphone and recording a GPS track, for example, put it in Airplane Mode. Otherwise all that seeking for towers just wipes the battery and it's dead if you need it.

I was thinking the same thing, Michael. I would try to preserve my battery as long as I possibly could from the get go. One slip of the foot is all it takes to break a leg, or one wrong turn to get lost in a big way.
Thanks for the advice on putting the phone in Airplane mode if recording a GPS track. I didn't know that. I am am starting to do that locally just for the fun of it. Would use my yellow Garmin Etex for anything more substantial.

Happy everything turned out OK for these folks.

 

[Andrew]

Maddy's comment makes me wonder - why *do* so many people's calls for help end up being a last gasp before the battery dies? Do people bring along their phones as safety gear then leave them turned ON while they hike? In areas with little or no cell service, that will just drain the battery super-fast. And if you're using a smartphone and recording a GPS track, for example, put it in Airplane Mode. Otherwise all that seeking for towers just wipes the battery and it's dead if you need it.

Depends on what you mean by a cell phone. If it's just a phone why would you want to keep it on during a hike unless you had some sort of essential connection to make with someone, although I would think you could say "I'm going hiking, call me around - o'clock, and we can make plans to meet for dinner." That way you would have many hours of cell battery life to call home, 911, or whatever. Although there may be other situations that require you to be 'on-call' justifiably.

If it's a smartphone gizmo like my companion uses, often she is recording gps tracks, and the other thread about extra batteries and your question here pertains. But to be honest I would not even know how to use the thing as a phone if a situation required.

In some situations calling home is actually a smart thing to do (like the recent broken snowshoe), especially if 'home' knows exactly your experience, ability, and exactly where you are- and even more so if 'home' has some knowledge about the area and experience themselves as hikers, if the current situation is not yet an emergency. A dispatcher can be difficult to discuss nuances with if the situation does not yet require calling in the troops. Also giving details to a person you are comfortable with who can relay a mass of information (hopefully accurately) and pass it on to authorities from a calmer setting as opposed to screaming over the wind, then using the remaining 'victims' cell battery life to get that nowadays all important GPS fix.

I've seen situations both ways where calling home first or to a unit office was better than 911 getting involved first, and vice versa.

Bottom line is that if you plan to go for a "sunset hike", studies show that for the majority of times it actually gets dark after sunset. Bring a freaking flashlight instead of a cell phone unless you actually are a "hiker" and can travel pretty well in the dark.

 

[grog]

don't forget to check

that the light actually works.

grog

 

[Dana]

Maybe the hikers with dying cellphones were using the screen backlight or the camera flash as a flashlight... that kills the batteries really fast...

 

[erugs]

I'm betting that those calling their families first are just looking for confirmation that they should call for more professional assistance. My son did that when he was a freshman in Colorado.

Son: "I mom, I hurt my knee, what should I do?"
Mom: "Sorry to do that. Where were you?"
Son: "At school."
Mom: "Doing your studies?"
Son: "Snow boarding."
Mom: "At a ski area?"
Son: "Um. At school. Going down stairs on my snowboard."
Mom: Oh, outside on the campus grounds."
Son: "Ah...inside the dorm..."
Mom: "Go see the school nurse."
Son: "Ok, love you mom."

 

[sierra]

I thought it was funny that they called thier granpa and he actually went up there and found them!! Then he got lost too, I guess the apple does not fall from from the tree now does it.