Not me. From Facebook:
Rescue update: I'm home, probably some mild frostbite but nothing serious. Thank you to all who took me seriously because it was serious. I'll give the whole story below but first I want to emphasize that 911 was my first call and it should be yours in that scenario too.
I started hiking up to Lafayette around 2am. For those who don't know this about me, I love sunrise hiking. I've seen over half of the 48 at sunrise or sunset at least once. I left my plans with some close friends. I had checked the forecast and it wasn't anything out of the ordinary for winter(ish) time on the franconia ridge. A few hundred feet below the summit I noticed deteriorating visibility and turned back. Anyone that decides against summiting due to condition changes knows how agonizing it is, and that we would do the same thing again and again to mitigate that risk. For the record, i've done franconia ridge 8 or 9 times and 5 in winter. I know the territory and I know the trails.
I cairn hoped a good ways back until I hit a dead end around 8am. I bushwacked around (maybe taking more aggressive routes than advisable, at one point I was down the treeline/shrub line on the bowlside of lafayette) to find the next portion of trail. I couldn't. Visibility was down to probably ten yards from 8am through when I was rescued. I spent a solid two hours trying to figure out which way to the shoulder for a return to the hut area for a safe return. Earlier in the bushwack I lost my map, compass, and bivy because I went for a snack and the bag containing the items landed on some hard crust for the wind to remove from the mountain (protip, don't keep those the items together in a bag).
So I returned to the cairn I found earlier. I tried to call 911 but it didn't go through. Maybe as the result of the thick cloud, maybe the result of the 50+ mph winds, or maybe my cell carrier sucks. Either way i couldn't get a call through so I texted the people I left my plans with and posted here because for unknown reasons I was able to. Hate me for posting that on here if you want to, but I would rather have random people on Facebook calling for a SAR just in case my friends didn't have access to their phones or whatever.
So the rescue is initiated around 10am. I dug myself a snow hole next to a rock, put the final touches on my parkas and hard shells, and lay on my bag. They couldn't get to me until 5pm died to the harshness and visibility conditions. I lay in that hole for 7 hours. 7 hours of trying to figure out if all my gear would hold out. Of figuring out what the last words I want to be to my family and friends. To record a list will and testament. To come to terms with the people I've bettered and worsened, the friendships and relationships i've had, to understand that this might be it. I accepted the likelihood of my death today.
I held out in that hole for 7 hours, being blasted by artic temps and 50 mph+ winds while it also buried me in fresh snow. SAR came as it was getting dark, they too faced difficulty navigating those conditions.
You can hate me for getting rescued or for posting here to help get one underway. The fact of the matter is if I had been unprepared or if I was lacking soft skills I would not have made it out
Cheers
