Missing hiker found

[erugs]

Giggy,

If you were planning on paying RMI or other guide (did I read right that in the past year or so, other guide services have access)

There are now other companies offering guided trips on Rainier. My BF Brian went with International Mountain Guides and had a fabulous, successful experience with them. Alpine Ascents International is another company. (We had made an attempt together with RMI a few years before.)

Rigorous conditioning/training is highly recommended by all of them for Rainier.

Bet he learned a lot from this experience.

 

[erugs]

Does this mean that if hubby and I are planning Washington/Jefferson one day and then Carter/Hight another...we should bring snowshoes regardless? We were hoping to use day packs and leave those nasty things home....

Bring 'em. They're still necessary. While you might not get off trail, the snow is rotting now and post-holing does bad things to legs and isn't good for others who want to use the trail and have to deal with deep footholes in the trail. And if you don't need to use them, it's still good conditioning to carry them, but then I love my snowshoes.

 

[slowmo68]

So if he didn't have snow shoes, he ran out of food, what was left in his pack that made it 85 lbs? Wow!!!!

 

[giggy]

I think this guy was just taking the training for the Rainier trip seriously and got caught out. MANY people do not take it seriously. Many fly in, show up in Ashford, buy all their brand new gear at Whittaker and head out.

agree. 85 pounds likely training weight. I trained with about 60. My pack up rainier was about 50 to muir and less for summit day.

pack will weigh less if you go guided - you can stay at bunkhouse and all the climbing gear is at muir. not sure if thats the case on the emmons side with the other guide outfits.

 

[dr_wu002]

agree. 85 pounds likely training weight. I trained with about 60. My pack up rainier was about 50 to muir and less for summit day.

What about emotional baggage?? I bet you had about a ton of that! Har Har har!

-Dr. Wu

 

[slowmo68]

So what is the training weight to train for Mount Washington? I hear of people training on Mount Washington to do other bigger mountains but maybe a little respect for Washington is in order here. Just my opinion but winter and early spring in the whites may take a little practice as well.

 

[leaf]

I train on Mt. Washington and other peaks in the Whites for bigger mountains as well. Besides the technical aspects of mountaineering, the biggest thing I train for is climbing at altitude and Mt. Washington is useful because you can get pretty good elevation gain as well as rough terrain to strengthen core muscles, blah blah. Being in the best physical condition I can be in will help above 10,000 feet. With all due respect for Mt. Washington, it is a hike relatively close to sea level. I personally don't think you need to practice at hiking. But you can make it into a climb, of course, if you get into the ravines. I can't think of for the life of me why the pack would weigh 85lbs.

 

[hikes-with-him]

So if he didn't have snow shoes, he ran out of food, what was left in his pack that made it 85 lbs? Wow!!!!

CANNONBALLS!!

Oh oh...he must have thought that Jardine was SERIOUS!!

 

[nh-trekker]

How the !$#@% can anyone call him an experienced "HIKER" when he doesn't even have enough common sence or smarts to carry something as basic as a compass. A map is foregivable, (I don't bring one all of the time), BUT A COMPASS???????

 

[BlackBuffalo]

How the !$#@% can anyone call him an experienced "HIKER" when he doesn't even have enough common sence or smarts to carry something as basic as a compass. A map is foregivable, (I don't bring one all of the time), BUT A COMPASS???????

Ok, see your point. Maybe the news article is valid, covering all the details of this guy's situation. Maybe not.
His name may have not been Windship. Cause it could be likely Winship, an another old New England surname.

Take the news, especiallly those you read online with a grain of salt.

...and sence is likely sense.

 

[slowmo68]

You sure do need to practice. Practice Safety for hiking Mt. Washington. Its altitude has nothing to do with it. This mountain is notorious for bad weather and I would also guess that you would also need snow shoes to do Rainier.

 

[bikehikeskifish]

I seem to recall running into a well-known member of this board on on Garfield (he was enroute to Owl's Head) the winter of 07/08 while he was training for Denali. Rumor was he had a 50# bag of Sacrete in his pack for training purposes.

Tim

 

[sli74]

You sure do need to practice. Practice Safety for hiking Mt. Washington. Its altitude has nothing to do with it. This mountain is notorious for bad weather and I would also guess that you would also need snow shoes to do Rainier.

I can't actually remember but I don't think I carried snowshoes up Rainier and most definitely did not need or use them. I think it might depend on the time of year.

sli74

 

[slowmo68]

I can see your point on the time of year for Rainier and needing or not needing snowshoes, but I would think late March on Washington you might want to bring them even if you end up leaving them strapped to your pack. Well live and learn luckily for him it was both.

 

[McRat]

This should generate some discussion.

http://www.salemnews.com/punews/local_story_091235839.html

 

[wardsgirl]

So many things on which to comment...

... perhaps we should each pick one.

"When I realized I couldn't get out of the valley, I knew I was looking at five to seven days to get back to the road so I changed plan," Winship said.

As the AMC RL for the S. Presies, (including the fabulous Davis Path), I'd have to say:

Holy cow, I have a tough region to patrol! But really, where does he get this five to seven days estimate? If he was on the Davis Path, it would have taken him whatever time, (he does say that "soon" he realized he was in the wrong valley), it took him to descend sans snowshoes, plus a half day to get out via Ammo or Lion Head. Without his full 85 pound load, he would be able to move pretty quickly.

Still, I'm glad that he emerged from the woods safely. But everyone should heed this as yet another sad lesson about the hiker vacuum of Oakes Gulf (I'm assuming that's where he was).

 

[giggy]

Got roughly 15 winter ascents of washington - (including some spring ones in that number as well as late fall). - never used snowshoes and never brought them

You might need them after on on heavy snow of course

But most of the time trails well kicked and half the terrain is above treeline

Not saying its on on bad idea to bring them or not - just saying most dont

 

[spencer]

This should generate some discussion.

http://www.salemnews.com/punews/local_story_091235839.html

I didn't realize he is a such a hero!

30 pounds of ice screws? By my calculation, that would be about 90 screws!

350 ft of rope? I hope whatever guide service he had contracted with for Rainier bans him from the mountain.

I'm not a big fan of getting on the case of those who have accidents in the mountains, but this guy is different...

 

[Pulker Pete]

Mt Rainer

I did Rainer with 3 other hikers. We did it without guides. Went around June 19th. Your pack is indeed pretty close to 85lbs. Each of us had to carry extra fuel in case you get stuck out. It real isn't that difficult. Should leave early in the morning to avoid soft snow as the day warms up. Should plan on
staying several days, because once there, too beautiful to describe. We had two tents and obtained the proper permits before we started. It is WELL worth the effort and trip to the west coast. It was very windy at 10,000 feet but the views and sky color are just amazing. We read a lot of books, held lots of cravase rescue practices here in Connecticut. What an adventure !!!!

 

[dr_wu002]

My feeling is, who the hell cares? Dude went in the woods, got lost and eventually got out. He might have had too much in his pack. Why speculate what his I.Q. is or why did he have so many screws or why no snow shoes. Who cares? If you want to take snowshoes in April, May, June, July or August, who cares? Take them. These threads turn into endless and nearly useless discussions of nearly blind speculation about the dude's motives and his expertise, was he well equipped, did he go the right way etc. Yet, if this guy was caught in the bottom of a pit toilet people would just assume he's weird, sick and disgusting -- no further discussion. There's a double standard going on in these threads...

-Dr. Wu