missing hiker - Lancaster, NH

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Sounds like I'm glad I am not on facebook. VFTT and the ADK High Peaks Forum is about as social as I get online.
 
Sounds like I'm glad I am not on facebook. VFTT and the ADK High Peaks Forum is about as social as I get online.

Yes indeed. There are quite a few people on there defending this hiker's decisions as perfectly acceptable and unrisky if you are "experienced" and not seeing the issue with it if she had the clothes for the cold weather. Yet somehow, they also understand that SAR couldn't go out there because of the white out conditions, not the cold. So it was unsafe for a group of highly experienced and equipped professionals to go out in those conditions but it makes perfect sense for a solo hiker to go out in worse conditions. And the more I tried pointing this out the more downright hostile the replies I got.

Come to think of it, I'm starting to wonder why I am on Facebook...
 
right DayTrip, and rarely do you see posts in those groups about fundamentals, like be prepared to spend the night out, don't do a winter route you haven't done in good weather, don't do winter alone...etc, etc.
funny that some "over there" refer to some on VFTT as "elitists". I see this VFFT group as very experienced, objective, and sensible.
 
There are very few hard facts that have been released to the public:
* Kate Metrosova was dropped off at 5am "at the base of the mountains" (probably Appalachia).
* She activated her PLB around 3:30pm.
* She was found near Star Lake the next day.

Subsidiary info:
* The weather records from the summit of Mt Washington http://classic.wunderground.com/his...statename=&reqdb.zip=&reqdb.magic=&reqdb.wmo= show for the 5am--3:30pm time range of Feb 16:
- A temp range of -24F to -11F.
- A wind speed range of 86mph to 123mph with gusts up to 131mph
- The wind direction was from the NNW (340 deg) the entire time
* The ridge line through the notch runs roughly NE-SW so the wind would have passed from the NW to the SE with Star Lake being about as far downwind as one could go without dropping down into Madison Gulf.

The wind speeds at this location would most likely have been lower than those on top of Mt Washington, but even at half the recorded speeds, they still would have been troublesome.

I think it is safe to assume that she knew she was in trouble by 3:30, however we don't know what her problems were at that time.

In good conditions, she could have reached both summits and even gone somewhat farther and still have been able to return to Star Lake++, in bad conditions she might have been unable to get above the notch. As a worst case, it is possible that she entered the notch with a tail wind and was unable to ascend the peaks or even travel upwind toward Valley Way, assuming that she knew what direction to go.
++ Of course, we don't know if she got to Star Lake under her own power or was blown/fell there.

Some important things we don't know:
* Was she lost and/or disoriented?
* Visibility?
* Was she able to travel (under control) in the wind, in particular upwind toward the best escape route? (In high winds, lost people tend to go downwind, or perhaps in this case, toward Star Lake.)
* Was she able to keep her body heat up?
* How long was she having difficulties before activating her PLB?
* Did she attempt to self-rescue/escape before activating her PLB?
* Where had she actually been?
* What gear did she have with her? (Actually this may not mean much because much of it might simply blow away if she removed it from her pack. That is if her pack didn't blow away when she took it off...)
* How fast she hiked.
* And probably a lot more that I haven't thought of...

IMO, there is too little reliable info to do much informed speculation. However in a general sense, if one goes out on extended trips in hazardous conditions (particularly solo), one's safety margins become very slim. A small problem can easily become life threatening.

Doug
 
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I'm a member of a Facebook page and not to sound egotistacal, there is alot of posters who talk way above thier game. When someone says there are people who can climb in those conditions that is a dead give away they no nothing of what they speak. I've thought about this tradgedy and my take is that she was climbing on the edge of the limits of what was possible, but failed to notice when that bar was raised to unacceptable, that fine line, once crossed sometimes cannot be recrossed. I would guess the winds and wind chill just overtook her, at that point even hunkering down is no good. The only way I see out was to dig in and get out of the wind, but given the conditions you would need a good sleeping bag for that as well. Not to mention that snow up there can get bulletproof and impossible to dig in without a really good shovel or saw. Not to mention the blowing snow causing whiteout conditions, where up and down can be hard to figure out. One poster on FB even said, why didnt she just read her map, dead give away that he has never been there, map reading in 100 mph winds, yeah ok. I had all my bearings in my head for my Presi traverses just in case.
 
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One thing you can do is write the important bearings on a piece of tape stuck to the bottom of your compass. Presumably, if hung around your neck, or otherwise attached to your person, it won't actually blow away.

Tim
 
I've thought about this tradgedy and my take is that she was climbing on the edge of the limits of what was possible, but failed to notice when that bar was raised to unacceptable, that fine line, once crossed sometimes cannot be recrossed.

This is my assumption as well. I don't think what she was attempting is physically possible in those conditions.

We've all seen the signs.

“STOP: The area ahead has the worst weather in America. Many have died from exposure, even in the summer. Turn back now if the weather is bad.”

I have thought about this a lot too. If I had summited 2 of the 7 summits, I'm not sure how seriously I would take such warnings on 5,000 foot mountains in NH. I think we here have a sense that Kilimanjaro on its worst day may not approach the conditions on Adams Sunday, but most people are not going to get that.

It sounds like the tragic loss of a young, vibrant, adventurous woman who found herself in over her head, likely without ever expecting the impossible conditions she faced. I hope she rests in peace. She died in a very spiritual place.
 
Will an official report be published by one of the search and rescue agencies involved?
 
Will an official report be published by one of the search and rescue agencies involved?

F&G will occasionally write up a report and post it. If the Accidents editor deems it of interest, Appalachia will likely have a writeup based on the F&G records, and sometimes interviews with SAR participants. That would come out in about a year.
 
I expect the S&R folks do a formal post rescue critique that is not for public release. Generally such critiques are not oriented to what the hiker did wrong but what the crew could have and could not have done given the circumstances. There is also an important psychological aspect to these critiques as the people involved with the rescue have been exposed to a traumatic event and different folks process this in different ways.

The poor resolution of the PLB signal may be something of concern as this may be the first (at least publicized) rescue that I am aware of where a PLB was activated in the whites for a rescue.
 
One thing you can do is write the important bearings on a piece of tape stuck to the bottom of your compass. Presumably, if hung around your neck, or otherwise attached to your person, it won't actually blow away.

Tim

Great idea, I used to also have bailout bearings listed on an index card in my first aid kit ( laminated at Kinkos).
 
The poor resolution of the PLB signal may be something of concern as this may be the first (at least publicized) rescue that I am aware of where a PLB was activated in the whites for a rescue.

A solo hiker activated her PLB on Moosilauke in 2010 after breaking a snowshoe after dark. She was located fairly quickly as I recall.
 
The poor resolution of the PLB signal may be something of concern as this may be the first (at least publicized) rescue that I am aware of where a PLB was activated in the whites for a rescue.

Thanks, pb. Is it clear the PLB signal was poorly resolved? Has it been ruled out that the hiker signaled from somewhere on the north slope of Madison, where the SAR team searched Sat, then made her way, downwind and behind JQ Adams, to the end of her trek, and that the variations in PLB signals reflected her movements?
 
Note that PLBs are NOT designed to be "wicked accurate". They are intended to get rescuers close enough that the hand-held 121.5MHz receivers can provide directional information to locate the victim.

http://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/personal-locator-beacons.html

The quotes from the F&G spokesman about the "coordinates wandering all over the place" seemed a bit weird, give the characteristics of PLBs:

"If you use a PLB without a GPS, the 406 MHz signal from the satellite will get rescuers to within 2 miles of your position. Then search-and-rescue teams will use a tracking device to home in on the 121.5 MHz frequency. With this type of PLB in the continental U.S., it takes an average of about 45 minutes to alert search-and-rescue teams of your position."

I haven't seen any information about what kind of device she had, but since they keep saying "PLB", I assume it wasn't a SPOT or InReach satellite messenger, which is a totally different animal. And we don't know if her PLB included GPS data, and if it was operable.
 
I expect the S&R folks do a formal post rescue critique that is not for public release. Generally such critiques are not oriented to what the hiker did wrong but what the crew could have and could not have done given the circumstances. There is also an important psychological aspect to these critiques as the people involved with the rescue have been exposed to a traumatic event and different folks process this in different ways.

The poor resolution of the PLB signal may be something of concern as this may be the first (at least publicized) rescue that I am aware of where a PLB was activated in the whites for a rescue.

Here is the best information I could find from an authoritative source:

PLB's which do not encode a GPS position only give a position resolvable to 5km (+/-2.5km), and there is a confidence level calculated for that position which goes from 0 to 99% based on the presence of interfering signals, noise from geomagnetic storms, etc.

This explains a computed position wandering in a circle of diameter of 1 mile--its a limitation of the tech. But don't forget that the confidence that a computed position is within that circle can be very low.

I dont think this kind of beacon is very good for non-maritime use.


For the case of PLB's which encode position from a GPS. Assuming the GPS inside the unit is "perfect", the resolution is 180m (+/- 90m) or about 4 seconds (latitude/longitude). Practically, no GPS's are perfect..its possible that the resolution will double to 360m. A more precise position cannot be reported because there is no more "room" (digital bits) in the message which is transmitted to the satellites.

With regard to the 1 mile "circumference" of the hikers position-- we don't know if she was moving or if she was using a beacon without a GPS.

If you have a beacon, its important to understand these limitations. Also, I cant find anything (even InReach) which is guaranteed to work below -4 deg F. However, the 2-way nature of the InReach makes it possible for any user to test its functionality and get an indication that a signal was received by a rescue authority.

A highly detailed, technical report can be found at ( its a power point presentation which you can view through google caching, see "2. Alert Message Structure, Data Block" http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:i_X2iUgmSSgJ:https://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg5/cg534/EmergencyBeacons/2010SarsatConf/US_SARSAT_Messages_Manual.ppt+&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
 
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