NH Fish And Game Seeking Help With Missing Hiker

[Mike P.]

Interesting. I see the same behavior you pointed out on here daily. There are signatures showing their accomplishes. Their posters lamenting the loss of the good old days, or telling of their experiences. Posters stating where others went wrong and how they do it right. Frankly, other than the animosity that prevails on most social media platforms, I don't see the difference.

Not blaming anyone or stating what we post or don't post is right or wrong. I just think VFFT fits into the exact same category.

However, we're a closed community, do we have an idea of how many non-members even stop by and view? text in their signatures, while bragging, pales in comparison today of selfies filling the entire screen. I never looked at some numbers and thought "wow, I could get 67 of 67 of something but happy people on bluebird days above treeline, looks much more inviting. (Maybe just allow those pictures we've all taken where visibility is near zero)

As other's mentioned, In winter especially, the ADK's would be much harder to finish due to the distances and lack of heavy traffic in most places. I would defer to TCD on a better comparison to Lafayette, however, either Algonquin or Gothics might be better. Both have steeper slabs as you near the top than Lafayette with a more severe fall if you lose your footing. (Assuming you slip down the trail and not off the views between the Agonies on the OBP and into Walker Ravine)

There is nothing in the Whites that compares to doing Seward, Donaldson and Emmons, Santanoni, Panther & Couchsachraga, Cliff or Allen. The Bonds might be the closest and that's on wide well traveled trails. If Zealand Hut wasn't open all year, Zealand would be harder. than it is and a large chunk of that is unplowed road and old rail grade. The ADK trails without maintained trails in many cases run along brooks for part of the way. (On Owl's Head you bypass most of that on the Black Pond BW) We know on the better traveled trails like Valley Way and the Ammo, people miss turns and end up in the Ammo Drainage of the drainage below Madison Hut. Doing that on Marshall or Redfield or descending Panther likely would put you in the water miles from your car or lost having gone by the tiny cairns that some have or some downed branches that were cut. (No one randomly goes deep in the woods and cuts downed trees & branches to get to another random place in the woods.)

Yes, the square footage of places where you might have the wind hand you your a$$ is less in the ADK, however the ability to get lost or wet on less used trails is far greater. in NY.

 

[DayTrip]

I find it curious that many have mentioned peak bagging accomplishments in their signatures. When I first joined here I noticed that and added my "stats" because I felt like I was expected to. Kind of like posting my "resume". Never really thought of it as bragging but more of a measure of dedication level to the "craft".

 

[NHClimber]

Didn't it used to be the case that you needed to be sponsored by a VFTT member to join VFTT forums? Can't recall. Anyway, I think there is a pretty significant difference in the experience of the people on this forum vs a social media platform like FB, quora, reddit. Boy, that sounded elitist. But I think factually it is true. But I have only browsed some of those other platforms and am not a member of any of them, so I could be wrong. In any event, I don't think it matters -- all platforms that involve the exchange of ideas are hard to manage because humans generally have a tough time engaging in rational thought and debate. Would like to think VFTT does a better job than other online communities.

 

[DayTrip]

Didn't it used to be the case that you needed to be sponsored by a VFTT member to join VFTT forums? .

When I joined in 2013 there was a referral/sponsor requirement. I didn't know anyone on here so I went back and forth just reading posts but eventually just sent in a request with a blurb about myself and where I was on the 4k list at the time. Thankfully (or not I guess depending on who you are) Tim took pity on my sponsor-less request and inexperience and allowed me to join.

The Facebook groups do have a lot of very experienced people, many you'd recognize from here on VFTT, and other reputable organizations like guiding companies, SAR groups, etc. Of course there are tons of newbies, pseudo experts and other idiots filled with sound and fury to junk the whole thing up most of the time. I think VFTT has many members whose primary passion is hiking and mountaineering but who also do a lot of other stuff. Facebook is more people who do a lot of other stuff but also hike.

There is much good advice to get on all these groups although you have to work much, much harder to find it on Facebook versus VFTT, where posts are generally specific, detailed and right to the point. The size of the group, wherever it is, usually impacts the quality. VFTT is fairly small, well moderated and self-policed to an extent so it usually stays on the rails. There are groups like that on Facebook too. Ken McCray's 52WAV is an outstanding group, probably the best I've seen for FB. It has great content, is very upbeat and extremely well moderated. I think the huge groups like the 4k group (which was over 20,000 people the last time I checked) is more on par with Twitter.

 

[Mac]

Lizzie Bourne - age 23. Died on MW in September of 1855. Pretty sure that social media was not to blame. I'm not being totally facetious, just trying to point out that flawed decision making (in the Whites) has been occurring for hundreds of years. IMHO, Sierra's comment "don't even know, what they don't know", may come closest to defining one of the root causes for these tragedies.

 

[iAmKrzys]

Were you able to locate the spring that used to supply the Nauman Shelters (off the Webster Cliff Trail)?

No, I have not as I actually haven't hiked around Mizpah Spring Hut. It is not marked on OpenStreetMap. I did find a zoomable map with a picture here: https://www.trailrunproject.com/trail/7018473/webster-cliff-trail . Personally, I don't mark anything on OSM that I haven't visited or that I can't verify with a high degree of certainty from satellite imagery, so I won't be marking this source. I'm sure that sooner or later another hiker who is also into mapping with put that on a map.

 

[maineguy]

No, I have not as I actually haven't hiked around Mizpah Spring Hut. It is not marked on OpenStreetMap. I did find a zoomable map with a picture here: https://www.trailrunproject.com/trail/7018473/webster-cliff-trail . Personally, I don't mark anything on OSM that I haven't visited or that I can't verify with a high degree of certainty from satellite imagery, so I won't be marking this source. I'm sure that sooner or later another hiker who is also into mapping with put that on a map.

Those 2 shelters were abut .25 miles from the summit of Jackson towards Clinton. They were separated by about 100 yards, with the lower one having the most reliable water.

 

[dug]

However, we're a closed community, do we have an idea of how many non-members even stop by and view? text in their signatures, while bragging, pales in comparison today of selfies filling the entire screen. I never looked at some numbers and thought "wow, I could get 67 of 67 of something but happy people on bluebird days above treeline, looks much more inviting. (Maybe just allow those pictures we've all taken where visibility is near zero)

Don't necessarily disagree, and am just having an open discussion so not "Blaming" anyone if they put their stats in there or share their experiences. But, there is a fine line between this and FB (which is built just for bragging and tattling, honestly), and that line shifts based on the individual. Personally, I don't see the difference.

 

[Mike P.]

Lizzie Bourne - age 23. Died on MW in September of 1855. Pretty sure that social media was not to blame. I'm not being totally facetious, just trying to point out that flawed decision making (in the Whites) has been occurring for hundreds of years. IMHO, Sierra's comment "don't even know, what they don't know", may come closest to defining one of the root causes for these tragedies.

She was part of a group, her cousin and uncle, back at a time where it took you most of a day to get there from their home in Southern Maine. https://www.cowhampshireblog.com/2008/01/15/death-on-mt-washington-the-tale-of-lizzie-bourne/

They started in September at 2:00 and made it halfway by 4:00. Had she started at 5:00 AM like Emily, that marker likely wouldn't be there. The comments of a stranger who stayed at the Tip-Top House the night Lizzie died shows that they too were quite upset at the death of a young girl. You didn't name Strickland, the 1st death or Chandler, the 3rd and one of the oldest at 75 Yrs. You have to go to 1936 for the next death of a young woman Grace Sturgess, age 24. Skiing back in the old days seems to be more dangerous then it is today, IDK if that was before snow Rangers.

As highways and vehicles improved so did accessibility. Fatalities are still mostly a male dominated field, however hiking used to have more, (higher percentage) men. (Not more men, just less woman and rarely a group of women.) In the 1990's rarely did you did see a group of women and women were found in College Outing Clubs or out with their boyfriends or families. Thankfully that is changing, I see groups of two or three women, solo women, women trail runners. I was on Mt. Crawford this March and the only other hikers I saw were women, two or three solo and three groups.

If you wanted to look at the early deaths, one could say that only wealthy people died in the mountains. It had nothing to do with karma or bad luck, they were the only ones who could take time off from work for a week to spend money on something so silly. The poor likely were working in factories with their children or farming and livestock need daily care.

It's quite possible that her uncle had heard about a friend or client's great adventure or read about it in the social media of the day, the newspaper.

 

[iAmKrzys]

Those 2 shelters were abut .25 miles from the summit of Jackson towards Clinton. They were separated by about 100 yards, with the lower one having the most reliable water.

Are these shelters still there? I'm having a hard finding any mention of them except in older books. Also, I don't see anything on Strava heatmap that would look like a path to these shelters: https://www.strava.com/heatmap#15.37/-71.37419/44.20927/hot/all. I have a 30th edition of WMG but somehow I misplaced it, so I can't look at the same map to see if these shelters are still there on relatively recent map. While looking for my copy of WMG I also noticed that 31st edition has been published recently, now with contributions from Ken McGray.

 

[maineguy]

Are these shelters still there? I'm having a hard finding any mention of them except in older books. Also, I don't see anything on Strava heatmap that would look like a path to these shelters: https://www.strava.com/heatmap#15.37/-71.37419/44.20927/hot/all. I have a 30th edition of WMG but somehow I misplaced it, so I can't look at the same map to see if these shelters are still there on relatively recent map. While looking for my copy of WMG I also noticed that 31st edition has been published recently, now with contributions from Ken McGray.

The shelters are long gone, removed sometime in the 70s I believe. I didn't mean to send you on a wild goose chase looking for them, I just assumed you knew about them. I figure there must be water near their former spot. Over the years I have looked for some sign of the spur path that once led to them, but it's all grown in now. Another spot that I have always been curious about is the former location of the Isolation shelter and it's spring. However, when they removed the shelter they also rerouted the trails in that area so it is probably almost impossible to ever locate it.

 

[skiguy]

The shelters are long gone, removed sometime in the 70s I believe. I didn't mean to send you on a wild goose chase looking for them, I just assumed you knew about them. I figure there must be water near their former spot. Over the years I have looked for some sign of the spur path that once led to them, but it's all grown in now. Another spot that I have always been curious about is the former location of the Isolation shelter and it's spring. However, when they removed the shelter they also rerouted the trails in that area so it is probably almost impossible to ever locate it.

Nauman although it may have water, I would not rely on it. The shelter was removed because of the unreliability of the water in that spot. I'm sure there is water there intermittingly but if my memory serves me right its quality definitely puts it in the filterable category.

 

[maineguy]

Nauman although it may have water, I would not rely on it. The shelter was removed because of the unreliability of the water in that spot. I'm sure there is water there intermittingly but if my memory serves me right its quality definitely puts it in the filterable category.

I was not aware that there was a water problem. That explains why they were removed so soon after they were constructed in 1965. I guess we were lucky in never having a problem with water.

 

[iAmKrzys]

The shelters are long gone, removed sometime in the 70s I believe. I didn't mean to send you on a wild goose chase looking for them, I just assumed you knew about them. I figure there must be water near their former spot. Over the years I have looked for some sign of the spur path that once led to them, but it's all grown in now. Another spot that I have always been curious about is the former location of the Isolation shelter and it's spring. However, when they removed the shelter they also rerouted the trails in that area so it is probably almost impossible to ever locate it.

While I love to pick up my hikes in places where trail mapping on OpenStreetMap is lacking and needs some work, I realize that searching in winter for slow running water would likely end up in failure, so I think it is more of a summer project! For some of abandoned trails there may be clues in Strava heatmap if the paths are still popular with people who know old routes.

 

[skiguy]

I was not aware that there was a water problem. That explains why they were removed so soon after they were constructed in 1965. I guess we were lucky in never having a problem with water.

The run off is interesting through the area where the tent site was in the era. Not the most robust flowing place on the ridge. Also remember this was when “Acid Rain” was apparent. It was easier for the AMC to see a level of eradication by moving the whole show over to Mizpah. I must be getting soft but that was a good move by The AMC IMO.

 

[peakbagger]

To continue the drift, on the AT in PA and MD, there are several shelters where the water sources are way down off the ridgeline from the shelter. A couple of them in PA have Spring #1, Spring #2, Spring #3 that are all just the same seasonal drainage at different elevations down off the ridge. By the time a camper gets to spring #3 they are 1/2 mile plus down off the ridge.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

On my first backpack across the Whites in 1965, the two new Naumann shelters had been recently built (replacing one old lean-to in disrepair, I think) and were the target camp site after two nights in the old “cow barn” shelter in Tucks (it had space for about 70), but on our late afternoon arrival the place was like what were later prepared for mud bowl football games in North Conway. We decided to bypass and continued over Jackson and down to the floor of Crawford Notch where in the dark we set up our plastic solo tube “tents” on the lawn in front of the old State DOT garage across from the Railroad Depot. From about 2 to 2:30 am we were awoken by the rumbling of a freight train slowly making its way up the notch, which culminated in each of the four of us imagining that we had been tied to the tracks and were about to be squashed. This event became a recurring nightmare for me in the years to follow.

 

[JoshandBaron]

The shelters are long gone, removed sometime in the 70s I believe. I didn't mean to send you on a wild goose chase looking for them, I just assumed you knew about them. I figure there must be water near their former spot. Over the years I have looked for some sign of the spur path that once led to them, but it's all grown in now. Another spot that I have always been curious about is the former location of the Isolation shelter and it's spring. However, when they removed the shelter they also rerouted the trails in that area so it is probably almost impossible to ever locate it.

If you're talking about the one near the jct of Iso east and Davis, it's a designated campsite now.

 

[maineguy]

If you're talking about the one near the jct of Iso east and Davis, it's a designated campsite now.

That's interesting. The Iso East and Iso West trails used to meet at a 4-way junction (1969 AMC map and guidebook). This is where the shelter was located, although I don't remember which quadrant of the junction the shelter was located in. Now, there is some distance between them and their respective intersections with the Davis Path. So, what you are saying is that the shelter location has been turned into a designated campsite. That makes sense as it was a nice open area. Haven't been in that area in a while, but I don't remember seeing any signs for campsite area. Maybe they are just bootleg sites. Recent AMC guidebooks make reference to confusing paths and bootleg sites at that junction. Also says that it is .1 miles from site of old shelter to Iso East Trail.

Thanks for that info. I don't visit Mt Isolation often.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

That's interesting. The Iso East and Iso West trails used to meet at a 4-way junction (1969 AMC map and guidebook). This is where the shelter was located, although I don't remember which quadrant of the junction the shelter was located in. Now, there is some distance between them and their respective intersections with the Davis Path. So, what you are saying is that the shelter location has been turned into a designated campsite. That makes sense as it was a nice open area. Haven't been in that area in a while, but I don't remember seeing any signs for campsite area. Maybe they are just bootleg sites. Recent AMC guidebooks make reference to confusing paths and bootleg sites at that junction. Also says that it is .1 miles from site of old shelter to Iso East Trail.

Thanks for that info. I don't visit Mt Isolation often.

Yup. That lean-to was still there (NE quadrant of intersection, shown on 1963 AMC map) on my first visit to Mt Isolation in 1965, on an epic day hike with full external frame backpacks that began with an Audubon Society bird walk in the Great Gulf, a terrifying ascent of Six Husbands Trail (we left the bird walkers behind), a traverse of Mounts Clay, Washington, Boott Spur, Slide Peak, and Isolation, and descent with Justrite headlamps (four D cells, mail-ordered from Campmor!) to Rocky Branch shelter no. 2 where we met two friends with the homemade wine who had hiked TFW earlier in the day. Mounts Ike and Pierce were Mounts Pleasant and Clinton back then.