Osceola’s Attempt – Big Learning Experience – 2/25/2006

[SherpaKroto]

I read this report a bit differently than some others. I have hiked with Sapblatt, Little Bear, and LarryD, and would place all 3 in the wizened hiker category: they know their stuff, and are very good at communicating issues. (I don't know the others, but hope to meet them!) Mike's "bitchiness" is just verbalizing that he is aware that a situation is developing that all should focus on. (you ought to see how funny he is after a few scotches)

I find it refreshing that well equipped, experienced hikers are willing to share their "troubles" on the trail, and listen to others critique. Much is learned, and exchanged this way on VFTT - one of its strengths. Interesting to note that not one hint was mentioned from any of the participants indicating that they would not hike together again. They went out, had a great time, had a little slide adventure (ok, honestly, how many of us would have had a rope on this hike, and known how to use it!!!?), and enjoyed Tuckerman's at the car. How many would have turned back with so much time left (they were back at their car by 1:30)? So, Mike got a bit cold: we've all been there. As soon as he felt it safe to add clothing, he did (since he was carrying it). The biggest "error" I see is getting new equipment, and loving it so much that you want to push it. Another valuable lesson learned. I know that none of us has ever done that

As far as I'm concerned (like that matters...), a very helpful, informative report on an exciting trip, ending with a brew

 

[LittleBear]

Interesting to note that not one hint was mentioned from any of the participants indicating that they would not hike together again. They went out, had a great time, had a little slide adventure (ok, honestly, how many of us would have had a rope on this hike, and known how to use it!!!?), and enjoyed Tuckerman's at the car. How many would have turned back with so much time left (they were back at their car by 1:30)?

I would hike again with any of these guys in a heartbeat! We had a great adventure and no one was complaining - expect Mike about the cold

I was the cause for the very early turnaround time. I had an obligation back in Portsmouth at 5, so that is why we turned around when we did. We might have made it to the East Peak, but we all decided we would rather not get one if we couldn't get both peaks. Certainly if I didn't have time constraints, I would have been in favor for continuing on since we really had a LOT of time left in the day.

 

[mtnmama]

Mike..nice trip report. I just told mtnpa we must carry
rope with us. Thanks so much for sharing your trip.
Also we need to get axes. Happy to hear everyone
was ok. Rols is such a hero!

 

[Kevin Rooney]

Mike -

Thanks for the trip report, and your candor. FWIW - any time a group is stopped for more than 20 minutes I begin to get concerned about people developing early stages of hypothermia -it's so insidious. One of the warning signs I use for myself is a mental check - am I getting irritated with my hiking companions? If the answer is yes, then I know I'm on that downhill slide, and the usual solution is to immediately stop and have something to eat and drink.

Carrying rope is a good idea, especially during an icy winter. I often carry a 100' length of 5mm rope - costs about .25/ft. About the only time I recall actually using it was getting down an icy slope on Basin, but it provides a level of comfort knowing you have it. Sometimes it's alot easier to get up something than to get down! Also have a longer length for belaying Brutus on occasion but that's a different issue.

 

[Bob Kittredge]

Thanks for posting. The rest of us winter newbies need to be reminded that we still have a lot to learn.

 

[mtnpa]

Boy that's a hike you will remember during your hiatus. Rols sure is prepared. Credit to the whole team for working through it together and being aware of each others' condition...BTW I do carry a small section of rope in my survival kit

 

[dr_wu002]

Rope

BTW I do carry a small section of rope in my survival kit

I don't carry rope on my hikes. Although, I hike with Eric a lot and he usually has a large, 18 foot section of thick 'rope' wrapped around his waist a few times in case of an emergency.

Watch it when ya get irritated with yer hiking partners! That can be a sign of confusion & frustration setting in and usually one of the first things to go out the window is logic and rationality. We experienced that coming back from Owl's Head... we were on Franconia Brook Trail, and wandered into the Beaver Meadow. Normally I'm really good at trail finding -- and this is a railroad grade fer god's sake!! -- but we lost it and nothing seemed logical about it. Eventually I started getting bitchy, Dennis smashed his head on a tree and was bleeding like he had a gunshot wound and then Jessbee wanted nothing to do with us geniuses. We wandered around the bog for a while, some of us fell in, until we finally said screw it and bolted into the woods, scoped out a logging road and took that back to the trail. Keep yer head!

-Dr. Wu

 

[LittleBear]

SherpaKroto wrote:

I have hiked with Sapblatt, Little Bear, and LarryD, and would place all 3 in the wizened hiker category: they know their stuff, and are very good at communicating issues.

So, Sherpa, you think I'm a "wizened hiker" huh????? I'm glad you consider that I am experienced, that I know my stuff, and I am able to adequately communicate issues, but I wouldn't exactly consider myself "wizened." Then again, I am an old fart.

 

[pks4000]

Nice honest report with good humor. Maybe you got away with one.
I told each of my kids: Hope that when you make a mistake it costs you little, but you learn much.
Sounds like you had a personnal epihany of sorts. We all can empathize with you!!!
Good luck with the little one. You will now get to see the sunrise and sunsets, mountains and oceans with a new set of eyes.
I'll be the tall, gimpy kneed guy, cheering your kid on as the two of you summit the first of many challenges together.
Climb onward. Keep the boots nearby. Never out of sight, never out of mind.

 

[SAR-EMT40]

There is certainly a zone of being chilled that IMO, doesn't quite yet qualify as hypothermia. One can still have adequate core temp with arms and hands (and perhaps feet) chilled to the point where it is difficult to manipulate things.

I can't agree with this Doug. What makes hypothermia so insidious is how we tend to ignore it and misidentify it. By definition hypothermia is a lowering of your core body temperature from what is normal. The thing to keep in mind is that all your bodies reactions with respect to hypothermia is core driven. By that I mean, you cannot put your hand on a piece of ice and that alone will cause you to shiver. You might give yourself frostbite but the only way you start shivering is if your core temperature has dropped sufficiently. Shivering is one of the first signs of hypothermia. I have been taught that actually the first is a mental degradation. I know this will sound corny but follow this through. A group of people standing around. One guy standing there shivering and the other says “you look cold?” The guy says “Yeah, its freaking cold out man”. The other says “why don’t you put your hat on?” The shivering guy says “NO I’M OK”. Anyone seen this happen? I know I have. Hell, I’ve done it. Fact is. He is not OK. He is already got a core temperature low enough that his body is responding. It is responding by shivering. This shivering is your bodies way of making your muscles generate heat. This is how the body responds to hypothermia in its first stages. This is when to treat it but his mental degradation is telling him, “NO I’M OK”. He doesn’t recognize how much trouble he is in. This is more than just a warning sign. It is actual hypothermia. It’s just that we see it and ignore it so often many of us don’t recognize it as such. Are you going to die in minutes, hours? This obviously depends on the conditions, but make no mistake you are hypothermic and headed in that direction unless you take corrective action. Put a hat on, change out of wet clothes. Put on extra layers.

From there of course it will get worse if no corrections are made. You experience a loss of fine motor control, if you haven't already, so you find it harder to tie your shoes, change your wet jacket and other simple tasks. This is directly attributable to your extremities being vasoconstricted and shunted, again, core driven. Your hand muscles are receiving less blood so they cannot perform the way they normally do and the way you think they should be performing. Everything takes longer to do and is more of a challenge. Yes you can stop your shivering at this stage (first stage) by force of will.

You are in stage two when you have a loss of gross muscle coordination and at this point you cannot stop shivering. You also suffer from the ‘umbles. They are still conscious but will stumble when they walk, mumble when they talk, and fumble when they attempt to do simple things. You are getting near the point of no return.

End stage consists of unconsciousness and shivering has stopped. The body cannot re-warm itself at this point. It is almost impossible to help someone in the field to and bring them back to consciousness. The best you can do is to try to keep them from losing more body heat. Change them out of wet clothes, put them in dry clothes and put them in a hypothermia wrap and evacuate them rapidly and treat them very gently.

One other statistic I will leave you with is that any person, who has a core temperature change (up or down) of seven degrees, has a 50/50 chance of surviving.

Also, I don't normaly carry rope but I always carry a 20 foot piece of 1 inch tubular webbing in a daisy chain and a locking biner and several other biners. Comes in handy for tons of things, especially on rescues but also on regular hikes.

Keith

 

[Clown]

I would agree with Keith on this, that hypothermia definition is straight out of the book. Only thing I would say is that I would be very cautious with rewarming people or especially injuries such as frostbite/nip in the field. I would definitely stop the cooling process, but only actively rewarm when I knew that there was no chance of refreezing. For an injury or patient to be warmed and cooled more than once can be very damaging. Also, age plays a major factor in hypothermia. The older you are, the less likely you are to recover from hypothermia, unfortunately.

 

[Tom Rankin]

Great thread! We had our own little 'failure' over in the ADKs.

Lots of lessons learned over there too!

http://vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?t=11571

 

[Jazzbo]

Hypothermia Survivor's experience

When I was younger and stupider college student at UConn Storrs campus in mid 70's, my friend Terry and I got the bright idea we should go surfing in November off Point Judith RI. Terry had full wet suit, but only had farmer pants wet suit for me to wear. So one morning early we headed out there in Terry's VW microbus. It was brilliant sunny November day, but brisk as we waded into with our surfboards and wet suits. The waves were nothing much and this was probably lucky for me because I caught a few dismal rides and decided I wasn't feeling too well and needed to get the hell out of the water. My unprotected arms felt really cold and like dead weights. I stumbled out of the icy surf through the cannon ball rocks that are a feature of Point Judith, stumbled up the beach, got into the VW Bus and struggelled out of the farmer pants and shiverring uncontrollably.

Terry was still out with his full suit. Very scary as I had NO IDEA what was happening to me. I experimented with willing the shivering to stop. That only lasted few seconds. I tried to stop the shivering because the shivering was no fun. It was almost too painful or maddening to bare. The sun was warming the interior of the bus. I had a primal urge MUST GET WARM. I put on whatever we had for clothes, but was still really cold and shivering. Luckily Terry returned and I told him to start the engine and get the heat going which as older folks know is not much in VW bus, but I remember how nice that wimpy heater felt as I got re-warmed. We then had a pleasent ride home to Storrs through the forests of Eastern CT punctuated at one point we narrowly avoided hitting a deer broadside with the VW bus. The deer's head was meer 3' away from me through the windshield. I distinctly made eye contact with the terrified creature.

In hindsight I can see I had hypothermia and how had the waves been better that day, I might have stayed in the water longer and probably drowned or gotten into more life-threatening condition. How on earth we survive our youthful vigor I'll never know.

 

[SAR-EMT40]

Only thing I would say is that I would be very cautious with rewarming people or especially injuries such as frostbite/nip in the field. I would definitely stop the cooling process, but only actively rewarm when I knew that there was no chance of refreezing. For an injury or patient to be warmed and cooled more than once can be very damaging.

Just a short comment on this. This is only with reference to frostbite, not hypothermia. It is correct that frostbite should usually not be corrected in the field, frostnip however should be corrected immediately. How do you tell the difference? Frostnip, the skin turns white or has a waxy apperance and it feels numb to the person when touched. Frostbite, the skin turns white or has a waxy apperance and touching it, it feels numb to the person. So how do we figure out which is which? When you push on the skin frostnip depresses, frostbite doesn't. The reason we fix frostnip is so it doesn't turn into frostbite. Their are several reasons we don't usually correct frostbite in the field. First thawing is extremely painful. If you need the person to walk out of the woods they can do so on frozen feet. There is no chance that a person can do that if you thaw their feet. The damage will be even worse if you thaw their frostbite and it refreezes.

Keith