Rescue on Little Haystack-NHF&G insists that hiking solo is a "serious error".

[Raven]

I made my views known on this subject. Here's your chance:

Union Leader article, with a comment

There's nothing I disagree with in that comment.

My observations of F&G rescues in the past few years:

Regardless of funding mechanism and regardless of the limitations of others involved in this process (e.g. NH State Legislature), F&G appear to be taking the tactics of desperate men:

1. by choosing to publicly chastise Scott Mason (2009) who was better prepared than most hikers, and then moving forward with charging him $25,000 for the rescue. In the public fiasco that came in the aftermath, F&G backed away from charging. I quote,
"If it had happened in Colorado, he would have been applauded for being able to survive for three days," said Paul "Woody" Woodward, president of Colorado's Alpine Rescue Team. "New Hampshire is way out on their own on this one."

2. by choosing to charge one of our board members in another case where negligence was at best a stretch, and at worst, an inaccurate assessment. An experienced hiker, well-equipped, survived with the gear she had, but yes, lacking one or two things that F&G was able to hang their charge on (important things, yes). And that was paid as far as I know.

3. Anyone remember Mark Walsh from Pine Link on Mount Madison? As I recall, his caloric intake before the hike consisted of a diet drink and then he made nearly every mistake of which one can think. "Wayne Saunders said a hiker from Sandwich, Massachusetts set out to hike Mount Madison late in the day on Monday with no food, no water, no hiking gear and no flashlight. He only had two t-shirts and a pair of knee-high rubber boots. Mark Walsh, 49, only had one piece of gear – his cellphone."

http://www.unionleader.com/article/20120508/NEWS07/120509892

Has he paid? F&G stated they were going to try to collect.

4. by continuing to list reasons for negligence of hikers such as solo hiking, going off trail, or lack of gear that, although part of the HikeSafe list of essentials, was clearly not a reason behind needing a rescue (such as lack of extra food in cases where this played no role in the person surviving the night). Perhaps by adding a dangerous weapon to the mix (as in the case of hunters), we are no longer negligent?

From an objective point of view, these measures weaken the arguments made by F&G. There are pretty clear differences between the three cases I have described above and in only one case, IMO, would most experienced hikers deem that negligence was a factor.

IMO, If F&G is recovering funds for rescues when negligence is questionable, they need to also collect when negligence is clear. Maybe they do not yet have a handle on what negligence means. They will need to if they want the hiking community to have confidence in a system that charges for rescues. Their own inconsistencies have the capacity to invalidate their argument.

 

[hikerfast]

i wonder walking around your house solo is an error. or walking around your yard solo? what about walking down a slippery driveway to get your mail solo? what if you fall and no one is there to help you? maybe we should be fined for those rescues.

 

[DayTrip]

I don't get the whole "off trail" question either. I would imagine if you get lost you are probably off-trail right? And isn't one of the most basic tenets of getting caught in bad weather to take the shortest route to safety, which I presume in many cases will be mean going off-trail and following a river or other landmark to lower altitudes and hopefully a road or other landmark to be found. Whether or not you are on a trail seems completely irrelevant. And if you were to intentionally go off trail to bushwhack or climb something a trail doesn't service wouldn't it be very easy to explain you were off-trail trying to do one of the above activities (i.e. shortest route to safety)?

 

[jrbren]

If there are thousands of dollars of fees involved, I believe many things ordinary people would do will be declared incompetent or "unprepared". To this day after a quarter century of hiking do I have a firm definition of "unprepared". Prepared for what ? I would be very hesitant to ever call for help in NH. Never say never, I guess I do not know until it happens, like if someone in my party was in grave danger, I guess I probably would have to. If caught in bad weather I take the shortest route time wise to safety, rarely does that mean going off trail. Usually going off trail, unless you are really good at navigation or know where you are anyway, results in much longer times in reaching reaching safety, or being not lost becomes being lost. Most of my hikes are done solo.

 

[Mike P.]

I believe Mark Walsh was on Valley Way. In my yard, I pay property tax. Yes, I pay Federal taxes too but a tiny percentage of the public hikes & it's not like slipping by my mail box.


Mason should have returned when he first was injured, not just shorten his trip. He also was unaware or did not think that the woods would be full of snow & that the high temps (near 90 in CT that weekend, my daughter & I were on Bear, I got a sunburn as there were no leaves on the trees in April.) made the streams unpassable due to rapid snowmelt.

Should young Mr. Mason (I believe he was 17 or 18 at the time & an aspiring Eagle Scout or recent Eagle at the time) have been solo on his trip? He had survival knowledge and camping knowledge, some route finding but picking a trail with deep snow and streams in those conditions was a big mistake. (Likely a non-issue in summer unless there is a fair amount of rain)

I believe they settled for an undisclosed amount but it was rumored to be signifcantly less than the bill. My unqualified .02, When things were going well, he was an Eagle Scout, a trained outdoorsman on an adventure. When he was overdue, he became just a missing teen who's parents were very worried. (as I type this next to my young Webelo hiker...)

 

[miehoff]

Remember everyone, what you read, hear and are told though the news, from people at work, or the local bar or the weekend dinner party is NOT what really happened. Unless you were there, the truth lies somewhere else. News reports couldn't ring that bell any louder. Stop being the sucker.

 

[Remix]

Of course two people hiking together have twice as many iphones to use as a flashlight, so there is clearly a significant reduction in risk.

 

[Neil]

I made my views known on this subject. Here's your chance:

Union Leader article, with a comment

The link won't open on my computer.
I once read in an on-line how-to "manual" that the experts counsel against hiking alone, but they all do it. Excellent, straightforward advice that clears everything up succinctly.

 

[sardog1]

The link won't open on my computer.
I once read in an on-line how-to "manual" that the experts counsel against hiking alone, but they all do it. Excellent, straightforward advice that clears everything up succinctly.

For the benefit of the Union Leader-deprived among you (count your blessings!):

Charles Ek said:

Sgt. Sutmeier,
If your comments were indeed this categorical, they need to be reconsidered. I've been going alone into the woods and off trail for the last 55 years, starting when I was five years old. I've gone alone in the woods and off trail in Minnesota, Alaska, Washington, and New Hampshire. In fact, for a while I used to go alone into the woods and off-trail as a search-and-rescue dog handler working under the direction of Fish and Game (as I did in each of the other states mentioned). Fish and Game officers have been making this assertion more and more in the last couple of years. It needs to be replaced with a greater emphasis on being prepared for the circumstances. Yes, it's an error to fail to take the weather into account. Yes, it's an error to venture above treeline in winter with poor navigational skills. But neither going alone nor going off trail are "serious errors" if you have the skills and experience to do so. Finally: The notion that going alone into the woods and off trail are serious errors will undoubtedly come as news to thousands of my fellow NH hunters.

 

[Red Oak]

For the benefit of the Union Leader-deprived among you (count your blessings!):

Charles Ek said:

Sgt. Sutmeier,
If your comments were indeed this categorical, they need to be reconsidered. I've been going alone into the woods and off trail for the last 55 years, starting when I was five years old. I've gone alone in the woods and off trail in Minnesota, Alaska, Washington, and New Hampshire. In fact, for a while I used to go alone into the woods and off-trail as a search-and-rescue dog handler working under the direction of Fish and Game (as I did in each of the other states mentioned). Fish and Game officers have been making this assertion more and more in the last couple of years. It needs to be replaced with a greater emphasis on being prepared for the circumstances. Yes, it's an error to fail to take the weather into account. Yes, it's an error to venture above treeline in winter with poor navigational skills. But neither going alone nor going off trail are "serious errors" if you have the skills and experience to do so. Finally: The notion that going alone into the woods and off trail are serious errors will undoubtedly come as news to thousands of my fellow NH hunters.

Big Greenie and plus one in agreement here.Well put Sardog.

 

[bikehikeskifish]

Careful with the greenie comments. My posts have been deleted when I used the word.

References to the reputation system don't result in deletions unless they are intentionally inflammatory or off-topic.

Tim

 

[Peakbagr]

What Tim said.

 

[DougPaul]

Methinks the NHF&G's hunger for money and resultant conflict of interest is showing. And their credibility is going downhill as a result (at least to me).

I think there is also an unfortunate interaction with the Hike Safe website. It is designed to help the beginner and focusing on it (and particularly treating it as a set of standards) leads people to judge everyone as if they were all beginners...

Doug

 

[RoySwkr]

I think there is also an unfortunate interaction with the Hike Safe website. It is designed to help the beginner and focusing on it (and particularly treating it as a set of standards) leads people to judge everyone as if they were all beginners...

Interesting comment

Probably most of you have seen the "Ranger Report" on SAR in the Adk, which contains an incident description followed by a safe hiking aphorism presumably extracted from a list of same. Usually the aphorism relates to a mistake made by the referenced parties but in unique incidents they still apply an aphorism from the stock list rather than an analysis of the actual situation.

It sounds like F&G may be using the same strategy of embedding a safe hiking message in every interaction with the press. This may not actually be a bad idea if it helps to spread the message to those who should hear it, although experienced hikers may tire of hearing these messages from the media repeated by spouses.

The victim in this case was apparently a technical climber who was off an established trail (duh!) and alone (which some consider safer on moderate ice). Perhaps the F&G press person was unfamiliar with these facts or maybe they just wanted to take the opportunity to spread the general safety message.

 

[DougPaul]

Interesting comment

Probably most of you have seen the "Ranger Report" on SAR in the Adk, which contains an incident description followed by a safe hiking aphorism presumably extracted from a list of same. Usually the aphorism relates to a mistake made by the referenced parties but in unique incidents they still apply an aphorism from the stock list rather than an analysis of the actual situation.

It sounds like F&G may be using the same strategy of embedding a safe hiking message in every interaction with the press. This may not actually be a bad idea if it helps to spread the message to those who should hear it, although experienced hikers may tire of hearing these messages from the media repeated by spouses.

The victim in this case was apparently a technical climber who was off an established trail (duh!) and alone (which some consider safer on moderate ice). Perhaps the F&G press person was unfamiliar with these facts or maybe they just wanted to take the opportunity to spread the general safety message.

I have no problem with the various officials using news reports about accidents to point out sources of safe hiking info to the general public--just their using such beginner-oriented info as a set of standards by which to judge experienced hikers/mountaineers. Such use also effectively raises the info sources to be defacto law.

Doug

 

[erugs]

Am pretty sure most of us here on VFTT have hiked solo and gone off trail. I've done that all of my life and won't stop any time soon, I hope.

I liked the point about hunters, and those who fish, too, I should add, going off trail and being solo.

Another thing I just realized is that it is good to have food you never plan on eating, just so you can show that you have food to spare. (They don't say it has to be edible, do they?) I know that food helps with maintaining energy levels, but how long can one go without food and still have strength and mental abilities? Surely, more than a day or two.

 

[TJsName]

Am pretty sure most of us here on VFTT have hiked solo and gone off trail. I've done that all of my life and won't stop any time soon, I hope.

I liked the point about hunters, and those who fish, too, I should add, going off trail and being solo.

Another thing I just realized is that it is good to have food you never plan on eating, just so you can show that you have food to spare. (They don't say it has to be edible, do they?) I know that food helps with maintaining energy levels, but how long can one go without food and still have strength and mental abilities? Surely, more than a day or two.

I've only hiked solo twice (and once was up Tuck's in July, which doesn't really count, a family had a loaf of PB&J's and gave me one - it was nice). The experience was interesting - certainly distinct from having hiking companions. While I enjoy the company, I certainly enjoyed the solo experience. That said, I was keenly aware of the extra risk as I was descending the backside of Tecumseh in early April. I had carefully researched the route, weather, and let people know where I was. It is riskier, but not much, IMO.

 

[iagreewithjamie]

It is riskier, but not much, IMO.

I'd argue that people often do things they normally wouldn't when in a group, thus exposing themselves to more potential for injury. Someone pointed this out to me when I mentioned "I woulda done it if I weren't alone". Think of the group rescued on Washington last week - only one person out of 6 had microspikes: something tells me that guy woulda been alot safer hiking alone. When in a group, you start as a group, and finish as a group... which means that the group's liability is also your own.

So I'd argue that a rescue is more possible with a group, but I think the chances of injury are higher.

 

[Mike P.]

Interesting comment

The victim in this case was apparently a technical climber who was off an established trail (duh!) and alone (which some consider safer on moderate ice). Perhaps the F&G press person was unfamiliar with these facts or maybe they just wanted to take the opportunity to spread the general safety message.

Is that true, safer solo on moderate ice? What's moderate? requiring rope or almost? Would an ice choked North Tri Slide be considered Moderate? Or are we talking steep enough that most would want protection and belay? I'm asking actually, I'm not a technical climber, Could be my one thing learned today....

I'm probably about a 50/50 hiker for solo, if you consider that on 40% of the non-solo's I'm with either my kids or Cub Scouts and parents who look at a cold fall Greylock day hike or Hurricane (ADK) in May to be challenging, while not technically solo, I can't put myself in a position to have my kids go run for help. (13 & 10 & learning) Taking the slow route on their 4K experience but I/m not challenging them.

If the weather is questionable on a solo day, I usually pick out a destination with no more than a pop your head out above treeline experience. (Pierce, Liberty, Jackson if not icy, Garfield when the road is open, more for distance when closed, etc.)

My winter Washington trip was a solo, maybe the 12th time overall. Was not planned as a solo but the other three guys cancelled. Weather was 20 - 25 degrees with a wind that barely got to the double digits. (5-10 MPH, might of had a 15+ gust) Had it been more typical, I would have picked a different summit. Madison was windy when we did it in winter but not brutal, 40 MPH as measured by someone with an anemometer. (right tool name?)

 

[bikehikeskifish]

When in a group, you start as a group, and finish as a group...

I would like to point out that you are making an assumption that is not true for all groups, so if the start-hike-finish as a group is critical to you, be sure to get that assurance from the leader before you join the group.

Tim