Trouble on the Ridge (again).

[maineguy]

What I have done is taken the story you provided, and given folks the chance to see the same events in a different light. They can judge for themselves which version resonates more strongly.

Seriously, in a different light? Who is shining that light? You think the version of this story where those who were rescued denigrated their rescuers resonates more strongly? I cannot think of a single incident in WMNF rescue history where those rescued talked smack about their rescuers.

 

[skiguy]

What I have done is taken the story you provided, and given folks the chance to see the same events in a different light. They can judge for themselves which version resonates more strongly.

Based upon no factual information. Sierra has first hand information rather than some cooked up hypothesis.

 

[sierra]

What I have done is taken the story you provided, and given folks the chance to see the same events in a different light. They can judge for themselves which version resonates more strongly.

Wait a minute here, didn't you say you were a lawyer? That makes sense now. You took my firsthand account and bent it to fit the narrative that suits you and your cause, I rest my case.

 

[peakbagger]

This thread to be turning into personal attacks at this point rather than discussing the actual incident. Barring new info it may be time to close it down.

 

[sierra]

This thread to be turning into personal attacks at this point rather than discussing the actual incident. Barring new info it may be time to close it down.

Feel free to close it down. My intent was to shine a light on the unprepared hikers that continue to hike the FRT, that was it.

 

[JoshandBaron]

I too have had my ups and downs with the Club over 50+ years of hiking. But...

If you use the many trails they maintain, water up or take a dump at their facilities, or benefit from their conservation, land acquisition and lobbying activities, I suggest it is a bit hypocritical to bash them.

Why should they be exempt from criticism?

 

[Grey J]

To return to the OP, this does sound like a new variation on the unpreparedness theme. Clueless hiking with a baby. It is one thing to endanger yourself and/or other adults who have free will and ought to know better. It would appear to be on another level to subject a baby (as described, not a child) to this experience.

I don't have a stake in this AMC debate, but I will commend the hut staff who dropped everything to perform the rescue. Not all rescues occur in the winter.

 

[peakbagger]

Some interesting comparisons between the two rescues on two days just a few miles apart. The first party of day hikers got caught in extreme heat conditions, most likely inexperienced, underequipped and over their heads. No Fish and Game report. The next rescue within 48 hours is for hikers unprepared for the cold. In that case F&G had to mobilize a crew to head up and assist them down. They had the gear but not the experience. From a F&G S&R resources point of view, it looks like the hut crew saved a potential mobilization on the first event. Given the weather conditions on the first event, I have no doubt the potential was there for heat exhaustion/lost hikers and possibly worse.

 

[OldEric]

It would be nice to hear a "version" of the original rescue story from a first hand source. All the reports so far are from the usual sources well known for their holier then thou attitudes along with their biases and tendencies towards hyperbole. But it is entertaining

 

[dave.m]

You want to know how to prevent this from happening? you cannot, it's that simple. It's like the snow coming in the winter, you might not like it, you might wish it isn't so, but it's coming. Really, all you can do is prepare to deal with it.

Does the same logic apply to speed limits? Fire code violations?

I think this is an application of the all or nothing fallacy. Either we entirely stop something or we shouldn't try.

Risk = likelihood x impact

Risk reduction generally demands we address both.

More could be done to minimize the likelihood of such occurrences. Collectively, we might not want to live within the systems that might help minimize the frequency of these events. Or we may not want to see them funded.

But I think it's overstating it to claim that nothing can be done. Imagination, political will, & funding are needed, but there is plenty that could be done.

 

[ChrisB]

What's wrong with telling them they need to leave? It ain't a day spa for criss sakes!! Get OUT!!!

A group I was with in Baxter had a very similar experience to what the Croo did here. On a minus 10 winter night we get a knock on the Roaring Brook cabin door. A panicked guy appears and in broken English tells us his group is strung out and in trouble on the RB Road. Can we help?

He's too toasted to go back out, so a few of us ski down the road, find the rest of the group here and there, and help them all back to the cabin (by carrying most of their climbing gear). Then they ask to sleep on the floor, tables, wherever. (Even though they had a permit for a lean too.) They are too unglued to camp out in that February cold. So we say OK.

Next morning we have to rouse them off the floor and tables so we can have brkf, pack, and head up to Chimney. One of our gang says "you guys need to vacate this cabin by the time we leave so we can clean it and move out." Their gear was all over the place. Their "leader" gets snotty and says they will vacate when they are ready. So we all give them the message that they are ready. Rather than a thanks you for a good nights sleep we got attitude.

I asked one of them how they had gotten into this mess and he said the leader misread the distance from Abol to RB in KM not miles.

You have to help, but you don't have to like it.

 

[ChrisB]

I have always advocated that the huts be removed, I not only do not need their facilities, I wish they were not there. I can go to the bathroom in the woods and there is plenty of water out there. People always use that hypocrisy argument, but it doesn't hold up, I have no choice that they are there.

Sierra, I enjoy your posts and admire how often you and your pup get out. But on this post I gotta take exception.

Overall I think the Club's backcountry facilities do more good than harm. First they concentrate and manage usage and camping. Second they provide emergency services to the clueless and the unlucky.

You personally do not use or need these facilities. Great! Others hikers do and enjoy them. Multiple-use.

 

[peakbagger]

If someone wants to put up an intelligent thread on what has changed since the EIS was completed on the hut system in the whites in 1998, feel free but make sure you review the EIS as it was an extensive and rational study on the subject that looked at three options, hut removal, conversion to limited service and continued use with some modifications (scaled back helicopter usage was the big one). Here is a link to the federal register request for the EIS https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-1997-01-22/pdf/97-1476.pdf As for the actual EIS, I have not found it on line but some entrepreneur is selling a copy on Amazon Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Permitting Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) Huts and Pinkham Notch Visitor Center (PNVC): Hepp, Donna (USDA Forest Service), illus: Amazon.com: Books.

I have a copy and have read through the majority of the 360 pages plus appendices in the past. I think anyone with an open mind that reviews the EIS would end up realizing that as distasteful as the concept may be to their personal preferences, it is the least bad of three alternatives. Like the Cog and Autoroad, many of the huts predate the WMNF The History of the AMC Huts - The Trek. or were built with the full approval of the USFS as a recreational resource using a similar rationale that allowed Wildcat, Waterville Valley, Evergreen Valley (at one point) and Loon to be built on USFS lands under the "land of multiple uses concept" with far more impact to the forest than the huts , the ski areas have their clientele whose chosen recreation is skiing, and the AMC huts have their clientele for hut stays, per forest service policy, those usages have the right to gain recreational access.

The Tragedy of the Commons is very much applicable to the Whites, its a recreational resource valued by many that without management will get degraded. This is not theoretical, during the boom of the 70s and 80s usage was far less regulated and many areas were far more degraded than they are today. AMC at minimum is providing sanitary services to the hiking public, hike any blue blaze trail heading to treeline like the Jewell trail that does not have a hut nearby and it quite obvious that the woods are being used as a toilet prior to losing cover. They also serve as source of safe water. Most of the water sources for the huts are shallow groundwater wells drilled by the AMC by flying in drill rigs in pieces and assembled on site. Without properly designed wastewater treatment systems and proper recharge into the ground away from the existing surface water sources, they would soon be contaminated by human waste. In many cases the crew also provides hiker assistance including rescues.

Where the argument probably is best fought is why is the AMC the assigned steward of the hut system? At one time the FS may have had to staff and interest in running these facilities like the NPS used to do in the National Park lodges but long ago the NPS decided to contract out the operation of NPS facilities owned by the federal government to private concessionaires. The WMNF did the same 30 plus years ago with the vast majority of the federally owned and built campgrounds in the whites and even has off sourced the reservation system. Given that AMC built and maintain all the huts including at least two, Lakes and Madison that are built on land they own, in order to bid the operation out would require the US government to compensate the AMC fairly for their investment and I do not see that happening. If the WMNF was a clean sheet of paper being designed and laid out today, I expect different decisions and compromises would be made but that is not the real world.

 

[DayTrip]

It seems to me that there are two entirely different things being mushed together into one argument here. I think the hut croo's job, handling of their job functions, what they do for what they're paid and all of the other stuff that they deal with out at the huts is far removed from what the AMC's corporate goal and mission is back in the city. We're combining what's going on in the board room and what is happening "out in the trenches".

By all accounts I've read the hut croos are generally made up of a great bunch of people who juggle a lot of stuff and make it a great experience for the hut's guests under very testing circumstances. They sound like they react in a very exemplary way to these situations time and time again. I'm not sure anyone here is bashing that aspect of the AMC. At least I don't think so anyway. If anyone here is actually blasting the croo please clarify. I don't see why that would be warranted here or in other stories I've read like this.

The AMC's overall vision, whether we should or should not have huts, what the AMC prioritizes socially, salaries for executives, tax breaks, using their influence for special perks, the new logo, etc, etc, etc I think is what many here do not agree with or approve of and have voiced their displeasure with over the years. I doubt the croo is playing much of a role, if any, in how that is shaped. If those here who know croo members or have been croo members could expand on that aspect of croo life I'd be curious to know.

 

[DayTrip]

I have a copy and have read through the majority of the 360 pages plus appendices in the past.

When do you sleep? I think you've probably read and researched more stuff in the past week than I have over the past 20 years....

 

[peakbagger]

I am fair weather hiker, the weather has not been so fair for the last few days. Being retired helps I have to delay my old age cognitive decline somehow.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

It seems to me that there are two entirely different things being mushed together into one argument here. I think the hut croo's job, handling of their job functions, what they do for what they're paid and all of the other stuff that they deal with out at the huts is far removed from what the AMC's corporate goal and mission is back in the city. We're combining what's going on in the board room and what is happening "out in the trenches".

By all accounts I've read the hut croos are generally made up of a great bunch of people who juggle a lot of stuff and make it a great experience for the hut's guests under very testing circumstances. They sound like they react in a very exemplary way to these situations time and time again. I'm not sure anyone here is bashing that aspect of the AMC. At least I don't think so anyway. If anyone here is actually blasting the croo please clarify. I don't see why that would be warranted here or in other stories I've read like this.

The AMC's overall vision, whether we should or should not have huts, what the AMC prioritizes socially, salaries for executives, tax breaks, using their influence for special perks, the new logo, etc, etc, etc I think is what many here do not agree with or approve of and have voiced their displeasure with over the years. I doubt the croo is playing much of a role, if any, in how that is shaped. If those here who know croo members or have been croo members could expand on that aspect of croo life I'd be curious to know.

Yes, I think that you have nailed it that two different levels of the AMC presence in the Whites is getting bashed. In my post #4, I took offense at posts #2 and #3 that were clearly directed at the Greenleaf croo for being insensitive in telling the rescued party that they had to clear out of the hut after breakfast the morning after their rescue and presumably free overnight stay in the hut. To your last “curious to know” request, just read my post #4, in which I should have also noted that all guests, those who pay and those who freeload as negligent hikers, are asked to clear out after breakfast so that the hut can be cleaned for the next group of guests, as described by Peakbagger in post #6 (no different than the 10 am or 11 am check out time in a motel, except that even hut guests who are staying a rare second night are also asked to go outside for at least for a couple of hours to allow cleaning).

When I worked fill-in croo for three nights at Zealand hut in August 2018 (not 2017 as I wrote), breakfast cleanup, dishwashing, etc., took the three of us on croo about two hours. Then cleaning two bunk rooms and the dining room took two full hours for one of us while the other two cleaned the bathrooms, did mechanical check ups, and began the dinner meal preparations in the kitchen. After beginning our work day at 6 a.m., we were relieved to take a short break for lunch around noon, and then all three of us helped with the evening meal prep, checked in new guests, answered questions from day hikers, and if we had been younger and the need were there, one or two of us would have hiked out to the trailhead to pack a load of supplies into the hut (Greenleaf has a croo of five instead of Zealand’s four, so with one croo on daze off, typically two or three croo pack loads at Greenleaf instead of one or two at Zealand). By the time supper is done, cookware and dishes washed and dried, and late arriving guests checked in, we would finally have an hour or so relax before lights are turned out at 10 p.m. So, pretty much 16-hour, back-to-back days.

Of course, none of what I have written will be accepted by skiguy, who posts “Call it objective, subjective, bashing, hating, or even hypocritical …. Whatever have at it” and my “post only reinforces [my] superiority.” Likewise, to answer Old Eric’s post #29, even if a Greenleaf croo report were made available to the public, many here would accuse the croo of being biased.

As for Peakbagger’s post #28, I agree that the Greenleaf croo likely saved NHF&G and volunteer SAR teams dozens of person-hours and much expense had they been called out overnight, which I suspect could have led to a hefty fine for negligence (“fines” only can be levied to recover NHF&G overtime expenses).

I also liked ChrisB’s post #31 about his unpleasant experience sharing the Roaring Brook bunk house in BSP one winter with negligent, non-paying, interloper xc skiers, as the same thing happened to us there one time. In my almost 20 years of volunteer SAR work, we have had on a few occasions patients get out of the rescue litter after a several-mile carry, stand up, begin walking around, get in their vehicle, and drive away without even a ”thank you,” much like Pam Bales’ mentally ill patient in the film “Infinite Storm.”

Finally, I agree with dave.m’s post #30 that all is not lost per the original post #1 and that there is plenty more that can be done to thwart these hiking debacles. For example, there are plans afoot to install a real-time weather report for Franconia Ridge linked from Cannon Mountain to the Lafayette Place trailhead parking lot, which would be available 24-7, 365 days per year; still very much in the planning stages, but stay tuned.

 

[skiguy]

Of course, none of what I have written will be accepted by skiguy, who posts “Call it objective, subjective, bashing, hating, or even hypocritical …. Whatever have at it” and my “post only reinforces [my] superiority.” Likewise, to answer Old Eric’s post #29, even if a Greenleaf croo report were made available to the public, many here would accuse the croo of being biased.

I actually agree with most of what your saying in your defense of The Croo and The AMC. I do admire your efforts and from others within the organization. Which I have already stated. As Sierra has already said it's not lost on me. If you go back and read my posts earlier in the thread minus my bashing in post #2 which I take full responsibility for I think your missing my point and or major gripe which is the smack attitude that has been consistent with the AMC for decades as I have already stated. That smack attitude again is an air of superiority elicited through Mangement, Croo, Workers at Pinkham and The Highland Center. Not by everyone in those positions and not on every encounter but on too much of a frequent basis in my experiences again based on decades of encounters. Again if you read my posts in this thread I was hoping that this recent incident at Flea was not one of those experiences for the family at large. After a traumatic experience the last thing someone wants to hear is you need to be on your way the first thing in the morning. "Get Out mentality" just because we just saved your arse is not an excuse for poor attitude. But that is subjective on my part indeed, but my concern was the tone in which that message was delivered. Again I also stated that I hoped that was not the case. Based upon my experiences with negative encounters on my part it seemed as if there was potential for that.. As an example of my gripe not hate as some have stated, my most recent encounter on this level was earlier this Spring at the main desk in Pinkham Lodge. Our group was headed for Tucks to spend the night and do some skiing the next day. We had been giving some consideration to spending an additional night to the one night we had already paid for. But we were not sure if we would but wanted to know what the protocol was. We inquired at the front desk. The response in a snide tone of voice from one of the employees was: "Well that is up to the care taker and what kind of mood he is in". On another occasion which I have mentioned elsewhere on this board was a multiday school trip to Mizpah which I co lead with AMC trip leaders. The control factor to begin with by The AMC staff was off the scale. Their presumptuous attitudes of we know better than you on a superior level of delivery was ongoing for a three day stretch. You literally could not even cut a piece of cheese or peperoni in preparation for the day's hike without having the rath of The AMC leaders coming down on you as it was something out of their control. In addition, their poor attitude was also expressed angrily multiple times by yelling at the kids in an unhinged manner. OK the kids were not angels. But they were sixth graders whom had paid their way to be lead in a professional manner. One more time in my long list of poor attitude by The AMC in general was a self serviced trip to Lonesome Lake. To the AMC's credit or disfunction the hut was way understaffed. In fact there was only one hutkeeper which may have contributed to the situation but again it was a poor attitude of delivery. Upon a nice evening of dining and conversation by all it was nearing "QuietTime". Folks had been enjoying themselves in an orderly manner, but the Hutkeeper had numerous incidents of scolding people with a bad attitude upon The Hutkeeper's part over minor things like who gets to use what cooking pot next. The evening culminated by The Hutkeeper standing on one of the tables yelling at everyone to go to their respective bunks because they were about to shut the lights off whether folks liked it or not. I kept my mouth shut but other patrons confronted the Caretaker the next morning having experienced the same unwarranted attitude. As I already mentioned this is a training issue. This poor attitude has been going on for decades upon some of their employees. Until The AMC acknowledges there is an issue which is not just recognized by me as has already been stated here by others the problem is not going away. Again The AMC does a lot of great things but they could improve. They operate on public lands and operate on a lease for the most part. They serve the public as a charity because of their non-profit status. Maybe they should think outside the box and realize that their paradigm has some kinks rather than trying to shove their Holier than though mentality down people's throats.

 

[Salty]

One handy dandy final EIS for the huts.

 

[peakbagger]

Thanks, it is not as good as the draft document I referred to which has a lot more detail, but at least there is something on line.

Good read for those who havent spent the time to do so in the past.