

Waiting for the Rangers

I was thankful to be in a shelter last night since a nasty thunderstorm rolled through here. The thunder rumbled, the rain beat down on the metal shelter roof, and the wind howled. I was snug and dry in my bag.

Samson and I did our normal thing and hit the trail around 7:00. We hiked 3 miles through a cold fog to Spence Field Shelter. When we got to the shelter to eat breakfast, some hiker came out and asked, "are you the Rangers?" It turned out that we walked right into the middle of a life threatening situation.

Late last night a Dad, his son, and son-in-law arrived at Derrick Knob Shelter soaking wet and chilled after getting caught in the storm. They were out for a weekend hike and had reservations

for the Spence Field Shelter. The hikers at Derrick Knob got them dried out and somewhat warmed up. Then they stupidly decided to move on in the dark to Spence Field Shelter wich was over 6 miles away. Well, the Dad never made it, he made it to the top of Thunderhead Mountain (5527') when hypothermia made it impossible to move on. One of the members of the party stayed with the Dad while the other one moved on to get help. The one who went to get help fell and bruised his knee and couldn't go on. After the one who stayed with the Dad realized that help just wasn't coming, he set out to find help. He made it to the shelter at 4:00 AM, about 4 hours before we got there. He was in serious trouble and had a hard time letting them know what was going on. Once the hikers realized that there was 2 others still up on the mountain, they called 911 and got a mountain rescue operation going. Then four college age guys decided to go look for the two missing hikers, but they didn't take any extra gear along. They found the one with the hurt knee, and two of them went back down the mountain to the shelter with him and built a fire and covered him with all the extra sleeping bags they could find. The two others that kept going could not find the Dad, they ended up at Derrick Knob where one of them had to stay because he was exhausted and mildly hyperthermic. The other one was doing ok, so he got a small jet-boil stove and a few other items from hikers at the shelter, then headed back up the mountain to resume the search for the Dad. He found him on the top of Thunderhead Mountain in bad shape. He had crawled off the trail under some bushes and tried to stay warm with his 40 degree sleeping bag. At that point he was barely responding anymore. He tried to cover him up with stuff out of the Dad's pack and at some point tried to make something with the donated jet boil stove.

When we got to the shelter and they found out we are going that way they asked if we could look for the Dad and the two guys that went looking for them. We got some contact phone numbers from people at the shelter and got some of the numbers they were using to communicate with the Ranger rescue party, then we set off up the mountain. It was foggy and cold, the mist was freezing on the trees and the wind was whipping the branches around and knocking the ice off the branches. Sometimes it felt like walking into a sleet storm. About a mile or two up the mountain we found an empty sleeping bag and a backpack with its contents strewn all over the place. We thought that this was probably the Dad's stuff, so we looked around for him. After a fruitless search we decided to try calling back to the shelter. We didn't have service all day yesterday, but somehow the call got through. They told us not to worry about the bag, because that was the son's bag and they had him at the shelter and we're trying to warm him up. So, up the mountain we went for almost another mile till we found the Dad and one of the rescuers who found him. The Dad was responding but was shivering uncontrollably. The rescuer was huddled under the same bag and was trying to keep his act together. The Dad had soaking wet shoes and socks on and was laying on the ground covered with sleeping bags. We both got our sleeping bags and sleeping pads set up and worked at getting the Dad out of his wet shoes and socks and into our dry ones. We slid him inside Samson's thermal vapor barrier and put him inside my 12° bag. Then we put the rescuer into Samson's 10° bag and put them next to each other and covered them up with any extra stuff we could find. They were both talking, but shivering. Now all we had to do was wait for the Rangers that were on the way. Well, we waited and waited, finally we decided that one of us has to go back to the shelter to see what's taking them so long since we were not able to make any kind of connection with either of our phones. I ended up going back while Samson stayed with the victims. After I got back to the shelter and was there for a little while, the Rangers showed up on horses. There was three horses, two Rangers with there medical gear and another person. The first thing they did was get the son and son-in-law stabilized. They wrapped them up in extra clothes they brought, checked their vitals, gave them IVs, etc. They decided that the two at the shelter were in good enough shape to be taken down the mountain on horses. The Rangers were going to go up the mountain with me while the third person would take the two down to the road where they had arranged ambulances to meet them. It would be an hour or two ride down the mountain on horseback. They tied one horse to the saddle of another horse and decided to lead them under the shelter overhang where there was a bench so that they could get the evacuees on the horses. Well, as the horses were being led under the overhang the back horse spooked and reared back yanking the metal deep ring right off of the saddle and started running off into the woods. They quickly tied the other horse to the support column of the shelter and ran to catch the runaway horse. When they caught the horse and were leading him back the horse that was tied spooked and tore his bridle and ran off. After both horses were brought back and the bridle was repaired they started loading one of the guys. They got the guy on the horse and started leading him out from under the overhang, I yelled for him to duck and he did. They would have slammed the poor guy's head right into the beam of the overhang if he wouldn't have ducked. For some reason they decided that it might be better to load the next guy alongside a log that was not under the overhang. Finally they got everything together and the procession started down the mountain. Now I needed to take the remaining two Rangers up the mountain where the others were waiting. Horses were not an option where we were going. It took us about an hour to get back up there. Other hikers had helped move the two people that were in bags down to an open spot so they could be airlifted. Once the Rangers got there they set up their own pads and warming bags for the victims, called in a chopper, and gave us our gear back.

We finally left there around 3:00, went to the next shelter and called it a day. We talked to some other hikers who stayed there for a while longer and they said it was going to go another hour or so till the chopper gets there. 12 hours after the 911 call was placed everyone was safely off the mountain.

These mountains are beautiful, but the weather can change fast. One day you can be in shorts and tee shirts, the next day you might be in twenty degree weather. Keep your winter gear with you, and take proper gear and supplies when helping someone or you may be the one needing help.