Editor's note: This updates with plans to use a helicopter to pull the trio out of the backcountry.
Winter's latest punch to the East caught three Appalachian Trail hikers in Great Smoky Mountains National Park unprepared and needing to be rescued by rangers, who called in a helicopter to lift the three out.
The three men from Gaffney, South Carolina, -- Shawn Hood, Steven White, and Jonathan Dobbins -- had set out from Fontana Dam on Thursday with plans for a ten-day hike. But last night they called rangers to say they were cold and wet and needed help as they were unable to walk and had no shelter.
Responding rangers were able to reach the trio -- all between the ages of 21 and 32 -- and brought dry clothing and tents.
"They are being treated for hypothermia and possible frostbite. All three are very weak and cannot walk," said Kent Cave, the park's supervisory ranger. "Plans have been made to extricate the hikers using a helicopter from the North Carolina Helicopter and Aquatic Rescue Team (HART) early this afternoon."
Overnight temperatures in the park were reported to be "in the single digits and winds gusting to 35 miles per hour made wind chills near 20 degrees below zero," the park reported. "Blowing snow created drifts up to two feet. Rescue efforts were hampered by weather, road, and trail conditions, as well as the remote, rugged location. The men were located some 5 miles from the nearest trailhead."
Comments
It was interesting to see a TV interview with two of these individuals, who said they'd been "planning this trip for 6 months."
Since this incident received a fair amount of media coverage, let's hope anyone else considering a similar trip was paying attention to the lessons learned. The forecast for the Smokies and southern Blue Ridge for Monday and Tuesday is as bad or worse as it was last Thursday, with snow, subzero lows, and wind chills of -30 or below expected.
One does wonder what "planning . . . for 6 months" would have meant in this case.
These are the more dramatic cases that make it easy to point fingers.The fellow on the Chilkoot trail with a pacemaker who couldn't hack the hike, probably should have had a better soul to soul with himself about 'just how wise is this'.
Much more common are the simple misfortune. Example - my wife, as a young adult, long before I met her, was on a simple day hike in Colorado and stepped in an unseen hole. Snapped her ankle and had to be carried out. Surgery left hardware in her leg to this day. She had proper boots, just had a misstep. Statistically, these are much more frequenly the case.
Yes, in the absence of relevance, there comes personal attacks. Just about what I have come to expect from the same NPS that brought you Billy Malone, Ranger Danno and Smokies Backcountry Fee scandals. It really is culturally ingrained from the agency, apparently.
Those are the more nuanced cases I had in mind, Rick. I've had a handful of similar events where, despite planning and preparedness, after a "mistake" (if one could call it that) here or there, things could have gone south pretty fast. Those "gray areas" that Edmond mentioned, in which it's not clear what constitutes a "bad situation" or even a "mistake" might be pretty hard to define.
SmokiesBackpacker, you seem to be quite an expert on back-country rescues!
The story that I saw, quoted the hikers as blaming the NPS map for erroneously misrepresenting how hard the trail was. Not sure if that's a result of their "6 months of planning" (which included "Googling" the trail), or are NPS maps really that bad? They were going up, down, and sideways! I guess any mountain trail is going to be hard when you're carrying TEN DAYS OF FOOD IN CANS.....Sadly, though, you really can't charge people for rescues like this. People, who are genuinely hurt, won't call for a rescue if they can't afford it. White Mountains, in NH, is (or was) famous for charging for "idiot" rescues, which I believe at one point they had a notice at the entrance mentioning the 12,000$ rescue "fee".
Just wondering how many people here have gone on rescues in the moutains, The Smokys are not like the Yosemite and so forth. But being on a SAR is dangerous for us that go. Any rescue can be intense or dramatic, weither bring a body down, rain and snow, having to stand in cold water to your knees to help ensure the litter gets across the log bridge. Then you have the appreciation from the elderly lady that fell and hurt her back, the small women who carries out her husband's pack and hers with no complaint, the husband who wants to buy you a beer after carrying down his injured wife, etc. There are lots of people that just are not prepared, unknowly putting themself and those that rescue them at risk. Hiker's die, hikers freeze to death, hikers fall to their death, hikers get lost. So I say thanks to those that risk their life to help really injured people to those that risk their own life. Thanks all rangers.