The other night my unit got paged out for a couple of hikers who were benighted on a popular hike. They had a Lat/Long location off of the cell phone and this was looking like a pretty straight forward, “Snatch & Grab” mission. The cell phone location put them at 3,800 ft. elevation and in thick timber; though they reported they were on a boulder field. The trail starts at 1,000 ft elevation and gains 3,800 ft. to the summit (4,800 ft.) in about 2.5 miles.
There of course were a couple of issues. The weather had gotten worse and it was now raining and cold. The hikers did not have rain gear, or flashlights/headlamps. On the way there I was managed to grab a couple of spare Gore-Tex jackets and two extra balaclavas. I was also thinking that these guys were probably going to be pretty cold with the temperature at 48 degrees and dropping.
I was the first to the trailhead, signed in and began up the trail. With the urgency of hypothermia in my mind I started off at a faster pace than I normally do for this hike. BTW, I hiked up the same trail the day before. Not only did my legs feel heavy from the previous day’s hike, but I had just finished dinner when the pager went off so I had a full stomach. While trying to hustle up the trail, I got to taste supper a couple times and at one point thought I might and actually hoped I would lose it. Everything stayed down and I managed to finally get into a reasonable pace, eventually reaching the stranded couple in a respectable time.
The hikers were about 50 yards off of the trail on a boulder field. Their actual elevation was 4080 ft. about 280 ft higher than the cell location. They were damp and cold so I offered both subjects a jacket and a balaclava but only the female subject accepted. I gave them headlamps, checked their vitals and we were back on the trail hiking down within 15 minutes. I keep thinking this should have been faster.
All in all a pretty straight forward mission, I only wish I had not had that second helping of squash.
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