Story on risks of hiking the Skyline Trail

[Ed]

...but would bake instead, and that's a very long time to be out in the sun on a hot day. I don't think I would spend that much time sitting in a chair by a pool on a hot day, much less grinding my way up Skyline.

I think the fact that we live in an air conditioned environment today does give us a more cavalier attitude towards heat, and more willingness to tackle strenuous activities in the heat. When I was growing up, there was very little AC. Shade, cold drinks, and fans helped, but you really could not escape the heat. When it was hot, it was 24/7 hot, and it had a cumulative effect. After a while all you could do, or wanted to do, was slow down and dream about cooler weather. After a few days of hot weather, you had no energy and human life slowed down to a crawl. The idea of doing anything vigorous in hot weather was viewed as rather crazy since you could not end it by popping back into an air conditioned environment to cool off. Come to think of it, the idea of living in the Coachella Valley in the summer was also viewed as rather crazy by sensible people.

Sometimes I think of this when I see people striding briskly around downtown Palm Springs on a hot summer day. The landscape and other people who have to remain out in the heat to do their work are moving much more slowly, like everybody once did.

[Cy Kaicener]

What an excellent article. I posted it on facebook for better circulation.
Here is a link that has a picture of Andy Hollinger, Doreen Sabia and Scott Scott together holding a sign. These were the people I used to see every week on Skyline
http://www.palmspringslife.com/Palm-Spr ... w-Heights/

[cynthia23]

Zip and Ed make interesting points. Cy, thanks for the link to Ann Japenga's article, I hadn't read it before. I found Nathan's article to be balanced and clearly written, but I do feel uneasy with the video. I think the basic problem with anything people post about 'doing Skyline' be it video or text, is that usually only the 'successful' people post their stories. No one posts trip reports about how they got half way, got too exhausted to continue because they just weren't fit enough, and had to turn miserably home with their tail--and tale--between their legs.Have we ever had a TR from anybody who got rescued? Of course not. They're too embarrassed to post. But that's actually what we need.

Because we're only ever hearing from the fittest people, there is a kind of statistical misinformation at work here which gives readers a false impression that the trail is easy. Watching this video, you get a misleading sense that Skyline is quite doable for most people, and that it doesn't take very long. I don't know what percentage of the population are capable of doing Skyline (Iet alone doing it in summer) but I"m going to throw out my purely speculative guess that at most, two to five percent of Americans randomly taken to the Desert Museum (with proper gear and water) could make it to the tram station. I'm certain it couldn't be more, and it may well be even less. People need to understand better how very fit and 'unaverage' even 'average' SKyliners are. At the very least, I wish articles about Skyline would post a more realistic range of times so that readers could understand that while some people complete the trail in four hours, the majority take much longer, and novices often take eight to ten hours. I think more of the 'failure' stories would do more to help the uninformed understand the dangers.

But I give Nathan kudos for being thoughtful and careful in his reportage and for really making an effort to understand the story more deeply. He figuratively and literally went the extra mile ! Hopefully we'll see more from him at the Desert Sun on wilderness issues.

[Wildhorse]

A certain level of fitness is surely required to make the long uphill climb in the heat, even on cooler days. At the same time I have known people to make the trip that I would not have thought could make it because they were unfit and unprepared. Even while fitness reduces the effort and risk, it does not appear to solely account for success. Tolerance for the sun and heat seem to be determined by other biological factors as well as fitness. I think of some people who have significant aerobic limits who nevertheless achieve amazing things, either because of great skill or these other biological factors.

Regardless of a person's fitness, hiking Skyline involves much risk, especially in summer, because of the possibility that something will go wrong (e.g., an injury or illness). This is what happened to Dean Potter. As he put it, every system is flawed.

The ultimate question to me is whether the high risk is worth taking. Is the experience of Skyline worth the danger?

It is for some and not for others, for various reasons. It would interesting to hear the reasons people give.

Nathan's story did not seem to address this question. Maybe it would be a interesting sequel.

Ed's description of life in the desert before air conditioning reminds me of the risk involved when merely living in the desert in summer.

[Ed]

Cynthia certainly gave Nathan an honest account of the summer trip up the Skyline that made up her mind. Reminded me of a trip I made once. My (ex) wife and I decided to climb Rucu Pichincha (15,696'). We made a pre-dawn start from our hotel in downtown Quito and trotted briskly uphill for a few hours. Then a full-scale attack of dysentery hit me. Serious problems at both ends, please do not picture it! We made the summit late in the day, and decided to take a 'shortcut' down, with the usual results. It was around dawn when we staggered into a strange neighborhood on the outskirts of Quito, miles from where we started.

I'm posting this partly because I've made some snide remarks about people who take 'shortcuts' down. My apologies for being lofty, upon reflection I've done it a number of times, nearly always with bad results, and some considerably more dangerous than the above.

Again, my compliments to Nathan for what struck me as an excellent piece of journalism on a tricky subject. Comforting that Cy with his experience and wisdom seems to agree. But as I said before, Nathan's modesty on the video about his own level of fitness probably makes it seem too safe and routine to some.