Yet another Skyline rescue 6/10/10

[OtherHand]

They started at 1 AM and by the time they had called for help around 4 PM they had only made it to the 4,400 foot level. They ran out of water as they only had about 3 liters each. Their knowledge of Skyline was from a book they had read and thought it would be fun. They were picked up by an RMRU team that descended the entire Skyline Trail in the dark, meeting up with a DSAR team at the picnic tables to help bring them the rest of the way down.

[cynthia23]

You mean it took them FIFTEEN hours to get to 4400 feet?? Even I'm faster than that! I could do it in well under eleven! Seriously, how is that possible? Did they get off on some very long detour, or stop and sleep, or just fall into some kind of coma? I don't see how a fifteen hour pace is possible. Unless you were literally crawling--and presumably if you were, you'd crawl back down--I can't see how this can be done. I suppose if you were extremely frail or out of shape, it could take you as long as six hours, but I can't fathom much more. I would be very interested to know what they were doing in this fifteen hour period. I hope it was something fun!

[Phil B]

I ran into the SAR guys coming down with the two kids it was about 3.45am Friday morning and I was on my C2C pilgrimage when I saw their headlamps coming towards me, we briefly exchanged a few words and despite having been out since 9pm the night before, having located the two kids(who looked in fairly good shape,considering) and trekking all the way back to the museum I was struck by what a good attitude they seemed to have. We are lucky to have them, way to go guys.

Oh yeah, the trail up to San J was pretty easy, the snow melt higher up is really on now, and crampons are not really needed during the day.

Cheers,
Phil

[DSSAR guy]

Great job hiking that alone, I couldn't help but think after seeing you we mite be heading back up there soon lol. I think you spoke to rmrupete. The male subject looked like he was using a 4500+cu in pack and his legs were wobbling like jello, I had my hand out a few times getting ready to grab him before rolling down the hill.

I went up to the peak today, no real need for snow gear especially when I can use my ass for a sled with all that snow =)

[cynthia23]

Thank you for all your hard work, DSSAR. I can't even imagine the amount of injury and death we'd see out there without the incredible efforts of the SAR people. Thank you! And now, not to belabor this point, but I'm seriously/perversely interested--do you know why it took them fifteen hours to get up to five thousand feet? Even with an extremely large or heavy pack, even with people who were out of shape or unprepared, it still seems like an impossibly slow pace. And the trail is fairly obvious to that point, so it doesn't sound like they got lost. Did they offer any explanation of what they had been doing all that time or how they got into trouble? For some reason (idle curiosity, I suppose, but also I am always interested in avoiding the mistakes others have made) I find this story puzzling--I'd like to know more about what went wrong for them. I'd appreciate any info you can ethically/appropriately share. And thank you, again.

[Cy Kaicener]

I am also curious to know why.
Yesterday on Mt Shasta there were five separate rescues
http://www.shastaavalanche.org/advisori ... g-advisory (scroll down to Update June 12)

[cynthia23]

Thank you, Cy, I thought I was the only one puzzling my brain over this one! (and how are you? Long time no see!)

[bluerail]

You mean it took them FIFTEEN hours to get to 4400 feet?? Even I'm faster than that! I could do it in well under eleven! Seriously, how is that possible? Did they get off on some very long detour, or stop and sleep, or just fall into some kind of coma? I don't see how a fifteen hour pace is possible. Unless you were literally crawling--and presumably if you were, you'd crawl back down--I can't see how this can be done.

Two steps forward and three steps back....all the way up.

[RMRUpete]

RMRU WEB site updated with more detail information on Skyline Hikers.
ALso a second mission for a lost hiker on San Jacinto who hiked in a large circle to get back to the Tramway.

[cynthia23]

Just read the RMRU report--good grief! You guys had to go all the way down Skyline, then go back up and hunt for another person--what an ordeal! Going down Skyline is much worse than going up. As for the poor benighted lost hikers--well, what can one say? Res ipse locutor, as the lawyers say. "the thing speaks for itself". Four hours to the picnic tables!!! Bringing heavy camping gear up Skyline ... setting up a tarp and sitting under it for several hours .... but actually, if you had no knowledge of the trail or area at all, I suppose one might do these things. What I'm curious about is the book they said they read about Skyline--the only book I know of which mentions SKyline is Ferranti's, and while he isn't very detailed in his description, I think he does give plenty of warnings about the difficulty of it.

Well, hopefully these kids have learned a 'valuable life lesson'--and thanks to the efforts of RMRU and DSSAR, they are still alive to learn it ...thank you again SAR folks for your heroic efforts ...