Hiker dies from heat while hiking Palm Springs Trail 6/29/15

[cynthia23]

I don't think I agree with that, Ed. The husband was hospitalized as well, and they were out exercising for 3 hours in temps that went from mid to high eighties to 100 with constant radiant energy beaming down on them (no shade on that trail and very exposed to morning light, which is why I don't do it in summer)--that would be enough to give even a very fit person heat exhaustion. I (a " moderately" fit person) would certainly become ill with heat exhaustion from that. We'll have to wait for further info but I think she actually did die from heat exhaustion--though it's probably true that a fit, younger person would only become ill and not actually die.

The paper today had more info about the poor lady--she was a teacher at a secondary school in Scotland and the mother of 3 (adult) children, two of whom are flying out here.

[Wildhorse]

About 150,000 people died on Monday. We are writing about one of those deaths because it happened to a person hiking at a place where we hike. We are her survivors in that sense.

Last night I was reading a cryptic fictional work by Mildred Aldrich, an American living in France in 1914 at the beginning of WWI. A doctor character remarked, "Where we die, or when is a trifle, since die we must. But why we die and how is vital. It is not only vital to the man that goes – it is vital to the race." I think on one level he meant that it was the context in which death comes that matters, and how we are living that matters. But on another level he was simply stating the questions we ask when someone dies: why and how? But also, as we can see in our own reaction to a hiker's death on Monday, where and when can also matter.

The newspaper article provides something like a final professional resume for the hiker who died on South Lykken Monday and suggests that the why and how of her death was heat and a lack of water. That information is not enough to answer our questions. In a way, all of us who live in the desert live on mechanical life support. The air in our cars and homes and offices is mechanically cooled to a safe and comfortable level. The water is mechanically pumped to us from deep in the ground or from distant rivers. Without these machines, few of us would survive very long at all in the desert. And we are risking death from heat and lack of water every day that we live in the desert. It does not take long for a body to die there, if the machines fail.

As a young man, I read Eugene O'Neill's play, A Great God Brown, and since then, whenever I think of life and death, I think about the words of Dion Anthony to Billy Brown just before Dion died: "I've loved, lusted, won and lost, sang and wept! I've been life's lover! I've fulfilled her will and if she's through with me now it's only because I was too weak to dominate her in turn. It isn't enough to be her creature, you've got to create her or she requests you to destroy yourself."

I hike to create life, or, rather, to be part of the life that is nature itself. It is a love and lust. In the end I know that I will be "too weak to dominate her." It happened to the woman who died Monday on the Lykken Trail.

[Ed]

You make a convincing case, Cynthia. Though I am still inclined to believe that there was some factor in addition to the heat to produce not only collapse but death in such a short period of time. But I am no medical expert, I am one of those people who actually prefers to be ignorant about medicine.

[cynthia23]

Ken, what a poetic and thoughtful post. You're always truly thought-provoking. You're absolutely right that most of us, myself certainly included, could not survive here without a lot of technological assistance. We live in a very artificial environment which protects us from the true surrounding environment. I may have my political differences with the Agua Caliente Indians here, but I have major respect for the fact that they managed to live here for hundreds of years with only very simple technologies. The fact that they learned to find enough to eat and drink here is amazing. Now, we've lost that local knowledge of survival in this severe biome. I often wonder how we here in the desert would fare in the event of a major earthquake, bad enough to cut power and water, during the summer.

Ed, I don't pretend to medical knowledge either and do agree with you that it's likely she had some underlying health issues--or simply, a lack of fitness--that made her more likely than you and me to die under heat stress. But I'm always concerned that people give due respect to how dangerous the heat, alone, actually is.

While it's certainly true this woman's sad death causes deeper existential thoughts about life, death, and human's place in the natural world, on the most practical level, I really do think that local authorities need to be much more explicit and advise (or,perhaps in the case of Skyline, tell) tourists and out of towners not to hike here during the summer months--not just give vague advice to 'be cautious'. It's just too dangerous for non-locals, and it's as simple as that, really.

[momphrare]

(Ed / Everyone)
You can get a Heat Stroke in a very short amount of time depending on how much your exerting your body. As we all know our normal temperatures are around 98.6 degrees. When we become active that temperature will rise causing Hyperthermia. If the temperature outside is 100 degrees then the radiating temperatures off the granite can be as high as 130 degrees. The body will go beyond Hyperthermia into heat exhaustion after 100 degrees till 104 degrees. I know we have all felt what that is like. Once the body reaches 105 degrees you are having a heat stroke and can go unconscious, which is your bodies attempt to stay alive. Once her body shut down she was not cooling down fast enough which could have caused permanent damage and later led to her death.

Not saying there wasn't some other variable that caused the heat stroke, but any normal person with out the correct amount of water or clothing to cool their body and stay hydrated could easily have a heat stroke within 30 min to 1 hour let alone 3 hours. I've hydrated and rescued numerous people on the Skyline Route up to the tram station while working in Search and Rescue and have dealt with this personally while living the majority of my active life in the Coachella Valley.

I respect this forum a great deal and rather enjoy what takes place here. We really need to focus on informing people of the dangers this desert has to offer this time of year.
Hyperthermia, Heat Exhaustion, and Heat Stroke are very serious hazards this time of year when people don't bring the proper gear/food/water.

I know most of you post here regularly and I hope we can all try to make less experienced hikers on this forum more aware.

-jN

[cynthia23]

Thanks for that info, Momphrare--you obviously know a lot about this topic. One thing I'd ask for your additional comments on is the issue of water. Obviously, having enough is essential and helps keep your body functioning, but isn't it also true that beyond a certain point, you can't drink enough to prevent heat stroke? Sometimes I meet people who believe that if they just have enough water, they are magically protected from heat stroke, and I don't believe that's true. They'll say things like "Oh, I'll be fine doing Skyline in summer and leaving at 8 am, because I'm carrying a large amount of water." I think that if the heat is high enough and you are strenuously exerting yourself, that no matter how much you hydrate, you will still get heat stroke. Or, you'll get heat stroke plus hyponatremia. The only way I could see water directly preventing heat stroke would be if you had enough to continuously spray yourself down--which, barring a 11 miles-long garden hose, doesn't sound feasible. However, I'd like to hear an expert's opinion, so could you weigh in on this, Momphrare?

And thank you so, so much for your work as a SAR person. We're very grateful.

[zippetydude]

Hi Momphrare.

I didn't realize it could come on that fast either. Seemingly all of a sudden, that I understood, but I thought that was only after a gradual failing of the system to keep up. To crash and burn in as little as 30 minutes is amazing.

Still, silly me, I should have known this. Once, a few summers ago, I was staying the weekend in Palm Springs and decided to go for a run one morning when it was a little over a hundred degrees. I had no expectations of speed or distance, I was just curious how my body would react. I went about 1/2 mile and was surprised to find that I was already starting to seriously overheat. Of course, I was only doing it as an experiment, there was absolutely no need or desire to push it, so I sat down in the sprinklers on the lawn in front of an apartment complex and cooled off good and proper, then walked back. The whole run was less than 5 minutes, and I would say I could easily have been in real danger by the 10 minute mark. You're totally right. It is a real and very pressing danger.

Incidentally, you also mentioned hypothermia. There was a strange case this past winter where a mountain biker crashed on a different Skyline trail, the one over in Corona, and he was injured so that he could not self-rescue, but he did not die of his injuries. He died of hypothermia in a cold rainstorm, not even in snow or ice. These risks are sneaky sometimes.

z

[halhiker]

I don't think the effects of being in the direct sunlight can be underestimated. I've hiked comfortably in temps of up to 113º but while doing that I was in the shade because the sun had already passed behind the hill. On other days I've found temperatures of "only" 100º to be very taxing and uncomfortable due to the fact that I was in full sun at the time.

Also, the lack of acclimatization of someone visiting from Scotland surely contributed to this tragedy. I remember a few years ago a couple visiting from Europe died in Joshua Tree on a day that many desert dwellers would consider moderate by our standards.

Heat illness—even if it doesn't result in death—is nothing to be trifled with. One episode of heat illness can have lifetime consequences. I, for one, will not recommend for anyone to go hiking here in the summer unless it's at the Tram. There are some things a person shouldn't trifle with.

[Wildhorse]

Even in mild San Diego, exertion in the sun can cause overheating and dehydration. People die from it in San Diego too. Many others are rescued before the last minute. At the same time, hikers are seen not even carrying a drop of water with them, not even a drop for their poor dogs. This is unquestionably foolish of the people, and cruelty to dogs.

Some people hold up better than others. Some that usually hold up, fail unexpectedly.

On one hand, we all see a lot of naivety on the trails and in the sun. On the other hand, we live in a time when we are cautioned about sun so much, about skin damage and cancer, overheating and dehydration, and about the dangers of all sports, that one can become afraid to step out of the air conditioned interior shade. I see that more often than hiking deaths and rescues. With the exception of summer hiking in the desert, I favor taking a careful chance with the sun and a mountain. It is more blessing than curse.

[scotts]

It used to be conjectured, for example, that exercise without hydration bred toughness and demonstrated fitness and character. Well, in an unforgiving environment, any training effect can quickly morph into a struggle for survival. Any growth through suffering quickly turns to mortification of the flesh.

People who don't know themselves well yet attempt to transcend physiological and environmental reality according to this ideal, in a season/place as harsh as the one encountered by this couple, would seem to be headed for trouble on a regular basis.

It's senseless and heartbreaking.