Tram to Summit Hiker shows up -- in Pine Cove

[Hikin_Jim]

Hiker Missing From San Jacinto Peak

May 20, 2008
San Jacinto Peak
2008-020

RMRU was called out to search for a hiker who made it to San Jacinto Peak, but got lost finding his way back to the Palm Springs Tram. With search teams en route the hiker showed up at Pine Cove Market, on the opposite side of the mountain from his intended destination.

I hear stories like the one quoted above (it seems like) all the time. I just boggles my mind. How do people wind up going the wrong way so frequently? I guess they must not be familiar with basic "terrain observation" (watching for landmarks as you go so you can find your way back) let alone map & compass. The summit block has no clear trail, so I'm sure that's part of it, but still it surprises me. If one were walking with the sun generally behind them in the morning, would it not seem strange that the sun is now going down also in front of them in the afternoon?

Well, I guess I shouldn't get too flabbergasted. I'm a little unusual having grown up with this stuff.

You mean not everyone grew up with a dad who did XC routes to 14'ers? You mean it's not normal to read a topo map at age 7? What??

[Rick M]

Jim, you’re right about the top of the summit not having a trail and with the snow still up there with footprints all over compounds the chance of getting disoriented. One of the times I’ve hiked up to the summit after an all nighter, I took a nap and woke up to what I thought was Jesus standing on the summit with angels flying around him . Clearing my eyes and shaking my head it turned out to be a man with a beard and religious like garb who hiked up there for Easter and the “angels” was a white glider that happened to be circling right above him. Weird.

Back to the topic, I put my pack on and started back to the hut and walked down what was the west side a hundred feet or so before realizing I was going the wrong way . And I’ve been up there numerous times. Without a trail or tracks in the snow it’s possible to get disoriented and go the wrong way. Not being familiar with basic “terrain observation” or if the sun has gone down and you’re navigating in the dark can make it difficult.

As strange as this may seem, I’ve known people to get lost with fresh snow on the ground and finding the lost individual was simply following their tracks. Why it didn’t occur to the individual to simply turn around and follow his or her own tracks out is puzzling. Perhaps a lack of experience? Panic setting in? Sometimes the difference between a person surviving or not depends more on their mental processing and the decisions they make and not the equipment they’re carrying. I remember being in a highly respected survival class and the instructor gave out a scenario and list of items that we were to evaluate as important or not. After listening to people giving their ratings and such and then him shooting things down and giving his “ratings and rational” I had to cut in with the fact that they selected the things and uses based on their present knowledge and his ratings/uses were for his knowledge.

Part of his example: you’re stranded in the desert and one item was a 250-page book on wild edible plants. Most people would rate it as important to find things to eat or burn the book for warmth/signaling. He said the book was useless since food was not a priority and they might waste time looking and a book would not burn for long compared to other things you could find in the desert. I countered that I might use it to spell out a giant HELP using the contrasting pages on the ground with small rocks on top to hold them in place or as a wadded up pile ready when needed as a big signal fire or as something to read while waiting in the shade during the heat of the day. I’m sure that many of those on this site could also think of other things for the book .

Wow, reading topos at age seven . When I taught middle school one of the projects I had my students do was make three-dimensional relief maps (cut out of cardboard) and make the paper topo map that matches their 3-D map. Since I had been criticized about not using the computer lab much or being computer savvy (bought my first computer in 1982), I signed up for a two-day block in the lab. My students were to construct, using the Claris Works drawing program, a topo map that had a minimum of three peaks with one that had at least 5 index contours, streams with the crossing contour line Vs correctly pointing upstream, a lake, road, etc. Then make a profile of a line across any two of their three peaks, and describe the easiest route up the highest peak and the hardest way (neglecting possible real life vegetation). Even I was amazed with the results . Some of the students even put in things like a compass rose, borders with lat/longs, intermittent streams, etc that actually looked like a USGS topo map. And all this from a low income low achieving school with a majority of minority students .

The computer lab instructor and his aids asked me to come in and show them how to do these things because they had never done anything like that before and couldn’t help the students with the project the first time I did this. Every time I used the computer lab for different projects with my students I had this same thing occur. The aids told me I was the only teacher, in their opinions, that had students use the computers on projects that taught students new things and skills and not simply word processing, web surfing as a reward, or playing math games that so many other teachers used the lab for.

For the students able to go, we would do weekend trips to the mountains and desert for navigation and survival skills, rock climbing and rappelling (got in trouble when district administrators saw pictures of my students hanging on ropes off cliffs in the yearbook), underground lava tube exploring, etc. I must say I don’t blame a lot of students for not liking school when I see what many have to go through. Don’t get me wrong. I love books. I own more books than many school libraries. I have bookcases in every room in the house. I used textbooks in class only because there is millions of dollars in tax money earmarked for textbooks but little for other things. Many teachers use the text and "worksheets" as 100% of their instruction and then test students to death…boring. And with all this NCLB and state standards, that’s all many students get: standard/test, standard/test, standard/test… I don’t have anything against the standards or tests but the way they are now being pushed and presented to get "school scores" up. Seems like we defeated communism with our creativity only to now adopt their way of education. A lot of it has to do with many teachers in the past not teaching but collecting a paycheck and complaining about not being paid enough. Sorry, rambling soapbox now. Such great weather now, I wish I could go hike instead of a meeting at 11 and 4.

[Bivouac]

We have a few wonderful mountain races in Alaska. During two of these races i have seen dehydration and exposure take out the best... disorientation had them going up instead of down, or way off trail. They had no clue where they were or what they had done until we found them and got them re-hydrated.

It's humbling to see experienced eco-challenge people, individuals who could survive under the most arduous conditions racing across hundreds of miles of Alaska terrain in these out and out survival races, simply bonk on a 10 mile trail and get lost.

Can happen to anyone for sure.

sid

[Rob]

.... When I taught middle school ....

Rick M, too bad you're not teaching anymore.

[Cy Kaicener]

It seems like some climbers got lost just hiking back from Tahquitz Rock.
http://www.rmru.org/missions/2008/2008-022.html

[Hikin_Jim]

Back to the topic, I put my pack on and started back to the hut and walked down what was the west side a hundred feet or so before realizing I was going the wrong way . And I’ve been up there numerous times. Without a trail or tracks in the snow it’s possible to get disoriented and go the wrong way. Not being familiar with basic “terrain observation” or if the sun has gone down and you’re navigating in the dark can make it difficult.

It's the overall frequency, the fact that it occurs so often in the daytime (with the absence of fog, snow, storm, etc.), and that people get so dad gum far off track that gets me. Of course, now that I've said that, I'll be the target of the next SAR operation (in ridiculously simple circumstances: Long Valley within sight of the tram while leading a Girl Scout troop). We've all had our bad days and our "what was I thinking?" moments. Every person we read about on the RMRU site who "cliffs out" going down Tahquitz Cr or the like is one more reminder to redouble our own diligence.

As strange as this may seem, I’ve known people to get lost with fresh snow on the ground and finding the lost individual was simply following their tracks. Why it didn’t occur to the individual to simply turn around and follow his or her own tracks out is puzzling. Perhaps a lack of experience? Panic setting in?

There's a book out called Deep Survival that is worth a read. People often get this idea fixated in their heads, "if I can just get to the car (boat, ranger station, road, etc.), I'll be OK." They're scared, and they get fixated on that one thought which helps them to not totally "lose it." While it does sort of control panic, it unfortunately doesn't really allow thought. One can get so fixated on the car, the lights of civilization below, etc, that one overlooks the obvious (hmm, I wasn't lost 30 minutes ago, I'm in fresh snow, and mine are the only tracks around, maybe I could just retrace...)

I've seen several survival presentations that say the first thing to do when you realize you're in a pickle is to S.T.O.P. (Stop, Think, Observe, Plan). There's an interesting free video here: http://www.bushcraft.se/film/index.html.en It's best to download the subtitles for it (unless you speak Swedish).

Wow, reading topos at age seven . When I taught middle school one of the projects I had my students do was make three-dimensional relief maps (cut out of cardboard) and make the paper topo map that matches their 3-D map. Since I had been criticized about not using the computer lab much or being computer savvy (bought my first computer in 1982), I signed up for a two-day block in the lab. My students were to construct, using the Claris Works drawing program, a topo map that had a minimum of three peaks with one that had at least 5 index contours, streams with the crossing contour line Vs correctly pointing upstream, a lake, road, etc. Then make a profile of a line across any two of their three peaks, and describe the easiest route up the highest peak and the hardest way (neglecting possible real life vegetation). Even I was amazed with the results . Some of the students even put in things like a compass rose, borders with lat/longs, intermittent streams, etc that actually looked like a USGS topo map. And all this from a low income low achieving school with a majority of minority students .

Yes, it is amazing what people will do given a little bit of freedom and exposure to something interesting in the real world.

For the students able to go, we would do weekend trips to the mountains and desert for navigation and survival skills, rock climbing and rappelling (got in trouble when district administrators saw pictures of my students hanging on ropes off cliffs in the yearbook), underground lava tube exploring, etc. I must say I don’t blame a lot of students for not liking school when I see what many have to go through.

Yeah, I remember when things were a lot more relaxed and people were'nt so paranoid about lawsuits. Now people freak at the least amount of exposure to risk, and who can blame them given our litigious society? It seems like the courts don't have their feet firmly planted on the ground. Risk just is. We don't exist in a vacuum. Everytime someone is injured, that injury does not necessarily indicate negligence. I don't know what the right balance (strict liablility vs. assumption of risk) is or how to get there, but the current legal climate seems to have a "chilling effect" on many things that might get kids off their game boys and interested in life and the world. The world's a big place with vast storehouses of mystery waiting to be delved into by inquisitive young minds. (OK, I'll step down from my idealistic soap box now).

Seems like we defeated communism with our creativity only to now adopt their way of education.

That's a very powerful insight, I think. Not that I wish for the return of the Cold War, but in a way it was good for the country. All that money we put into the space race and into DARPA research as well as into technical education paid off in spades in my opinion. Absent the Cold War, I think we're a bit more complacent. How would JF Kennedy's famous "we choose to go to the moon by the end of the decade" speech play today? I wonder if there would even be any interest.

A lot of it has to do with many teachers in the past not teaching but collecting a paycheck and complaining about not being paid enough. Sorry, rambling soapbox now. Such great weather now, I wish I could go hike instead of a meeting at 11 and 4.

Interesting that you say that. When I was in jr. high, all of the older teachers about to retire were WWII vets. There was a very different spirit about them, a spirit of independence that couldn't be quenched. They had gone through the depression and the war and had seen what it takes to get things done. You couldn't put a lot of BS on them. I think they knew the cost of BS from their war time experience. The succeding generation didn't have that fiestyness to them. The succeeding generation seemed to accept bureaucratic nonsense in a passive, fatalistic sort of way that the earlier generation seemed to say "yeah, right" about. There was about them, the WWII generation , a sense that "we've got to get things done, and we don't have time to monkey around with a lot of BS." Would that that spirit were alive today. It seems like initiative and good judgement are now foreign concepts, as are maturity and responsibility.

[tkestas]

On Sat. May 31 we summited via 7 Pines Trail. On our way back down through Little Round Valley...approximately 3pm...we met a couple hikers whom we earlier saw descending from the summit blocks on our way up (we spent quite some time at the summit). They had taken the wrong trail all the way through LRV and were on their way back up. We were astounded by this. It was such a blantant error in judgement that it was almost comical..except it wasn't. It wasn't deadly serious but it could have been had it gotten dark on them. They surely weren't prepared to bivy.

People like this really up the costs for the others that are knowledgable and responsible.

I've read that in Oregon the Sheriff's Dep't will fine you $500 in a SAR situation if you don't have a working cell phone, a topo of the area and a compass. San Jacinto SP gives out very nice topos for free. Given the number of SAR's in the San Jacinto area they should really institute a similar policy...perhaps even more stringent.

[Hikin_Jim]

Yeah, it trips me out how many people get misoriented under clear skies during daylight. I totally get it when people get turned around in the dark, fog, snow, rain, etc.

Seems like the trailess summit block is a place of frequent mis-orientation. I half wonder if it wouldn't be worth it to mark the route. I'd prefere to leave it in it's natural state, but with people getting mis oriented so frequently ... ??? Just thinking out loud here.