Tragic story of hikers dying from hiking in NM desert

[Wildhorse]

Ed- the website linked above says that on the nine day route, only a few people don't make it. They seem to have trouble on the six and seven day trips. They make it clear that this will be a problem for a lot of people on the shorter hikes. It seems that the shorter/trips may be more popular than the longer ones because they are less expensive and fit more easily into a vacation week. The information describes the longest route as the best scenery and experience.

I have read that someone has run up and down in less than seven hours. I would love to have that body.

[cynthia23]

I'd like to at least borrow it from time to time, Wildhorse

But from my largely armchair knowledge of the subject, there is tremendous individual variance in altitude tolerance, and the odd thing is that it's not really correlated with fitness or lung capacity. It seems to be very much genetic. Personally, I start feeling really crummy any time after 9000 feet, and my sister gets a nasty headache just from driving up to Idyllwild. I hardly ever take the tram up because it's so unpleasant being suddenly swooshed up eight thousand feet.

Back somewhat to the topic of the Kern River, I suppose it's true that wilderness recreation is already completely commercialized and as ruthless as any other form of capitalism. After all, drug company executives don't lose sleep over medications that kill some people, people who manufacture plastics know they produce carcinogens, etc. But to directly intervene to prevent a sign from being posted that would save lives? That seems so coldly ruthless that I would have thought most normal people would flinch. But I guess not.

[Hikin_Jim]

Sometimes I think it's just beyond the comprehension of some people what desert hot really is -- until they've experienced it for themselves. It's almost like explaining the color green to a blind man. It just doesn't register.

I remember one time on a hike when I found I just couldn't cool down -- not by resting, not by getting in the shade, not by drinking water. It was frightening. I finally crawled into a creek which thank God was there. Even that took a while before I felt normal again. Danged scary.

HJ

[cynthia23]

Wow, that does sound very scary, HJ. It brings home the point, though, that beyond a certain point, the body can't cool down except by physically putting it in a different environment--i.e. an air-conditioned space, or in your case, a creek, which dropped your skin temperature enough that you could recover. Needless to say most desert hikes don't offer bodies of water. And just carrying a lot of water isn't enough to keep you from over-heating, unless you've got enough water on your back to fill a pool.

[Ed]

I remember one time on a hike when I found I just couldn't cool down -- not by resting, not by getting in the shade, not by drinking water. It was frightening. I finally crawled into a creek which thank God was there. Even that took a while before I felt normal again. Danged scary.

A good warning, HJ. It has not happened to me yet, but believe me I am not discounting it. I think small differences of which we are scarcely aware can trigger over-the-edge impacts which are not in the reasonable range of forecasted outcomes

I have, by the way, experienced a few hot summer days on Baldy and San Gorgonio where I felt more heat-blasted and crispy-cooked than I have so far on Skyline. On summer hikes on Baldy, San Jacinto and San Gorgonio, I'm often stunned by the people I see coming up the trail in the late afternoon in the heat, often with heavy packs and dogs, and often planning to camp in waterless places. I always fear for the dogs.

[cynthia23]

Yes, that harkens back to Wildhorse's surprising point about the number of dogs who have died of heat and dehydration 'just' hiking Cowles. Speaking as someone who owns four dogs--dogs really don't belong on most longer hikes. It's more about a fantasy of the owner, imagining that dogs (a completely domesticated animal) somehow enjoy or need wilderness in the way that we do. Dogs on narrow mountain trails endanger other hikers and themselves, with overheating, rattlesnakes, etc. I think people also fantasize that their dogs will 'protect' them from predators like mountain lions, but it's more likely that these predators will be attracted to you by the presence of small animals, and even the nastiest pit bull or Alsatian is no match for a mountain lion or bear. Take the dogs to a dog park, and hike without them.