by Ed » Thu Dec 07, 2017 2:59 pm
Ellen and Others,
The thing that I find unsettling about my two experiences are that the Big Three on Skyline are (a) elevation gain, (b) heat and (c) snow. But heat and snow were absolute non-issues in both cases, and there was no reason to expect that elevation gain would be a problem for either party, given prior experience. It was frustrating dealing with 911, and everybody seems to have had similar experiences. Also no surprise that a helicopter can have problems spotting you. I had a similar experience on Long's Peak in Colorado once, under much better conditions: a couple of dozen people waving and yelling on green open slopes, dressed in the yellow, red, orange, etc. parkas popular at the time. Yet, while I was not keeping track of time, I doubt that more than three hours passed between when I first called and when we arrived at the desert tram station, which I thought was very impressive. I was initially concerned that we might run out of daylight.
CatB,
Thanks again! I drove up to collect our trekking poles yesterday. They had two pairs of poles, but not ours. I left my name, phone number, and a description of the poles. They called today to say they had located them. I will pick them up tomorrow, they are closing today for some event.