[at-l] what i did today.

[Arthur Gaudet]

Don't look at me either! In my years hiking in the Whites (30 years this year) I
have -never- been overdue from my hikes. I may have come out of the woods as
dark was falling perhaps an hour or two later than I expected, but never spent
an unplanned night in the woods. This includes breaking an ankle on one trip,
breaking foot bones on 3 other trips, asthma attacks, bridge washouts,
unexpected weather, etc. 
 
I'm not judging the boy for his performance once he was in trouble. His skill
set kicked in nicely, good job on that. The trouble was the plan he made, I can
fault that at several points, and others should too. And it's not that he was
hiking alone, more than 90% of my hiking has been done alone and I don't have
rescue crews coming out after me. I agree with Art that the boy was 'rescued'
unnecessarily, he was doing fine on his own and would've walked his way back to
Pinkham, perhaps without even alerting the Observatory Crew of his troubles. 
 
An unwanted memory just flashed by: Around 1986 a good friend of mine made a
winter backpacking trip to the Whites, solo. He told his parents that he'd be
back a certain day and when he didn't appear that night they started to worry.
Next day they called me up to ask what they should do. Billy & I were good
friends, and he was one of my best hiking partners, we knew each other since
highschool. I said to wait another day, perhaps two, knowing that Billy was
prone to making unexpected detours & that he had phenomenal strength & skill. He
walked out on his own, at a road pretty far from his car. A year later he was
killed in a white-water accident while scouting rapids from a train trestle.
--RockDancer

  _____  

From: Jim Bullard [mailto:jim.bullard at gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 9:14 AM
To: Tom McGinnis
Cc: rockdancer97 at comcast.net; at-l at backcountry.net; Art Cloutman
Subject: Re: [at-l] what i did today.


Hey, don't look at me like that. I've never gotten myself into a predicament
like that. FCBB

Jim Bullard
http://jims-ramblings.blogspot.com/
http://members.photoportfolios.net/Jim_Bullard



On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 9:03 AM, Tom McGinnis <sloetoe at yahoo.com> wrote:



-- On Wed, 4/29/09, Art Cloutman <Art at crystalacresnh.com> wrote:

> He knows a lot about hiking and camping but
> made a mistake in judgement.  Of course none of us
> have ever done that.
>

### Great line, Gabby. And nooooo, none of us.


infallitoe


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