Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Hiker dies in White Mountains of New Hampshire

http://nypost.com/2015/02/17/new-york-hiker-freezes-to-death-in-new-hampshire-mountains/

Pretty sad. You have to feel for her family and the rescue workers.

Looks like the girl had some spunk! She just bit off a bit more than she could chew.

God speed.

Her husband was VP of Morgan Chase and the two could not IQ themselves out of how stupid this was... Very sad...

W

Your looking at roughly 100 degrees below the freezing mark. Un freakin' stupidly real.... Boggles the mind.

W

Sad..Tuff circumstances. No room for error in those situations

There are times to hike and times to hunker down by the fire. This was one of the latter. It's sad that she died but that wasn't the brightest thing she could do in that weather.
I hope that none of searchers got hurt or frostbitten. They had to be out there, too.

This. She was no newb or rube. She knew what she was doing but left zero margin of error. That margin caught her.

In those conditions, she died fast.

Whether paddling out into 40'ers, dropping into a blown out cat5, climbing 20k plus peaks, or running ultra marathons through the desert, some folks challenge the limits of their beings. Sometimes they lose.

Others never leave their couch, most are somewhere in between.

I know I'd rather live and die in her mold than rot on a couch.

The Presidentials and Mt Washington are not places to mess around this time of year.

she fugged up. plain and simple.

There's a lot said there. Well done, and agreed.

I've climbed Washington, Madison, Adams, Jefferson a number of times in winter. They're simple climbs, just crampons and ice axe. -15*F without windchill was not uncommon. Have been in some pretty good winds and storms up there.

HOWEVER, I would never have broached treeline with 100 mph winds @ -30*F... if the wind is 100 mph when you hit treeline and you don't turn back you're completely without the skills to have been there in the first place.

Spunk is one thing and I always admire that, but I'd say she was absolutely out of her depth to make the decision she did.

She for sure made some mistakes, I'm just not gonna run her down for it.

On the farm doing chores, 35 below with 60 mph winds with gusts to 80. It had been 45 below before for a couple of days but with that wind, it was very cold - froze my feet, hands, and face. I don't do that chit anymore

No one's running her down, just pointing out she didn't have the skills to be there, and she jeopardized the lives of others by her irresponsibility. She didn't make a marginally bad call, she made a massively bad call.

The problem with the Presidential's is they're too accessible to an enormous population, not all of whom are equipped to deal with what they can dish out.

Given the accuracy of modern weather forecasting I'm surprised she went out knowing how chitty it could get.

Pretty hard to get caught in a freak storm on a such a short trip.

I'm thinking the storm is part of the reason she was there.

Agreed, and that's no insult to her. I'm no "experienced" camper in that stuff, but I do know very well what -30 ambient and -70 or greater windchill is like. You can't make a mistake. You just don't have the margin for error or the time/ability to make amends.

Bad timing

http://www.wmur.com/weather/stormwa...08-recorded-on-mount-washington/31292366

She had some spunk.

There are worse ways to die ,,, Beats going out in a hospital with tubes stuffed up every orifice.

RIP. Died doing what she loved.

I wonder if the state is going to charge her family with search and rescue costs?

poor gal didn't have enough experience or planning...

you'd think being born in Siberia, she'd have had a better handle on dealing with extreme cold and high winds...

Mt Washington can get some real doozy wind speeds up there...

but quite simply, staying out of the wind is the main thing...

about any Boy Scout should be able to tell ya that building a snow cave or igloo, your body temp makes the inside of one about 40 to 45 degrees... we train the boys in that sort of stuff...

she should have dug one and sheltered in, until the wind died down...

poor decision or poor planning..sadly took her life...and that is the tragedy...

plenty of money and fancy gear can't replace common sense...

I am sure the cold and wind chill made her loose focus and get her thoughts messed up.. and she was wandering around going into shock...and that is what did her in...

Condolences to her family..

By the time she hit the treeline, she might have already been suffering from hypothermia and unable to make rational decisions.

Did she have the skills for such a hike? One of the skills in winter hiking is knowing when to stay home.

Mother Nature decided she had over stayed her welcome. When the internal body temp drops below 95 you are in serious trouble , other words her ego overrode her common sense and she payed the price with her life.

X2
Only stupid to go out in that kind of weather. It's not pushing the edge, it's insanity.

She loved freezing to death

Unfortunately stupidity took over and now there a many people mourning her passing. Get real. A very smart fellow drove her there? Really? Dropped her off to spend the night in a billion below zero weather. How is this possibly doing what you love?

It is not a fine line freezing to death in 100 mph winds in sub zero weather. I feel bad for those that relied on her for what she did offer. The fact she did not care about that when she got out of the car bothers me most...

W

I find it amazing that so many people are commenting on the dead woman's personality traits.

Nobody here knew her. She made a mistake, as humans are prone to do. She paid the price, nobody here did. Get over yourselves.

Exactly.

We get these fools that don't plan on how hard are winters are in the mountains. than who pays for it she is not the first and won't be the last her dumb ass mistake cost her her life

She was from Siberia. I bet there winters our harder.

That's my assumption as well.




Travis

If you die in the woods people make fun of you. Just a fact of life.



Travis

We all spend a lifetime doing [bleep] so people will talk about us after we die.

No big deal.

By now, I'm sure everyone is amply prepared when I re-boot.

Right?


Right?????

RIP.

Sounds like she was full of piss and vinegar.

At least she wasn't rotting on a couch.

The only thing that sounded kind of odd to me was the husband driving her out and dropping her off.

I would believe they were both well aware of the weather.

I hope the coroner does toxicology screening. It would be a bitch if hubby had doped her water or something.

Seems they were both involved in money, in the NYC AO. That world has to be a shark tank.

She never really made a mistake based on her previous journeys into the Mountains , i would call it a error in judgement on the conditions she would face on this hike. Mother Nature doesn't have any pity on man or animal if you screw up. Plus i have always been warned , never hike alone, but in this case it would likely be two dead instead of just one.

I wonder if she always went solo.

She was above timberline.

Never hike alone? I've read that in books too. If I couldn't hike alone I'd make sure my hiking partner had a pistol. So he could shoot me in the head.

If you never hike alone, when you go hunting you must not get very far into the woods? Or do you always hunt with someone else?

You're just a dumb-ass who let your ego get the better of you and you probably voted for Obama.

Ooops, sorry, premature.

Not the first time, I'm sure.

First time today.......

I never follow advice i always hunt alone

When I first heard about this, my thought was "Dumb Twat." After reading the article, I'm now beginning to wonder. I'm reminded of this:



As a post-adventurer whose age and circumstance has caused him to spend more time on the couch, I can truthfully say that working that margin was always an issue. Looking back on my days of pushing the envelope, there was always a certain willfulness. I would have denied it openly, and probably denied it even to myself. As a result, I've been places where I was the first vertebrate, and one of the places has my name on it. I also get reminded of the places I've been and the things I've done every morning when I get out of bed. The weather turns, and this or that gets wonky, and it all comes back.

At some point the risks add up. At the same time I was giving up my most dangerous adventures, my dear friend that had been doing contract work for the Israeli military got a premonition, and decided to sit out the next op. Within 6 months, every member of her team was dead-- the Palestinians had changed tactics. We both congratulated ourselves and went about having our suburban after-lives.

Obviously, this lady was a winner. Obviously, this woman liked to take risks. Still, I have to say that part of the adventure game is knowing when to quit, when to change focus, when to come down off the freakin' ledge. I've revised my view that this woman was stupid, but either she wanted to play this game until there was no escape or she did not see ahead of time that her number was up. In the end, she lost.

I think it was just what it was...

I hunt alone a LOT. In fact almost exclusively now with new lease rules where we deer hunt. But it would be hard to get into too much trouble there. Maybe wet and cold but thats about it...and can find back to dry and warm within 30 minutes on foot from about anywhere on the place at a fast pace.

I flew to AK and hunted solo this fall. Had no other options. Just the way it worked out. Killed a bull moose, and handled it all out there totally on my own. Any number of things could have happened. But they didn't. No guarantee of that next time.

Though I sure hope my wife comes along on all the rest of my AK trips. Way too much work for one person to do when you pull the trigger. LOL.

I say bravo for the gal. I'd rather die in teh woods or above treeline than at home or in a hospital etc.....Not that its any of our choices...

Even the experts make wrong choices sometimes. A few years ago, 2 teams, 1 American and 1 German, were climbing a mountain in the Himalayas. It was a 3000' shear face, almost totally vertical. Both teams were at the 2000' point when a really wicked storm came in. The Americans descended but the Germans decided to stick it out. They strung tents from the ropes and hunkered down for the night. By morning every one of them had frozen to death.

Then you obviously don't think it's very good advice. So why even bring it up in this context?

Great post Shaman.

To be honest with you, no i don't think it is good advice when hunting if you want to kill a buck.

I didn't ask whether you thought it was good advice, I concluded that you obviously don't.

What I asked was, why even bring it up?

"Overnight temperatures plummeted to 30 degrees below zero and the winds were gusting at more than 100 mph."



Yeah okay, great time to be climbing a mountain.

She was trying to be 'badass' and died in the process.



100 mile per [bleep]' hour wind and -30F?!


On a cliff?


Not a very smart idea. I'd ride the damn couch if that was remotely close to being a possibility.


I didn't bother hunting flatland mule deer on the last day of deer season because it was -15F with a decent breeze in the morning. Pussy chit compared to what this woman was attempting.

Walk in would have been fine. Turning back into the breeze for 2-3 miles sucks when it's getting dark.
Could not image 'purposely' mountain climbing in conditions like that.

Just not into freezing my face off that much. One thing to be close to help, another deal when you could be several miles away from anything.

And now for the obvious ...... the Husband knew what he was doing and what may/will happen.

-30 with 100 mph wind and people on here are saying she "wasn't prepared? Heck, NOBODY'S prepared for those conditions! The human body isn't designed for that and the best gear isn't designed for it either.
NO one with any real experience would do such a foolish thing. In fact the most experienced would be the first to avoid such folly.

So that leaves me with a couple likely scenarios:
She had the mother of all brain farts and never thought to check the weather or...
She indeed decided this would be her last trip and was suicidal, which doesn't explain her activating a rescue beacon.

I can't believe someone with her experience would intentionally go out in those conditions if she knew those were the conditions she would likely face. I have to think she was caught unawares by a surprise storm.

New England hasn't exactly been the Bahamas the last week or so. They've had record snowfall and cold. We'll never know what her thinking, if any, was.

Thanks.
That quote from Tom Robbins is still framed in my bathroom at home. Years ago, I read it and suddenly realized a basic truth about myself.

In regards to soloing, I did a lot of it. More than anything, I just liked being by myself and relying on myself. However, I never solo'd caving. The reason why was that it was way too dangerous. Not so much for me, but it was going to be for the people that tried to retrieve my body. If I was climbing solo and screwed up, I was going to more than likely fall into a place that was easy to get to. They'd scrape me off the rocks and that would be that. Going underground was considerably different. Even if I just broke a leg, chances were that folks were going to be risking their lives trying to get me out. What's more, with solo work, it was more likely that someone was going to call the sheriff's dept instead of the NSS rescue hotline, and a bunch of inexperienced deputies and paramedics would be trying to get me out. Look up the name Floyd Collins and get back to me. They even made a musical about him-- biggest news story of 1925.

This thing with the Russian chick kind of galls me the more I think of it. It's one thing to go get your ass out onto thin ice to quell your inner demon. It's another thing to go out, get your dumb ass frozen and then pop smoke, hoping the cavalry will come.

One other thing, and then I will get off my rant. I just want to put a bug in y'all's ear. File a trip plan. Writing for deer hunting media exposes me a lot to guys who like to leave and go hunting where no one knows where they are or when they are coming back--No cell phones, no explanations, nada.

I cannot emphasize enough:

1) Leave a trip plan with someone you trust
2) Give specific deadlines. "If I'm not by Monday night. . ."
3) Give specifics of who to notify, and where to search
4) Give the location of your vehicle
5) Give a location of where you will head in case of trouble
6) If you carry nothing else, carry a whistle

This is not for you. This is for your rescuers and next of kin. You may be comfortable with becoming mulch, but one of your stupid loved ones may call the sheriff a day early, they put a team out on the mountain or down the hole and some good people may be put in harm's way.

Take all this from a guy who made national news once. Somehow I became the 5th unnamed caver in a big flood-in story back in 1982. The truth was, I knew about the trip, but had not been invited. Despite this, my name ended up on the AP wire, and I spent the next week answering phone calls. Supposedly I was mentioned on the network news, but I never got confirmation. The cavers had known of the trouble ahead and floated a cache sealed in an oil drum ahead of time. They were fat and happy until the water receded, a lot better than the people trying to rescue them.

People that don't do this are rude, IMO.

If you've ever been involved in a search and rescue, you know that the people doing the searching want information. When the only information given is "He said he was going north for a few days" or some other vague horseschit, people immediately begin to not care if you're dead.



Travis

Yep, and finding a friggin' corpse ain't much fun.

Especially when they smell poopy.




Travis

Some thoughts...

1). How the media came up with the idea she was "experienced" I have no idea.

A walk-up Kilamanjaro (usually guided), and some rock climbing doesn't amount to tackling the Presidential Traverse in extreme weather. There's no possible way she was "experienced" with that sort of weather, based on a multitude of incredibly stupid decisions.

The stupid decisions include:

a). Starting at all given the forecast, and continuing given the weather at timberline.

According to SAS:

b). She Carried no snowshoes. The Whites had gotten 10' of snow. Only reason she could get up the trail to timberline was because a previous party had broken the trail for her. Not sure what she thought she was going to do in an emergency drop off into the timber?

c). She carried NO SLEEPING BAG.

d). She carried NO SHELTER, tent or bivi bag.

The last two in particular cost her her life. Going "light" in the winter mountains above timberline is one of those thing you just don't do, ever. The winter highcountry is just not forgiving. On every trail at timberline in the Presidential's there is a warning sign about dieing in bad weather, and a warning to turn back.

All the phugging blather like "she died what she loved doing" is the sort of empty, stupid platitude people pull out of their azzzes when someone dies an untimely and preventable death. I guarantee her loved ones are in agony and aren't thinking "she died what she loved doing." I guarantee as she was dying, and knew it, she wasn't thinking in terms of oft quoted platitudes.

I'm so sad for her and her loved ones, but I'm not going to paint this as anything other than it is, a preventable, empty tragedy. Silver linings don't exist with something like this. It just flatly sucks for all those left behind.

Brad just drove his point home.

With his COCK.

That pic of the sign is worth about 10 billion words.




Travis

I'd not seen the details on what she DIDN'T carry with her.

Yeah, that's just Darwin Award level stupid.

The Whites are NO joke, and what she tried to do was just insane. Even if S&R had found her directly after she'd set off her beacon, she was dead by the time they'd get there. In those conditions, she was dead - fast.

About three summer time days along the Appalachians, and "poopy" is an understatement. I'd suspect it isn't much more pleasant in other places.

" A walk-up Kilamanjaro (usually guided), and some rock climbing doesn't amount to tackling the Presidential Traverse in extreme weather. There's no possible way she was "experienced" with that sort of weather, based on a multitude of incredibly stupid decisions."

I have some young friends that did Kilamanjaro within a year before coming to visit me at the farm. We camped on the back of the property and Saturday morning they asked for a hike before breakfast. The farm has less than 200 feet of altitude difference. I was in my mid 40's at the time. I had these two sucking air like a carp and begging for mercy within an hour.

I don't claim any major physical prowess in my younger years, and certainly not at 45, and certainly not now at 56. My point is that K-jaro can't be all that rigorous.

You're exactly right, it sucks for those left behind, her friends and family.

That's one of the reasons I resist the temptation to pile on and talk about how stupid the dead woman was on a public forum.

It's painfully obvious. No need to go there IMHO.

We go over this in our hunter's ed classes. In fact, we just went over it on Tuesday evening. What I tell people is to imagine yourself alone on the side of a mountain with a broken leg, hypothermic, and needing rescue.

Then think about what you wish you would've written down to make it as easy as possible for SAR to find you.

I hunt alone a lot. I not only give the location of my vehicle, I write down the make, model, and license #. I figure my wife won't need to be looking up those details if she's dialing the county sheriff. I also leave the sheriff's phone # in the county where I'll be so she doesn't need to look that up. Along with a description of the trail I'll be going in on, how far I'll be going in, and even the locations of campsites and coordinates if I know those, which I do sometimes.

Another thing, my favorite season is nine days long. If I break my leg on day 1 or 2, I don't want to be waiting the duration for SAR to be notified so I always arrange to walk out to cell phone service about midway to call and check in. Usually by then I either need more food, have tagged out, or am ready to try a new spot anyway.

In class on Tuesday,someone asked me about the cell phone reception where I hunt. My answer was, there is none, and that's one of the reasons I hunt there. Not only to get away from the cell phone and everything that goes with it that's work-related, but I like knowing that I'm on my own and there is no 911 I can call if I do something to get myself in a jam.

Kind of sharpens your thinking.

I use a delorme, just to communicate if need be.

There is no reason to pile on, however the media can certainly embellish a lot. A few years ago, I ran into a group of folks on a local mountain. They wanted off the mountain bad, and I guess I had a rescue shirt on or something because they asked about rescue quickly. I advised them, the easiest way off the mountain was to gain the summit and go down the other way, so I essentially guided them up and over. The experience was weird for me, because I never put much thought into the mountain , I just sort of go and make a route. Once I was done talking to them at the end, they told me they had done Ranier and Kili but guided. They thought this should be sort of easy but were in way over their comfort level. It happens.

People die all the times in the mountains, sometimes from poor decisions and sometimes from random acts. We recently lost a member of the rescue team that was a vey experienced guide and taught a lot of technical rescue classes. Although, I did not know him well, I thought he was a great guy and an extremely patient and good teacher on training exercises (because I am not a very good student). He was guiding some clients on something he could have climbed as a mutual friend said "with one crampon and a trekking pole", when some ice just gave out. RIP Mark Miller .

Anyway, the media likes stories that create chatter. This lady , it is unfortunate, because she did not make the best decisions, but it happens more often than we here, and it happens to people that make poor decisions, and people that are pros making great decisions. Likewise, a lot of people make poor decisions and survive.

Word.

Some things I've learned while traversing the hinterlands:

Ma Nature doesn't care whether your Nature Conservancy dues are paid up or not.

A few moments of contemplative wisdom always trumps years of ego driven experience.

A sleeping bag is one of the most under rated pieces of kit.

Keeping body core temp. at 98.6 deg. is a good thing(see above).

Pretty sure Timothy Treadwell wasn't thinking.. "doin' what I love!".. in his last moments of conversion to digestible protein.

"If you're not living on the edge, then you're taking up too much space."

Some people can relate to that quote, other's can't. Some people feel that way, other's don't. Sorry she lost her life, but I can certainly understand the appeal of what she was doing.

The cold is never to be trifled with. The age of cell phones and rescue beacons has greatly increased the incidences of Darwinesque misadventure in the cold.

Like flying, one mistake is usually sufficient to introduce life-ending trama.

It appears she made a number of mistakes....

If you do something stupid you are free game. Ask me how I know. If I cut a hole in the ice and went swimming then died of hypothermia pretty sure the post would look like this. She did the exact same thing.

W

Living on the edge? BASE jumping is legal off a 480' bridge here and people come from all over the world to do it. We have several accidents a year, usually from someone doing something even more stupid than jumping in the 1st place.
For example, last summer 2 guys wanted to do a tandem so one stood on the railing of the bridge while the 2d climbed up on his shoulders. Before they were ready, the 1st one fell off. The 2d one hit the railing as he fell. The 1st one popped his chute but the 2d one came down on top of it and partially collapsed it. Amazingly they both survived but were in critical condition for a long time.

The worst part to me is not dying in weather than can kill you.

Its those that die from hypothermia when its wet and 50 and don't have a clue it can still kill you.

Now where do I find that dead horse icon....

God rest her soul.

There are a lot of ways to check out. It is a certainty that each of us will choose one.

Having spent many, many years working as a professional ski patrolman as well as being active in an Oregon mountain rescue group, I have seen my share of questionable calls gone south, some permanently.

This woman may have let her enthusiasm outrun her skill level but at least she was in the game. Among the folks who have followed this thread are many who's cause of death will be inactivity, obesity, alcoholism and/or drugs. All of them stupid choices with consequences identical to those suffered by this woman on Washington.

Yeah, she probably screwed up but at least she did so with a degree of style, unlike those timid souls who never can bring themselves to walk up to the edge of the cliff.

Living life is one thing. Doing stupid suicidal crap is something else entirely.

You want to rappel down a cliff? GREAT! But go ahead and LIVE LIFE TO ITS FULLEST, and do it with some WalMart carabiners and some clothesline or frayed rope from Lowes. I mean, that's LIVING ON THE EDGE RIGHT!

Doesn't sound very smart huh?

Stupidity isn't an admirable trait in spite of some on here's admiration of this "adventuresome" woman. She didn't simply get in trouble while practicing her passion for adventure (which any of us could do), she didn't get in over her head, she went in over her head. She made a bad, foolhardy, decision and paid for it.

Thanks, I'll take my chances on the couch before intentionally walking into certain life threatening conditions. Call me a wuss but I have a family that needs me (as did she).

"Ole Snubbie died trying to kayak over Niagra Falls. The boy had spunk and knew how to live!"

No, he was stupid, plain and simple.

This thread has a high content of BS, just sayin...

Here, read this again...

Just another dumb azz I grew up in NH camping in the winter she had no business being up there she got what she deserved just to bad

Sometimes we put ourselves in a precarious position in the wild, and there's no margin for error, or even bad luck. Often we are fortunate and it goes our way...sometimes it doesn't.

I lost a good friend on Mt Adams in the '80's, they spent two nights in a stone hut hoping to summit, were on their way down and were lifted off by a 100+ mph gust while roped together, Ken went head first into a rock. Both were experienced mountaineers, Ken was going to be Salutatorian of his class at UMOrono, used to ride his bicycle home to upstate NY on breaks.
RIP Ken Hokenson, still miss you buddy.