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Two Lives Saved by Search
and Rescue Effort RANDOLPH — The lives of two middle-aged hikers who became disoriented while descending Mt. Adams on January 10, 2007 in whiteout conditions above treeline were saved by the combined efforts of two volunteers from the Randolph Mountain Club and Androscoggin Valley Search and Rescue (AVSAR), and four state Fish and Game Department conservation officers.
Ms. Doubleday and Mr. Rodriguez had spent Tuesday night at Gray Knob cabin. On Wednesday morning they hiked 1.7 miles up Mt. Adams and had reached the 5,799-foot summit at about 1 p.m. However, as they started down, the trail became shrouded in blowing snow, Lt. Gralenski said. At 3:30 p.m. the two hikers reached a stone cairn on the trail and they could not see how to safely proceed from there. Mr. Rodriguez called 911 on his cell phone. In piecing together the sequence of events, Lt. Gralenski said the pair thought they were on the Lowe's Path, but they were actually about a quarter of a mile northeast of Thunderstorm Junction at the top of the Great Gully. He told them to stay where they were. Lt. Gralenski said that, given the very severe conditions, he then decided to call out members of the Department's search and rescue team: Brian Abrams; Greg Jellison; Brad Morse, who is also a paramedic; and Sam Sprague. As he called around for additional help, he learned that Al Sochard of Randolph was already dressed in winter gear and readying himself to hike up the Lowe's Path to check on Gray Knob in the absence of the regular winter caretaker. Longtime AVSAR volunteer Mike Pelchat of Gorham also volunteered his services. In what Lt. Gralenski described as a "pivotal" decision, he gave the hikers' cell phone number to Mr. Sochard, which ultimately helped him to locate the pair. "I talked with Wayne Rodriguez three times, and it was a great comfort to him to know we were on our way," Mr. Sochard said in a telephone interview. When the rescuers found the two hikers in their sleeping bag tucked in among some boulders, yet still relatively exposed, they first fed them hot liquid Jell-O and some food. Then they outfitted them with dry outer jackets and hats, placed heat warmers in their boots, and then got them back up on their feet to walk with them to Gray Knob, arriving at nearly 3 a.m. The two hikers and their six-man rescue crew slept at Gray Knob until morning and then started at 8:15 a.m. to hike down to Lowe's Gas Station. Mr. Sochard reached the general store and gas station at about 9:45 a.m. and the rest at about 11:30 a.m. Late on the previous afternoon, Lt. Gralenski said he and Lt. Todd Bogardus had set up a command post at the home of Bill and Barbara Arnold. Mr. Arnold, a longtime member of both RMC and AVSAR, maintains radio contact between Gray Knob and his house every evening in the winter, and each rescuer carried a radio tuned to the RMC's frequency. After all the members of the hiking party had reached the safety of Gray Knob, the two lieutenants headed home and Mr. Arnold also turned in. "The role played by RMC and AVSAR volunteers who are very familiar with the local trails in what we think of as 'our' part of the forest, working with the professional team, provides us all the ability to help save lives," explained Mr. Sochard. "Mike (Pelchat) and I have a familiarity with these trails that made it possible for us to figure out where these two 'lost' hikers were." Editor’s note: Edith Tucker’s article gives the basic information, but the following excerpt from Mike Pelchat’s report gives the flavor of what it feels like to be up there in the howling wind and confronting the challenges of helping others without getting into trouble oneself. “…Not too long after I arrived at the Knob, the F & G rescue team arrived and the six of us were ready to leave Gray Knob to start our search by 11 PM. I asked Fish & Game officer Brian Abrams if he would like Al and me to go on ahead and they could follow us at their own pace. Given the weather conditions, which at that time on the summit of Mt. Washington were 70 mph winds gusting to 100 mph, the temp was now -18 F and visibility zero, Brain insisted that we all stay together. Al is a very fast hiker and was highly motivated to get to these hikers quickly so I could see he didn’t like that answer. But Al, like a good team player, understood that this was safer for our whole team. If anything untoward happened to one of us up there we would need everyone’s help. So we stayed together and headed up into the storm. [Here Mike lists what he wore and carried in his pack for the rescue] The strong NW wind was thankfully to our backs as we ascended the ridge. As we got closer to the summit of Adams Four, Al was actively searching nooks and crannies on each side of the trail where someone could possibly hole up. It was all the rest of us could do to keep following the ice-encrusted line of cairns while Al was circling us with his unbounded energy and determination. Wherever the snow was soft the trail was drifted over, quickly hiding any recent tracks. However, in the old icy snow, recently made crampon marks did remain. We could barely see from one cairn to the next, but having those crampon marks visible helped keep us on track. At Adams Four we all started actively searching, fanning out a little as we continued our ascent to Thunderstorm Junction. I blew my whistle every now and then, but the ball in the whistle eventually froze. I made a mental note to buy a whistle without a ball for wintertime. I was also trying a small red glow stick on the back of my backpack for the first time. I was told it was a great help to my teammates who could identify me much more easily, especially at times when they stayed at a cairn while I searched for next. We passed Spur Trail and there were a couple of old up-bound crampon marks. At Thunderstorm Junction I was really hoping to find our missing hikers hunkered down in the lee of that big cairn, but they weren’t there. The trail signs were all encased in thick ice and useless. There was no way one was going to get out a map in those winds either. This is where having a mental map of the lay of the land and the five trails that branch off from Thunderstorm was an invaluable asset. By searching a couple of cairns at a time in each direction we eventfully found a set of crampon marks going down the Great Gully. No one in their right mind would be descending the mountain via that treacherous route in these conditions, so we deduced we had found the trail of our lost hikers! Al was really charged up and quickly followed their trail yelling all along. It was all Brian Abrams and I could do to keep up with Al. The other three F&G officers were left in the dust, but these Great Gully cairns were big and we knew they would have no trouble following us down. In a few minutes we heard shouts answering Al’s calls. I dug out my radio and transmitted that “we have audio.” Lt Gralenski acknowledged and I could hear the relief in his voice. In a few more minutes, at the
last cairn before the lip of the King Ravine headwall, we meet
the objects of our search, Wayne and Jesse -- very cold but conscious,
alert and excited that we had found them. The next challenge
that faced us was to get them warmed up, boots put back on, and
add some more clothing for the hike out -- no easy trick in sub-zero
temperatures at night in gale force winds. This is where my tent
fly worked as a quick shelter. One of the Fish & Game officers
had his crampons off so I called for him to get under the tent
fly with us. Al and the others stood out in the storm, helped
to pin the tent fly down, and passed us clothing when requested.
Underneath the tent fly the storm was transformed to instant
calm and in a few minutes it was warm enough to remove our gloves,
assess our patients, get some warm Jell-O into them, and bundle
them up in fresh socks and outerwear. Even though they looked
like they had good shell gear on and many insulating layers,
the high winds and blowing snow had entered their clothing, melted
and froze their jackets, mittens and hats into stiff icy blobs.
We swapped their frozen clothing and in about 20 minutes we were
ready to go….” |
The search and rescue team located Janis Doubleday,
55, of Hiram, Me., and Wayne Rodriguez, 50, of Westfield, Mass.,
at 12:52 a.m. on Thursday, huddled together in a sleeping bag
that was rated as adequate to 20-degrees. "It was 14 degrees
below zero with winds in the low 70s (m.p.h.)," said Fish
and Game Lt. Doug Gralenski. The two hikers were found below
and to the east of Thunderstorm Junction, where the Gulfside,
Lowe's Path, and the Great Gully Trail intersect at nearly 5,500
feet in elevation. "It was a life-threatening situation,"
Lt. Gralenski explained. "They probably would have survived
the night, but we'll never know whether or not they would have
survived the descent down the Great Gully into King Ravine to
the valley below because they would likely have had to deal with
both frostbite and hypothermia." He said that although there
was nothing wrong with the two hikers' winter gear, they "were
over their heads" as far as experience in tough winter conditions
goes.