First training hike

Popsickles, angina, Mountain Rescue,
GPS maps, and two degrees of separation

View of Rattlesnake Ledge from Rattlesnake Lake

Rattlesnake Ledge, Sept. 7--This  was supposed to be just an ordinary conditioning hike, with an elevation gain of 1,175 feet, but it had a couple of surprises. One of the things I've told hikers in the past is that there's a refreshment stand at the top of the hike. In this case, it proved to be true. Two young men had lugged an ice chest to just below the outcrop that is Rattlesnake ledge, and they were selling popsickles for $2.

But the biggest event of the day was the helicopter medivac of a man having chest pains at the top of the trail. The rescue crew passed us on the way up, and help was still arriving as we descended. The help came from Explorer Search and Rescue as well as professionals. One young woman came up the trail carrying the basket litter, and a young man carried the frame the litter would rest on. It had one wheel for the 1.9 mile-ride down to the waiting chopper.

The scenic path down--not all stretches were this accommodating

Rescue crew wheels patient toward waiting chopper

Copter awaits patient. After I shot the photo I noticed the man in the foreground.

Two volunteers haul away the basket stretcher and wheel as the patient is loaded into the helicopter.

As it turned out, one of the mountain rescue volunteers awaiting the descent of the rescue crew had an indirect connection with Roger: In 1979, Art Farash took the Seattle Mountaineers climbing course along with Roger and his mother, Zella. And Art and Zella summited Mount St. Helens together as their required glacier climb.

 

Roger and Art Farash

Art also served as a guard at the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, along with one of Roger's relatives. Small world.

Map showing our hiking route / the rescue route

All that excitement aside, the most relevant development for our plans to scale Mount Adams next year came in the form of mapping technology. Roger has a program on his smart phone that uses GPS technology to track our hiking route. The route is then published on mapmyhike.com. The program keeps track of distance, elevation gain and calories burned, along with other data. The Web site boasts "70 million routes to choose from," and is largely free. Here's one  map Roger downloaded from the site, at the end of the day, including text inserts showing where the action took place.

Roger went so far as to post a video on the Internet relating to the rescue adventure. For those so inclined, you may find it here: https://vimeo.com/105676358




Love,

Robert

View of beach at Rattlesnake Lake