[at-l] RIP, Froggy Pete - death in the Whites

[buchanan@gtcinternet.com (Susan Buchanan)]

I've just gotten back from two wonderful days of hiking.  Yeah, I probably
did a couple of few too many miles (over 12 yesterday, and over 16 today)
and ache all over right now, but that's the good life for ya!  Anyway, I
found out more about that death from the cru at Galehead yesterday.  And
found out I knew this hiker.

I met Froggy Pete (that was David A's name for him - his name was Pete, and
he had a small stuffed frog hanging onto the back of his pack) in Georgia in
April.  72 year old man whose wife had recently died.  He didn't know what
to do with his life without her at this point - so he started walking.  He
talked a lot to us (Barb, my hiking buddy, myself, and David) about his
wife, and cried a lot, and seemed extremely sad, and very lost without her.
He was planning on trying to summit Katahdin on their anniversary (hey
David - do you remember when his anniversary was? it was sometime in
September) and had it planned out so that he could do it if he only took 11
zero days.  But he had taken three in the first week.  He still thought he
could do it at that point.  We talked with him a bit about maybe doing a
flipflop, or else to be prepared to simply have some way of marking that
anniversary in a special way where ever he was.  David gave him his alcohol
stove as he left the trail, and I gave him a bottle of Heet when we ran into
him again in the parking lot of the grocery store in Hiawasee.  He had a
room in town that night, sharing it with a young hiker, and the two of them
seemed to be doing pretty well together.

Pete did end up doing a flipflop, and was headed south at the time of his
fall.  He had evidently fallen a couple of days before, and was pretty
unsteady after.  The cru at Madison tried to convince him to get medical
treatment, but he declined and headed on to Washington.  They were concerned
enough that they radioed to Washington to keep an eye out for him.  When he
didn't show, they went out looking, and found him only a quarter mile from
the hut.  He was still alive, and they tried CPR, but ultimately couldn't
save him.

I hope he found some measure of peace as he's been walking these last
months.  And that peace continues as he is together again with his wife that
he missed so very much.

suz