[at-l] Whites Incident & Cell Phone

[papa_bear_nyc@yahoo.com (Papa Bear)]

I don't believe he was slackpacking.  My "take" on it is he had taken his
pack off prior to being spotted at the side of the trail.  The night before
he stayed at Madison Hut he had camped out the night before at the Osgood
tent site.  Here is another account by a hiker named "nsantos" which gives
some context.  It was taken from another hiking forum.  In particular it
relates to the injury suffered by the victim (Peter Busher aka Harley) on
the day before his death. It also relates to the victim's concern with trail
conditions and planning on the morning of the 11th.  This seemed to be an
experienced and responsible hiker (although in retrospect we can fault his
judgment on going out that morning.  But how many of us would have done
differently?)  I'm sure the head injury, coupled with hypothermia was an
important factor.  I would say there's not much evidence that the use of a
cell phone was either helpful or hurtful in this particular case.

For a complete set of accounts from this particular forum see
http://appalachia.outdoors.org/bbs/messageview.cfm?catid=4&threadid=825

Pb


Quoting nsantos:

"My son and I travelled from Lakes of the Cloud Hut to Madison Springs Hut
on Tuesday, Sept 10. We arrived at Madison  Springs around 3PM . In addition
to the people staying at the hut, there were about 10-15 northbound
thru-hikers that were sitting outside talking, eating, and enjoying the good
weather. Around 4PM or so, I saw an older man round the corner of the hut
coming from the direction of Mt. Madison . While I didn't know his name at
the time, it was obviously Peter Busher. His right eye was very red and
swollen, almost closed from the swelling. The right lens of his glasses was
missing and he had some dried blood around his nose. I asked him what had
happened. He told me that he was crossing a stream the previous afternoon
down in the Great Gulf and that he had slipped on a rock and "ended up on
his head". He also mentioned that he had camped at or near the Osgood tent
site and it had taken him 11 hours to hike from the Osgood site to the
Madison  Hut.Despite his injuries he seemed in a very positive mood and was
very philosophical about the fall and about the difficult hiking day that he
had experienced. I thought to myself that if I had taken a fall like that I
probably would have retreated to civilization and probably have headed home
but it didn't seem to really phase him in the least. He quickly cleaned
himself up and came outside to talk with the rest of the hikers. He started
to regale the rest of the hikers with all sorts of stories about his life,
about hiking, about various medical adventures. Soon he had the whole crowd
intently listening to his stories. It was very obvious that he was a real
people person because he kept up a non-stop dialogue with the people at the
hut until after well after lights out. I particularly remember his
mentioning that his mother was still alive and nearing 100 years old.
Another hiker mentioned that that he should contact the Today Show and send
in info about his mother for the 100 year birthday announcements that they
do. He thought that was a fantastic idea and he would certainly do that.

The Wednesday forecast for the mountains was not very good. The previous few
days had been sunny with highs in the 70s with nightime lows in the 50s. The
forecast for Wed was for rain, thunderstorms, high winds, and rapidly
falling temps. As I was packing my bag in the dining room on Wed morning
after breakfast, Peter was sitting down checking his maps and, I think,
writing in a journal. He was planning to head to the Lake of the Clouds Hut
and asked me about the trail difficulty and the time it would take to get to
the LOC Hut. I remember thinking that the strong winds would make hiking the
trail very difficult. The rains started around 9AM and the winds were
already around 40mph before we got off Mt Madison so I can imagine how
difficult it would have been on the trail to LOC especially with the rapidly
falling temperatures."

The above is a quote from nsantos.


----- Original Message -----
From: <RoksnRoots@aol.com>
To: <AT-L@backcountry.net>
Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 1:27 AM
Subject: [at-l] Whites Incident & Cell Phone


> --
> [ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
>
>     Perhaps it's a little early for such, but it struck me that the
> involvement of the Whites hypothermia victim with cell phone rescue should
be
> analyzed.
>
>      If I read the report correctly, the victim called in a rescue request
> for himself by cell phone and was waiting for rescuers.
>
>      After reading the story it struck me later that this man was possibly
> slackpacking the Whites hut to hut only carrying minimal gear and a phone.
> The report said he had no pack when he was found.
>
<cut>