[at-l] Weekend, and the rest of the story

[hudsom at us.ibm.com (Mark Hudson)]

Spent the weekend up in Lake Placid. Did trail clearing into Indian Pass on
Saturday, the view is still grand there, and there wasn't a lot of winter
blowdown to clear. OOOH... forgot to mention it was snowing in the parking
lot at the Loj about 7 am-ish. First for me on Memorial Day, sleet and hail
before, but the first time I've seen snow.
Climbed Giant on Sunday. Nice to know I can still cover 3,000 feet
vertically in three miles in two hours, but I can't figure out why my knees
hurt <g>. And another gorgeous view from the summit!  Coming down I was
starting to think there was a bus stop at the bottom, must have been fifty
people on their way up.

Now for the story I picked up from the trail crew. (maybe Saunterer can
clarify the hearsay part). One of the features I like best of the ADK
magazine is that they do a winter and summer accident report. Most of the
summer ones are either turned ankles or seperated groups, but there are
some good stories to learn from.
There was a story in last years report about a guy rescued from the
Cranberry Lakes wilderness during a canoe trip when he got iced in. I
believe this was early November, so that should have jangled some "what's
wrong with this picture" alarm bells. Incidentally the rescue was
instigated by one of the first uses of a personal emergency beacon in NY.
The rest of the story, which I assume occured after the magazine went to
print, is that the beacon went off in the same location two weeks later. He
went back in to get his gear. When the helicopter went in for the second
time they asked him why he set the beacon off...
"You don't expect someone to hike out in wet boots, do you?"
He was arrested. $3500 fine to cover the cost of the rescue.
And since the beacons have ID numbers, he was told that if his beacon goes
off again they do not plan on responding.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

skeeter