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[at-l] Fw: Snow ends Scout camp -- North Carolina Boy Scouts were rescued from a camping trip on Mount Rogers
- Subject: [at-l] Fw: Snow ends Scout camp -- North Carolina Boy Scouts were rescued from a camping trip on Mount Rogers
- From: daveh at psknet.com (David Hicks)
- Date: Tue Jan 25 13:38:53 2005
The original of this was held because of the url.
Here is the text:
Snow ends Scout camp
The group trudged ahead with its camping trip on Mount Rogers despite rangers'
warnings of deteriorating weather.
By Lindsey Nair
981-3334
The Roanoke Times
A group of North Carolina Boy Scouts were rescued from a camping trip on Mount
Rogers this weekend after they were overwhelmed by below-freezing temperatures
and heavy snow.
Despite their motto, "Be prepared," several Scouts wore improper clothing and
had tennis shoes frozen to their feet when they were brought out of the woods
Sunday, rescuers said.
"They tried to build a fire, but they never could get one to go," said park
ranger Roy Kilby with Grayson Highlands State Park. "There was too much snow
and wind."
Of the 15 people taken to a hospital, two remained hospitalized Monday.
A spokesman at the Piedmont Council Boy Scout office in Gastonia, N.C., where
the Scouts were from, was out of the office Monday afternoon and could not be
reached.
Kilby was on duty Saturday when the group of about 30 people arrived. He said
most were Boy Scouts about 12 to 15 years old.
The park already had about a half-foot of snow from Friday's storm, and Kilby
warned the Scout leaders that more snow was in the forecast. He said signs at
the park also warn visitors of drastic weather changes on Mount Rogers.
"They were told about the weather, that we were supposed to have more snow and
temperatures dropping," he said.
But the group appeared to have a lot of gear, he said, and decided to forge
ahead about 10 a.m.
Capt. Junior Reedy with the Rugby Rescue Squad said the troop hiked about two
and a half miles into the park and were on National Forest land when they set
up camp in the area known as Rhododendron Gap.
Meteorologist Jan Jackson with the National Weather Service in Blacksburg said
the temperature near Mount Rogers on Saturday night was 4 degrees and the wind
chill was minus 15 to minus 20. It snowed Saturday and Sunday
.
"People don't seem to understand that the temperature most of the time is
eight or 10 degrees colder back where they were at," Reedy said.
By Sunday morning, some troop members were too cold to walk out. One
chaperone, a 60-year-old who had recently had a lung removed, was the most
ill-affected, Reedy said.
Those who could walk hiked out to find help. Reedy's squad got the emergency
call about 10 a.m. Sunday and was joined by several other squads. Rescuers
took all-terrain vehicles into the park to find the Scouts, but the snow had
drifted so badly over the trails that they had a hard time following them.
When they reached the Scouts, medics loaded them onto the ATVs and drove them
to the park road, where an ambulance was waiting, Reedy said. They were then
taken to a triage area outside the park office.
"They got so cold back there they couldn't hardly get their shoes off them,"
he said. Rescuers at the triage area had to cut frozen laces to get some of
the boys' feet out of their shoes.
"The ones I saw, they just had on these regular tennis shoes and things,"
Reedy said.
He said some of the Scouts' clothes were wet, so they were stripped down and
wrapped in blankets to begin the warming process. By the time the last member
of the group was brought off the mountain, it was dark, Reedy said.
According to the Declaration of Independence, a weekly newspaper in Grayson
County, 15 people were taken to Ashe County Memorial Hospital in West
Jefferson, N.C. They included 11 Boy Scouts, one Scout leader and three
members of the Rugby Rescue Squad.
Six Scouts were admitted for treatment of frostbite and hypothermia, and four
of those were discharged Monday morning, the Independence newspaper said.
John Wadsworth, director of field service for the Blue Ridge Mountain Council
in Northwest Roanoke, said winter camping is not an unusual Boy Scout
activity, but it requires preparedness and common sense.
"A lot of times you will find sort of a goal for a lot of troops is they like
to do one outdoor trip a month," he said. But "the kids are trained before
they're put in that kind of environment, and even then, there's got to be some
discretion."
Wadsworth said Scouts should be educated before any outing, including
cold-weather camping. And parents have the right to keep their son from going
on Boy Scout outings if they so choose.
Some Boy Scout outings are designed to teach Scouts wilderness survival
skills, but "there's not any badge that would challenge someone to go into
extreme cold," Wadsworth said.
Reedy and his squad have gotten used to rescuing hikers and campers from Mount
Rogers over the years, but he hopes people will refrain from camping during
the worst weather of the season.
"I hope they wait until spring."
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Hicks" <daveh@psknet.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 12:34 PM
Subject: Snow ends Scout camp -- North Carolina Boy Scouts were rescued from a
camping trip on Mount Rogers
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