Two-Heel Drive, a Hiking Blog

Herr Coomber made the nightly news last night.

Couldn’t help noticing the grass was mostly green when the video was shot — nice of them to get around to airing it. (A slow news day means a shortage of death, destruction, infamy and depravity. Be happy for it.)

Yosemite Blog posted an announcement yesterday that Joshua Gunther, 34, was supposed to be out of the park Sunday after a weeklong backpacking trip from the Ostrander Lakes trail head. The announcement says only that he acquired a permit to enter the Yosemite Backcountry via the Ostrander Lakes Trail but does not say that he actually entered there. All we have is the license tag for his 2000 Nissan (California 8D15054) — and no word on whether it’s been sighted. In addition to the picture, he’s described as 5 foot 11 inches, 190 pounds, with short spiky brown hair, and brown eyes.

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This rather lurid report from the local NBC affiliate has the most details on the passing of hiker Linda Fradkin, 57, of San Mateo, who died yesterday at Santa Theresa County Park. Condolences to her family and friends.
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Update IV: A Florida man was found dead Monday, apparently having fallen from a cliff near Mirror Lake in eastern Yosemite Valley.

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UPDATE III: A
friend of a couple who witnessed the accident posted this account.

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UPDATE II: Rick Deutsch of Hike Half Dome was on the dome Saturday. He was well on his way down — hiking in full rain — when he saw the rescue helicopter heading toward the peak. “I knew this was not a training mission.”

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UPDATE: The hiker who fell to his death has been identified: Manoj Kumar, 40, of San Ramon. More on him in the Chron. (more…)

I put a short account of this story in the paper the other day: 3-year-old Joshua Childers, being an inquisitive boy of his type, simply walked away from his family’s house and wasn’t found for over two days. The puzzle of why he didn’t succumb to hypothermia in two cold nights in the Mark Twain National Forest inspires an insightful account of how people get lost and found.

“I went on a hike,” the boy said after the ordeal. Then he asked for a glass of milk.

Searchers had been feeling pessimistic about finding Joshua alive. He had been lost in the wet, cold woods for almost three days. “It’s a miracle,” says Sheriff David Lewis. “I’m so happy, you can’t believe it.”

Without doubt, little Joshua’s survival is a real cause for celebration. It also reveals the fascinating science of “lost person behavior” — who gets lost, why, and who has the greatest chance of survival. And it presents an opportunity to revisit the most important survival rule if you lose your way in the woods (or anywhere else for that matter).

The story introduces Ken Hill, “the world’s foremost authority on the behavior of people who get lost.” Hikers are high on his list of most-prone-to-getting-lost.

Hikers: Hikers are another big group that gets lost. They’re very dependent on trails and most often don’t have maps or compasses. When they’re found, they’ve typically traveled between 0.87 and 2.88 miles.

Hill also has a web site with a list of tips on “woodsproofing” your kids. It’s rather detailed to the point of being daunting, but is must reading if you’d prefer not to keep your chillen’ on leashes.

You might also find the Survivor’s Club diverting.

Most of you already know the story: Ken Knight, nearly blind production editor at BackpackingLight magazine, disappeared a week ago today on the Appalachian Trail near Buena Vista, Virginia. On his seventh day of wandering he decided to light a signal fire … when the firefighters showed up, they found him.

I’ve never met the guy and don’t spend much time at BPL (sorry, Sam) because I’ve got too much ultralight hiking gear already, but I do have a few insights on a) hiking with a so-called disability; b) what gets you lost; and c) What gets you found. Since it’s a rainy Sunday and I won’t get any hiking done, I might as well expound a bit, in order.

My disability

I’ve seen what people with alleged disabilities can do with a combination of training, preparation and bulldozer determination. Everybody has things they can’t do. Ken Knight, for instance, can’t see anything beyond about 15 feet. I’m legally blind in one eye — I can discern the big E on the eye chart but nothing below it — and I sure wouldn’t want to be relying on this sorry excuse for vision out in the woods. But if I did, here’s what I would do differently: break out my map and compass and determine which way I’m facing, and use what I can see of the trail to make a dead-reckoning guess as to whether it’s the main path.

Hikers get in the habit of judging whether we’re on the main trail vs. use trails or deer paths. I’m guessing the only way a guy with a 15-foot range of vision finds his way is with map, compass and extremely in-depth knowledge of the characteristics of main trails.

From what I’ve read on the discussion board at WhiteBlaze.net, Knight’s hiking experience was defined by getting lost and unlost. He’d find the trail for awhile, lose it for awhile, but eventually find it again. Took him a lot longer to make much progress, of course, but it’s just how he hiked.

People coming up and down the trail could fill in some of the blanks. If he stopped seeing people coming up and down one of the most heavily hiked trails on the planet, that’d be one more clue that he’s off track.

To get back to the point about disability: my one bad eye is part of the package of a birth defect that brought me into the world minus a working version of the seventh facial nerve on my right side. I have a little bitty pathetic excuse for a paralysis that has only one negative consequence: I smile on one side but not the other (the motor neurons aren’t on speaking terms with their attached muscle fibers).

You can feel the eyes on you when you’re a freak of nature, the people wondering what happened and trying not to stare. It turns you into somebody who does not want other people’s help. I can see why a guy like Knight would wander in the woods for seven days, probably going a few days without eating before his survival instinct trumped his independent streak.

How I get lost

My second visit carries the highest risk of discombobulation. First time out I’m cautious, but the second time I figure I know my way around. This inevitably leads to wrong turns born of overconfidence.

Also, the not-wanting-any-help urge discourages me from consulting my map till it’s too late. Having to consult the map is an overt admission of defeat that I put off as long as possible. This always adds extra miles to my hikes, but I figure walking around in the wilderness is the whole idea of hiking, so being lost for awhile is just what it means to be hiking.

I’m guessing that perhaps Knight shares a similar urge. And he might’ve actually been badly served by the number of times he’d gotten himself found — that is, every hike he’d gone on up until a week ago today. I could see how a guy with a full pack of survival gear would just try to work it out till his food ran out and his strength started to fade.

How I get found

First, I never hike without a map, even at places I’ve been to a dozen times. Your brain cannot memorize all the features of an expanse of wilderness. I carry a compass that I end up using about once a year.

More important than reading a compass or map is listening to what nature’s telling me along the way. One time I thought sure I was headed north, but the prevailing westerly breeze hitting my face told me I was heading south. After a half hour of not finding any trace of the trail that should’ve been just around the bend, I got out the map and figured out the breeze was right all along.

I’ve also learned to distrust the comfort of going downhill. I can’t count the number of times I’ve ambled along on a pleasant downslope for a couple miles, remaining in firm denial of the reality that if this is the wrong way I’ll have to retrace all my steps back up the hated hill.

Mainly, though, I’ve just learned there’s no harm in turning back.

As for Knight, I’m sure he’ll have an account of his adventure posted in the next few days. Post a link in the comments if you see it before I do. (Or you could just follow his Twitter feed.)

Turns out Justice David Souter is an outdoorsman who wants to get in more hours on the dirt. From today’s New York Times:

Friends said Thursday evening that he had often spoken of his intentions to be the court’s first retirement if Mr. Obama won the election last fall. He told friends he looked forward to returning to New Hampshire while he was young enough to enjoy climbing mountains and other outdoor activities.

Nice to see the guy’s finally getting his priorities in order. (I’ll start working on mine just as soon as I get one of those sweet lifetime appointments).

This morning’s Mercury News covers President Obama’s signing of legislation that gives official wilderness protection to 2.1 million acres across the United States.

With Obama’s signature, wilderness designation was extended to roughly 750,000 acres of federally owned land in California, including Mineral King Valley in Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park, where Walt Disney attempted to build a massive ski resort in the 1960s; bristlecone pine forests in the Eastern Sierra, and vast expanses of desert, including portions of Joshua Tree National Park.

In wilderness areas, people are allowed to hike, ride horses, camp, hunt and fish. But logging, mining, building roads and riding mountain bikes is banned in such areas. Roughly 109 million acres — or 5 percent of the United States — is federally protected wilderness.

Alas, no Bay Area sites, but the decision affects something dear to all our hearts: the water supply. The law will restore a significant stretch of the San Joaquin River, which feeds the California Delta, which supplies about half of our drinking water.

For backpack trip planners, here’s GORP’s page on Mineral King Valley and some pictures of the valley at Flickr.

So says Paul Rogers in this morning’s Mercury News.

After more than 22 years of bureaucratic inaction, efforts to clean up a former Air Force radar station on a scenic mountaintop above Silicon Valley and open its summit to hikers, bicyclists and picnickers may be finally gathering momentum, locally and in Washington, D.C.
“It feels like all the pieces are coming together and that it’s going to happen this time,” said Rep. Mike Honda, D-Campbell. “Why should only rich people have a view? It should be available to everybody.”

At issue is the former Almaden Air Force Station, which operated from 1957 to 1980 on the top of Mount Umunhum. Named for the Ohlone Indian word for hummingbird, the 3,486-foot peak towers above South San Jose and Los Gatos on the chaparral ridges between Lexington Reservoir and Almaden Quicksilver County Park. But it remains off limits because 88 buildings where Air Force crew members and their families lived and worked sit abandoned — a crumbling ghost town contaminated with asbestos and lead paint.

At 3,486 feet, Mt. Umunhum is the third-highest peak in the San Francisco Bay area. Right now it contains a huge concrete block that looks like a chunk leftover by a Borg scouting mission. Maybe it’ll look better if they paint it green.

Opening the peak is an essential outlay of taxpayer dollars because Silicon Valley must have more vistas to gaze down upon its greatness.

We had quite a debate on the copy desk as to whether anybody calls this peak “Mount Um.” Anybody ever heard this before?

This morning’s Mercury News has a couple nice stories exploring the contrasts among those whose homes were destroyed in 2008 wildfires. Those hit by the Trabing Fire in Larkin Valley near Santa Cruz are getting their households back together.

Tough, verdant grasses are helping to heal scarred hillsides. Doves and great horned owls are returning to their old haunts. And members of the Teague family, known by their neighbors in this gentle valley northwest of Watsonville for their elaborate Christmas displays, have strung red, blue, orange and green lights.

This Christmas, however, the lights grace a couple of old RVs parked where the Teagues’ ranch-style house stood before a raging wildfire in June destroyed it along with 25 other homes.

“Our lives were vaporized within minutes,” said Tom Teague, an electrical engineer whose family lost a pet cat and virtually everything it owned.

For the Teagues and two other neighbors on the same side of the valley, the terrible fire was only the beginning of a transformational trauma that has included every emotion, from grief to anger to an unexpected sense of peace.

Through it all, the Teagues, the family of Diana Weatherholt and the husband-and-wife veterinary team of George McKay and Gwen DeBaere have discovered new friends and inner strengths on their journeys to rebuild. The families have also come to treasure what the Trabing fire could not destroy.

Things are altogether different for a bunch of folks who built homes without the proper permits on land they owned in the Santa Cruz mountains. When the Summit Fire hit, many lost everything and had no insurance on their homes. Santa Cruz County bureaucrats are in no hurry to help, and many are just plain out of luck.

The Summit fire not only destroyed the homes of the residents of Maymens Flat, but it exposed these rugged individualists to the very things they went into the mountains to avoid: inspectors, permits, surveys, reports, hearings and lawyers.

While victims of Santa Cruz County’s other two major fires are slowly rebuilding, these ridge dwellers are no longer welcome to live on their own land. Now, they must decide whether to break the law and stay — or move away and give up this life of isolated beauty.

Ian McClelland isn’t going anywhere. “Really, we just want to be left alone,” said McClelland, a systems engineering manager at Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale. “For the first time in the 20 years I’ve lived here, I’m getting a fence and a locked gate.”

He and his neighbors say it isn’t Mother Nature that makes them nervous — it’s county inspectors.

Every burned home along this isolated ridgeline was built without permits, as were half of the 63 homes consumed by the Summit blaze in the spring. These Maymens Flat residents constructed their houses with their own hands, at the end of a long private dirt road, many miles from most county services — and inspectors. None of them had insurance.

Maybe the story will put a fire under the bureaucrats to find some wiggle room in the regs to let people rebuild on their land. They can argue that these folks should’ve gone through channels and firefighters’ lives are at stake and everything, but the homes would’ve burned either way. It’s not like a raging inferno cares whether the paperwork’s all in order.