Lost Paddler on Richland

[Butch Crain]

there's a pretty lengthy thread about SPOT @ http://www.arkansascanoeclub.com/mb/vie ... pot#p48786" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Zach]

From the Spot website:

"PLEASE NOTE This benefit does not apply if:-
a) your situation is caused by circumstances such as a forecast change of weather conditions, which could reasonably have been anticipated at the date you started your trip
b) you have NOT made adequate provision of resources or training or competence needed to complete your planned trip."


For (a), if someone gets on Richland after a huge rain, and it is really cold, does this mean they won't pay out the $50,000?
For (b), seems like slipping and breaking a leg while going to the bathroom is the only accident that wouldn't fall under this provision.

[KimL]

I doubt if any (maybe I should say many) people who frequent this board plan on getting stuck somewhere. I know I didn't. I thought I'd gotten the best advice about the trail from a good source: a ranger. I sat in the dark for two hours before I even tried my cell phone because I was determined not to be one of "those foolish people" who call for help after poor planning. I hunkered down for the night in my boat, but the mosquitoes were so bad that my eyes were swelling shut. It was three hours later before I got picked up--that is, five hours in the dark.

All that aside, I agree that everyone should be prepared to pay for their own costs of rescue, and you should never count on someone coming.

[prophet]

alright its been long enough. when do we get the full story?

[depic]

Need a mirror no matter what .. so you can look at your self and say what am I doing??? Need food to feed bears so they don't eat you first. or need a friend to walk out with you so you can out run him and bear eats him first.
Dennis

[prophet]

Need a mirror no matter what .. so you can look at your self and say what am I doing??? Need food to feed bears so they don't eat you first. or need a friend to walk out with you so you can out run him and bear eats him first.
Dennis

you can also check to see if you're still breathing

[depic]

that is what i am talking about.

and all water that is in the group should be left with the person that is hiking out. Another paddler to walk out maybe if group is larger than 3 but don't leave only one paddling by his self. Bear kitty cats and that is a different topic all together.. lol.. it is great to leave out a {, } or an and. It changes all the images in your mind.. Sorry tomcat...lol

Biggest deal is all is ok maybe egos damaged by still alive. A large number of folks run different creeks alone and think if they had to walk out no one would know..

Dennis

[Trismegistus]

"A large number of folks run different creeks alone and think if they had to walk out no one would know..."

And that's what I'm talkin' about! :)

[Cowper]

alright its been long enough. when do we get the full story?

Actually, I think you just got 95% of the story in two earlier posts, which I’ll string together here:

Post 1: “I once made the mistake of taking an Everglades trail solo, trusting that the info the ranger gave me about distances and time was correct. She was wrong. Long story short, my flashlight was too weak to get me out, but it could signal a helicopter, after I finally tried my cell phone. I know too that cells work on a lot more ridge tops (and in the Everglades) than you'd think. (The Al Franken recount committee found me in Big Bend!) Anyway, you can use one to call and let people know you're okay and hunkered down for the night.”

Post 2: “I doubt if any (maybe I should say many) people who frequent this board plan on getting stuck somewhere. I know I didn't. I thought I'd gotten the best advice about the trail from a good source: a ranger. I sat in the dark for two hours before I even tried my cell phone because I was determined not to be one of "those foolish people" who call for help after poor planning. I hunkered down for the night in my boat, but the mosquitoes were so bad that my eyes were swelling shut. It was three hours later before I got picked up--that is, five hours in the dark.”

If you put these two posts together; you have the story: It was set in the Everglades, and involved paddling some marked trails, but, in the swamp-type environment, markers can get covered over by vegetation, or be hard to see if you’re not looking from exactly the right position, or if the sunlight angle isn’t right. Once you get off the intended trail, it all looks the same. Or, if you just take a wrong turn and have to backtrack, you can run out of daylight. The story ended as relayed above; the words “picked up” are literal – plucked into the sky by a helicopter.

I find GPS to be an extremely useful tool anywhere; in any swamp-type paddling, I find it ten times better than that. Yes, some can take a short “in-and-out” paddle without getting lost, but if you venture deeper into the swamps and do it regularly, that GPS will eventually save you from one of those Danielle Boone “turned around for a few days” experiences.

For all those that are even pondering whether or not marked trails are a good idea, I have a challenge: Why should we even consider this option? How close together, and how big, would the markers have to be, for people unfamiliar with the area to find their way out on a foggy day or in failing daylight? Since trails have intersections and multiple destinations, must we also put up large signs at multiple locations? Who will maintain this system of markers and signs? Do we mark only the creeks that we can run 20+ times per year like Richland, or do we also mark the creeks that might go an entire year without being run, like Bobtail and Beech and dozens of even smaller creeks? The key words here are “this option”. Because there is another option, that involves NO marking or signs in wilderness areas, but with this second option, we could drop you blindfolded into any spot in the state, remove the blindfold, and then you could efficiently navigate your way to the nearest road with full knowledge of your rate of progress so that you can make decisions of whether to press on or hunker down for the night with complete confidence of your current location. It’s called a GPS, and the back up system is called a compass. Get one of each and learn to use them.

For those struggling with the feeling that GPS is a technological “crutch”, either get over it, or throw away your USGS Topo quads (updated using satellite technology), trade in your goretex for animal skins rubbed in whale blubber, and ditch those hiking boots in favor of moccasins made from deer skin of one you killed yourself with a spear. And of course you know those plastic yaks and carbon-fiber paddles have got to go, too. To do anything less is simply taking the “Amish” approach of arbitrarily picking the technology of one particular decade as “acceptable” while deciding that using anything invented after that is somehow degrading or sinful.

Note to Readers: If you don't know me - please take no offense at anything said above - it's the Red Bull talking. I get like this when I allow myself more than one Red Bull.

[okieboater]

Well Cowper, you and others finally got me kicking and making excuses for not doing it earlier - into the new way of finding your way.

I have a Garmin GPS 76CSx and am getting familiar with it, altho it is a computer, it sure is not easy to apply my computer logic to it's operation and especially Mapsource.

Using a share ware product called USAPhotomaps, I have finally found a way to do waypoints on topo sheets uploading them to the 76CSx, downloading to Mapsource to make a route then uploading that back to the 76CSx.

I even went to Sam's and purchased a bag full of rechargable double A's.

Still feel a lot more comfortable with a toposheet and my Suunto MC-1 in hand, but have to admit the GPS is a lot more accurate than my dead reconing calculations.

[KimL]

Cowper, thanks for finishing the story! Grant, I didn't realize you were addressing me, but you already know the story--I told it on story night on the Middle Fork back in 2004. And Cowper may recall that unevenly spaced markers (pvc pipe) in the sawgrass were part of the problem. When you know you have in the range of 200 markers and the first are spaced 20-40 feet apart, it can deceive you about the rest--especially when they are spaced more like a quarter or a mile apart.

I do think good guides to rivers and trails in general are a good idea. Some of us learn better by reading than by hearing. If we read, "go left at big rock," it may stick with us longer than simply hearing it (or even doing it once). Anyway, that's my one plug for guides and maps, but they need to be used alongside human advice, newer tools (GPS) and common sense. I for one have enough common sense to know that I never plan to run upper Richland. And again, I think no one ever has the right to expect a rescue. I just think if people are looking for you, you should do everything you can to let them know you're okay or help them find you.

[depic]

the greatest thing is no one died. I think that richland is a great run and is beautiful. walking out is the only thing one can do without paddle and the walk out isn't easy. and stopping walking early to get fire started and gaithering wood for the night isn't an easy thing with the hopes of finding the road. and it would make ya cry if you wake up the next morning and you were only 1/4 or 1/2 of a mile for the campground or road.. gps are great. I have a hand held garmin. it is great.. Bears, big cats are there and one needs to know this but they are many places that we go and hike.
Dennis

[Trismegistus]

"Is there even a place in Arkansas where you can walk more than a mile into the woods without finding yourself walking out of the woods?"

Seems to me that no matter which way you walk you're never more than 1-2 miles from a road while on the Richland Creek. You can pretty well ascend any ridge and follow the ridge line and lo and behold: a road. Even if you take on one of the longer ridges (Big Middle Ridge or Stump Mountain) -- as long as you don't descend into the valley it's not that much of a hike to find a road. Rather than take time to hunt firewood and such I'd just hoof it out unless I came to Richland totally unprepared for cold weather, were soaking wet and at great risk of hypothermia. In Arkansas the best way to prevent hypothermia beyond preparation is to minimize one's exposure to freezing, windy weather by securing adequate shelter in a home, cabin, car, etc. The biggest mistake one can make is to stay in the valleys and draws where the going is the toughest -- the climb out of the valley is never more than 7-800 to the ridge line and nearly every ridge runs pretty level even as it contours the streams below -- or to lie and sleep. The entire Richland Wilderness area is only 11,000 acres!!

P.S. No brag, just fact but Schuyler, Matt and I just returned from a week long climb in the north Cascades (Mt. Challenger) -- two river crossings, over 20,000 vertical feet, non-stop snow and sleet, 54 total miles (10+ miles to nearest road) and no GPS, no markers, no fires, and just one beat-up map that never got pulled out. Tis' all common sense, preparation, and ingenuity.

[Trismegistus]

And as long as I'm on the self-righteous soapbox -- Of the three principal ways in which people lose their lives in the great outdoors -- falls, drowning and hypothermia -- I fear only drowning cuz' some times rivers and streams will deliver some unexpected surprises for which one can never be fully prepared. But the other two: ignorance and/or stupidity. For falls generally occur when you're doing something you shouldn't be doing and hypothermia because you simply weren't adequately prepared.

[Jody]

well, thanks for the Everglades story again (its a good one) but i was asking about the details of the Richland adventure.
the post fell in a spot to appear otherwise.
thats a heck of a trip tris!
Grant