Page 7 of 10

Re: Hiker rescued off Gorton Creek trail

Posted: February 7th, 2021, 11:28 am
by Don Nelsen
Bosterson wrote:
February 7th, 2021, 9:58 am
I suppose he could have been trying to find the Deadwood cutoff and just kept going (does it still exist? I can't remember),...
The Deadwood cut-off trail is good, though almost entirely burned. It is signed at the top but not at the bottom (as of last July). There were many trees down over the route, again, as of last July, but only a couple larger ones. One would most likely miss it passing through Deadwood Camp though, and in the snow, for sure you'd miss it unless you knew where to look.

Re: Hiker rescued off Gorton Creek trail

Posted: February 7th, 2021, 2:50 pm
by drm
Bosterson - Well, I was taking him at his word. He apparently thought he was below IP and could climb up to it. I will also take you at your word that that isn't feasible. So he was somewhere else and thought he was climbing to it. But he must have at that point been close to Gorton since people heard him yelling - and after they heard him, they went down to him. So he couldn't have been more than a couple hundred yards off the trail? So he almost did make it back up to it.

He said in his FB post that on his first fall, his head his a rock and it sounded like a baseball homerun crack. Then he kept going, fell again, and broke his wrist. He has more lives than a cat, least he used to.

I saw the Deadwood Cuff from Gorton a few weeks ago. Pretty easy for me to find, but of course I know where it is.

Re: Hiker rescued off Gorton Creek trail

Posted: February 7th, 2021, 3:04 pm
by squidvicious
drm wrote:
February 7th, 2021, 9:13 am
Then after running into too much difficult terrain, he found himself at the bottom of Indian Point, and knowing that there was a trail on top of it, he decided to climb steep terrain to get there.
Huh, I totally missed that. I just read it as he got stuck and had to retrace his way up a bit to traverse to a point where he could continue down. Now that I'm reading it as, "I wound up beneath Indian Point (despite heading downhill hours after I passed it???), decided to climb up to it (???), which was a distance of 100 yards (???)..." it makes so much less sense!

If there weren't video of the Coast Guard hauling this guy out of some creek I-have-no-idea-where, I'd be pretty sure this whole thing must be made up.

Re: Hiker rescued off Gorton Creek trail

Posted: February 9th, 2021, 6:49 am
by bushwhacker
Don Nelsen wrote:
February 7th, 2021, 11:28 am
The Deadwood cut-off trail is good, though almost entirely burned. It is signed at the top but not at the bottom (as of last July). There were many trees down over the route, again, as of last July, but only a couple larger ones. One would most likely miss it passing through Deadwood Camp though, and in the snow, for sure you'd miss it unless you knew where to look.

I did the Nick Eaton / Deadwood Cutoff / Gorton Creek loop yesterday (Monday 2/8). I had done this loop a couple of weeks ago and there was great signage at both the top and the bottom of the Deadwood Cutoff trail plus some blue diamonds on the trees to aid in navigation. Well yesterday surprise surprise all of the signage and blue diamonds have been removed. There is no signage at all now for the Deadwood Cutoff trail, top or bottom. So if you go you better know your way around as there is enough snow and dead fall at the top to get turned around if you aren't familiar with the area (plus it was cold and windy enough on Nick Eaton for me to fish out my balaclava). All in all it was a fun hike though :lol: .

Makes one wonder if this lost soul saw all the wonderful signage on the Deadwood trail and got turned around some where along the way and the removal of all the signage (this has to have been recently done) is in response to that. Deadwood is going to be more like Casey Creek now.

Re: Hiker rescued off Gorton Creek trail

Posted: February 9th, 2021, 7:42 am
by retired jerry
maybe the signage was gone before he got lost and that's why he got lost?

I've done that a few times, kind of obscure. I think maybe there was no sign?

The trail junction below is pretty obvious, the junction at the top is more obscure.

I've gotten lost on trails like that with lots of downed trees, especially if there's snow. You have to keep your wits. That all makes perfect sense. After you've done it a few times you get more careful? :)

Re: Hiker rescued off Gorton Creek trail

Posted: February 24th, 2021, 4:18 pm
by squidvicious
Willamette Week chimes in with slightly more detail, if you're still interested
https://www.wweek.com/outdoors/2021/02/ ... ver-gorge/

Weirdly, this starts out saying that when he found out Eagle Creek was closed, he decided to try a nearby trail that he "believes" was Gorton Creek. Because the story wasn't weird enough already.

Re: Hiker rescued off Gorton Creek trail

Posted: February 24th, 2021, 4:50 pm
by Bosterson
I think I would chalk that up to predictably poor reportage about hiking incidents. Either that, or it's meant in reference to the FS contention that he was found near a user trail. The Willy Week writer then follows that up with another reiteration that the guy swears he started at Gorton Creek, but it's not really clear why the writer feels the need to clarify where he started again. Like, the Herman Creek TH is a big parking lot. There's a trail leading up out of it. This isn't rocket science. If he says he started there, he probably did. (Based on his photo of Adams that DN triangulated, he was also definitely on the Gorton Trail just south of Deadwood Point, and there isn't another easy way to get there aside from the Herman Creek TH.) It's funny the FS feels the need to admonish people about user trails, since this guy was found by one, because... the dude was lost. :roll:

If anything, I have even less idea now of where he was. He started at 9:30, took 3h to get to Indian Point (per his FB post), and was near the "halfway point" by 1:30? He clearly made it up Gorton to the area south of Deadwood Point, but then? And if he was above the snow line when he decided to bag it, why didn't he just follow his own tracks down? And why would he try to "follow water" when presumably this would take him down into the Gorton Creek drainage? How did he manage to get "totally submerged??" Why was he out hiking with more than a full gallon of water in winter?! And really really - where on earth did they finally locate him? Because there are no "user trails" I can think of in that area that head north from Gorton - unless he somehow got himself onto the Wyeth Spur, but he would've then either had to have gone up onto the Green Point platter, or else have climbed out of the Gorton drainage up onto the spur - neither of which seem likely. The whole episode is just so baffling...

The guy saying Gorton shouldn't be open is hilarious. Like... what? It's completely fine up to beyond the Indian Point junction. (He also says he lost the trail 3 miles in, and the ridge south of Deadwood Point is at least 5 mi from the TH...) And he thinks the trailhead shouldn't be open? Maybe all the insinuation is actually correct and this guy has literally no idea where he was and actually tried to go up Wyeth...

Re: Hiker rescued off Gorton Creek trail

Posted: February 24th, 2021, 5:42 pm
by squidvicious
What? You don't normally hike carrying a gallon jug, a canteen, and a big carton of coconut water? None of which you can apparently refill in the streams you repeatedly submerge in, so two nights in you're drinking your own piss?

Re: Hiker rescued off Gorton Creek trail

Posted: February 24th, 2021, 6:18 pm
by Don Nelsen
squidvicious wrote:
February 24th, 2021, 5:42 pm
What? You don't normally hike carrying a gallon jug, a canteen, and a big carton of coconut water? None of which you can apparently refill in the streams you repeatedly submerge in, so two nights in you're drinking your own piss?
That much water and etc. would have lasted me at least 3 or 4 days in temperatures like that, even a week since he wasn't moving much. This story get weirder with every telling.

Like Bosterson, I don't know of any user trails in the area. Game trails, yes, and some could look much like man-made at times.

I borrowed a friend's Facebook account to take a look at Bailey's page to see what kinds of comments he's getting. I read most and virtually all of those, nearly 200, say what a brave guy, or lucky guy, etc. he is. Nothing critical and only a few even mention learning some map reading skills or taking a few more things into the woods, and then only in gentle tones. Many posts mention making a movie or writing a book about this. Looks suspiciously like a ploy for attention or sympathy if it weren't for the broken bones and dehydration. Of course, people have done even weirder things looking for attention.

dn

Re: Hiker rescued off Gorton Creek trail

Posted: February 24th, 2021, 8:35 pm
by Chip Down
squidvicious wrote:
February 24th, 2021, 4:18 pm
Willamette Week chimes in with slightly more detail, if you're still interested
https://www.wweek.com/outdoors/2021/02/ ... ver-gorge/

Weirdly, this starts out saying that when he found out Eagle Creek was closed, he decided to try a nearby trail that he "believes" was Gorton Creek. Because the story wasn't weird enough already.
Thanks SV.

The comments in that WW story were pretty mean. Understandable, but here's the problem: That guy shared his story, while lost hikers often don't. We don't need to coddle them, but being excessively critical discourages the sharing of stories, and then we complain there aren't more details available. (I still want to know more about that guy who famously ate bees to survive on St Helens a couple years ago.) BTW, feel free to bash him here, as I'm sure he doesn't read this forum.

One of the most puzzling things for me:
pulled the phone out again. And the battery was dead.
Hmm.

I keep saying we need a hiking equivalent of Accidents In North American Mountaineering.