unplanned bivy on St Helens: anatomy of a disaster

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Chip Down
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unplanned bivy on St Helens: anatomy of a disaster

Post by Chip Down » July 25th, 2021, 8:14 am

When hikers make the news, we often bemoan the lack of details as we wonder what went wrong. Seattle Times published a first-person account that answers some questions, titled "I never imagined … a cold night on the mountain: Mount St. Helens summit attempt humbles a writer."

There's a great deal of fluff (Light raindrops jingled as they bounced off tree leaves and splashed on the forest floor. A sweet scent permeated the air.) so I'll present the highlights below, with a link if you want the full story.

She anticipated a 8 hour hike, and started out at early afternoon. She acknowledges that was a mistake.

At the monitor station on the Wormflows route, she wisely aborted due to time and weather. This decision may very well have saved her life.

Her phone, and thus her GPS, failed. She attributes this to the extreme cold.

She ascended to what she later learned was Monitor Ridge, knowing it wasn't her route, but hoping it would intersect her route. From there, she could see the ridge wouldn't meet her route, so she retraced her steps back to a known point on Wormflows. She was unable to maintain footing, so opted to glissade. She lost control, but fortunately was not injured.

After an unplanned bivy with wind and intermittent precip, she hiked out without incident the next day.

https://www.seattletimes.com/life/outdo ... a-volcano/

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BaileyBoy
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Re: unplanned bivy on St Helens: anatomy of a disaster

Post by BaileyBoy » July 25th, 2021, 8:52 am

Thanks Chip, I keep reading more stories like this and my stubborn mind has finally decided I need to gracefully accept not completing the hike I'm doing rather than plugging on until it's too late to get back to TH at a reasonable time.
Stubbornness in the wilderness is not a positive trait.

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Bosterson
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Re: unplanned bivy on St Helens: anatomy of a disaster

Post by Bosterson » July 25th, 2021, 11:26 am

There is a common denominator in a lot of these stories (emphasis added):
I signed in to the trailhead guest book and followed the route on my downloaded AllTrails map.
#pnw #bestlife #bitingflies #favoriteyellowcap #neverdispleased

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Chip Down
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Re: unplanned bivy on St Helens: anatomy of a disaster

Post by Chip Down » July 25th, 2021, 12:16 pm

Bosterson wrote:
July 25th, 2021, 11:26 am
There is a common denominator in a lot of these stories (emphasis added):
I signed in to the trailhead guest book and followed the route on my downloaded AllTrails map.
I did it without map or GPS. I wonder what that says about me. :?

I've never used AllTrails, but I just looked up their Wormflows map. Looks pretty good, although of course I didn't actually validate all the critical points. I'm not sure if you intended to mock AllTrails, or if you've noticed that people who rely on a downloaded map from the www tend to be naïve and not well prepared.

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Bosterson
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Re: unplanned bivy on St Helens: anatomy of a disaster

Post by Bosterson » July 25th, 2021, 2:43 pm

Basically the latter. Lots of people use Gaia, but Gaia is an active map, GPS, and tracking thing. AllTrails appears to be foremost a "guide" and seems to attract underprepared and/or inexperienced people, who seem to use it for step by step directions but then get into difficulty if things are less than completely obvious. I was also under the impression that their information is maybe crowdsourced and not always 100% correct. (I've definitely talked to people using it who quote hike stats that are way off, and who believe whatever AllTrails said versus having actually done it or compared with other sources.) So yeah, just noting the common denominator, in the sense that a lot of people who have problems seem to use AllTrails, not that AllTrails is causing them to get lost.

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teachpdx
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Re: unplanned bivy on St Helens: anatomy of a disaster

Post by teachpdx » July 25th, 2021, 3:08 pm

I also had an unplanned bivy on MSH back in Sept 2004 (grew up in Woodland so going and climbing the mountain after school was a normal thing). Opted for a sunrise climb up Monitor, hitting the Loowit at midnight. Weather forecast was great so we had minimal preps beyond a day pack. Anyway, around 7000’ the weather turned and the clouds moved in and we could no longer make out the marker poles. We backtracked by compass directly south down the mountain, knowing that the route is generally north/south, got down to about 6000’ as it started to snow and decided it was safer to hunker and make it out in daylight vs. at night.
It was a VERY COLD and WET night, with a nasty rain/snow mix, hunkered alongside a large boulder as shelter. When the sun came up and the clouds started to thin, we were about 50’ from a marker pole and brought ourselves out.
It’s so easy to underestimate St. Helens. I learned my lessons early in life and know a lot better than to go anywhere like that without extra precautions.
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