New Hampshire’s outdoors are popular for hiking, skiing, climbing and more. They are also where many rescues take place.
Accidents happen, even to experienced recreators. And then, there are people who head out into the wilderness dangerously underprepared, especially in winter.
We wanted to hear from the people who are called in to perform these rescues about what it’s like. NHPR Morning Edition host Rick Ganley spoke with writer and Mountain Rescue Service volunteer Michael Wejchert about his experience.
Transcript:
We're surprised to learn that many of the people performing these search and rescue missions are actually volunteers. What kind of experience led you to doing this in, I assume, your free time?
Yeah, it's our free time. I came here to New Hampshire and to North Conway, where many of us live, to ice climb and rock climb and work as a climbing guide. So many of us on the Mountain Rescue Service have prior guiding experience, and that led us by natural extension to volunteering when fellow climbers and hikers get into trouble.
We've got people on the team who have been doing this literally since 1972, since Mountain Rescue Service was formed. And that community aspect, seeing folks who are showing up and training the younger generation, it's a way for us to be involved in our tight knit climbing and hiking community up here. That's truly special.
Obviously all rescues are unplanned. But what's the process for a rescue? How do you get ready?
Usually somebody calls 911 first, and a dispatcher will relay that information to Fish and Game, and then Fish and Game will call out the appropriate team. There are several volunteer teams in the state. Mountain Rescue Service deals primarily with winter above tree line rescues. So the nasty rescues on Mount Washington we're often called for and technical terrain, vertical cliffside ice and rock climbers who get into trouble. And I have a bag packed with a change of clothes that's pretty much ready to go at all times, as do many of us on the team.
We'll drive to a trailhead and either hike in or get a ride in with an Auto Road snowcat on Mount Washington. The second that we get a call, we're really trying to come up with plans. And I say multiple plans because oftentimes the information that we get is sparse or sometimes incorrect. There are so many variables within each scenario that our brains are really churning.
The more information we have now, the better. Back in the 70s and 80s, you wouldn't hear from somebody for a few days, and then you'd have to go on a search. And now with the technology that we have, hikers, for better or worse, are connected. And so we're often given pretty accurate GPS coordinates.
Michael, what happens if you do not have those coordinates? If somebody calls and their cell phones nearly dead and it goes out before you can get a location, what happens in those circumstances?
Then we're really trying to figure out the most likely places, trying to do a little bit of detective work, you might say. And that's really when Fish and Game will call as many volunteers as possible, and they will come up with a plan to search the area. Fortunately, we don't have to do that scenario as much now, but we certainly have to do it. And that takes a lot of time and a lot of volunteers to properly go through and try and find somebody who's lost.
Can you recall a particular example or a particular rescue that's really meaningful to you?
We had one last year on a climb called Shoestring Gully, where a climber had fallen and he and his partner were out of cell service. And the partner left him in as best a situation as he could, but he was essentially lashed to the side of Mount Webster. Temperatures were falling. It was night, and we knew that we were going to not only be dealing with hypothermia, but dealing with a technical rescue in really nasty conditions.
So we really had to work with AVSAR, Androscoggin Valley Search and Rescue, and of course, Fish and Game, people that we'd worked with for years to come up with a plan to get this person out safely through very complicated terrain to lower rescuers down, send rescuers up and have a successful outcome.
So this was somebody literally stuck on a ledge hanging from ropes, and you had to send people from above and below?
Yes. That's correct.
I know obviously accidents happen, but we also see reports of rescues where hikers are deeply unprepared or even negligent. They might not bring warm winter gear. They don't have lights, they may not have food and water. Do you resent hikers for putting themselves in those situations?
You hope that everybody hikes responsibly, right? And that self-reliance is why we head to the outdoors. But no, we don't resent. I think it's akin to asking an ER doctor or a nurse if they resent their patients. We're fortunate enough to have a pretty narrow mission statement. And when we go out there, it is to help these people. So it's not really our place, fortunately, to cast judgment on somebody else.
What do you want listeners to know as they consider that next hike, that next climb?
Because we rescue people who are incredibly experienced, and I think a lot of us on the team know that it could be us. And that's one of the reasons that we go out there, right? The weather is incredibly fickle, and luck or randomness certainly plays a part in this.
One of the things we see across the board, people who are doing their first hike, or people who have been hiking for 30 years or climbing for 30 years, or skiing for 30 years is, I call it the “this is my one weekend syndrome,” where they want to mold the conditions to the agenda. They want to summit the mountain that they had planned.
I think the takeaway would be that these mountains are always going to be here and the weather is forever changing and really having a backup plan, saying, “Maybe today's not my day to try and forge ahead to the summit of Mount Washington because it's blowing 100. Maybe I'll come back next year and I'll do another hike instead.”
We have so much amazing terrain and so many different varieties of activities that you can do in the wintertime. If you're coming up here to enjoy the mountains, consider the weather. And it's relatively easy if you go to the Mount Washington Observatory website to to get an accurate forecast for not just the valleys -- North Conway, Gorham -- but the summit and those summit conditions. Once you see those, they can be pretty sobering for planning your hike.
I understand your wife also does rescues?
Yes, she does.
Do you ever get both get a call and rock, paper, scissors for it?
I don't know if we rock, paper, scissors. My wife is also an emergency room nurse. As one of the best climbers on the team and having those medical skills she's pretty valuable. But she's often working a shift, so we're very lucky in that one of us can usually go, but probably better that she goes than me.
