Regardless of who left who, her hiking companions failed her; they should have stayed together.

Wow. What an incredible rescue. Talk about unsung heroes.

"...her hiking companions failed her; they should have stayed together."

EXACTLY! "Divide and conquer" not only applies to war and business, but to survival situations. If she was coherent when they separated, they could have all huddled together and kept each other warm. Or warmer. At least alive.

More gear than sense?

Sue

I totally think the rest of her group screwed up, but dang I almost feel sorry for them now. Talk about "survivor's guilt." H*ll of a way to learn the lesson "stay together."

HJ

The other three backpackers were suffering from mild hypothermia.
The Male was dressed in blue jeans and other cotton, the two
female survivors in synthetics.

The deceased woman's pack had a wet tent just stuffed in the
top as if some attempt had been made to set it up, but was
repacked hastily.

All hikers were reported new to the area and activity, had been
on the trail several days and knew bad weather was expected.
They did not know each other before the trip and apparently
some were irritated at the others for not having the right gear.

That is interesting. Never going to get an honest answer out of the other three as to what happened, but to have been a fly on the wall in the hour or so leading up to the separation might have told us a lot.

Uhm... yeah... no, none of us were ever young and stupid... no....

At least when I was that dumb, I was out by myself so it was only my neck on the line.

This is really sad. It sounds like this lady was already hypothermic and unable to even put up a tent due to loss of muscle coordination. It can sometimes be difficult to even pitch a tent in gusting winds and driving rain, but with hypothermia it would have been very difficult and almost impossible without assistance.

A follow up article regarding one of the other hikers on the trip: http://hanfordsentinel.com/articles/2008/10/07/news/doc48eba7afc792e843358650.txt

Is it just me or does she seem oddly lacking in remorse? Maybe it's just the reporter's style.

One thing is the 3 hikers had only the lone hikers word
over the cell phone that she was alright the night before
when he weather was already bad. The three had called 911 and then they canceled the 911
call they had made after talking to her.

If Ms. Hall was already hypothermic,
the other 3 had no way to judge.

Also Ms. Hall was not in her campsite but face down on the
trail when located roughly 1/2 away and over a peak
"tinkers knob" from the other three.

There was only 1 atv to evacuate them all, so they took turns
riding out on the back to the ambulance. There was attempts
made by 4wheel drive trucks to get to the crossing of the
Pacific Crest Trail with the jeep trail, but the mud
allowed only the little 4 wheeler to get all the way.

The rescued often come to our monthly SAR
meetings to say thanks and to flesh out their stories.
I hope this is the case with this one.


I am of the opinion that part of the reason the 911 call
was canceled was that the party was worried they would be
billed for the rescue. The previous search nearby this
summer, but
in fair weather, had the missing person trying to hand out
$20 bills to all the searchers as he said he was worried he was to be billed.

I do not like all the talk of billing victims for this
reason. It makes people wait longer to call and increases
the likelyhood of a true emergency. The volunteers that
go on these searches just love to do it. Often the only
government expense on a small search is the coordinating deputy's salary.
salary