an interesting event in my area that surprised a few people, recounted by those involved.

a few good lessons can be learned.

video

i think well worth the almost 10 minute video length.

text

Haven't had a chance to view the video, but the text is riveting. Thanks for the post.

Judging by the copyright date, it looks like this happened in March of this year (2011), yes?

HJ

yes.

Yes, March 20, 2011. The perfect time of year, even in SoCal, to go for a hike in a canyon without checking the weather reports. Brilliant!

Sue

Yep, don't ask the team leader to paint your floor.

Very interesting link. Glad they made it out -- it seems things could have gone either way.

It's always the forecast you don't see that'll bite you in the behind. From the story, it seems they checked the forecast the night before, but it had changed significantly by the next morning.

Their concerns about flash flooding seem reasonable, but I'm not clear why they chose to to abandon their tents and sleeping bags instead of just heading for higher ground. Moving around in a bad storm is tricky business. Perhaps there was some other factor leaning them toward a dash to the trailhead, with multiple high/cold stream crossings?

The final choice to go cross-country and climb the ridge, not knowing if it was a likely way out, and with some of the party soaked to the skin, concerns me greatly. I don't know the area, but my first instinct would be to hunker down near the trail in whatever shelter I could put together and try to keep everyone's core temp up.

It's easy to second guess after the fact. I don't think they did anything terribly stupid, but it sure didn't go well.

Having hiked in similar terrain, and having experienced a flash flood personally near Ojai, California (where this occurred), I know just how dangerous those canyons can be. Those canyons have an established reputation for being killers. In the video the leader said that there was wood in the camp area "four feet high" from a prior flash flood. I wouldn't have stayed in the camp area either. In retrospect, probably moving to higher ground nearby with their gear and hunkering down would have been the right thing to do, but I can understand why they'd abandon their heavy gear and make a dash for the nearby trail head. If I were to criticize their decisions, I might find fault with them waiting so long to bug out.

Then, having bugged out, when the water rose quickly, they were essentially screwed when high water stopped them. They couldn't go forward; they couldn't go back, and, soaked to the bone and their gear abandoned, they didn't have the capability to hunker down. Keeping on the move wasn't such a bad idea. If you look at the video, they actually did a good job on navigation. They came out very near the trailhead. But there was a cliff that didn't show on the topo. They were truly stuck. I might very well have made the same decision myself.

The one observation I will make is that playing "beat the storm" is seldom a good idea. If there's a storm that looks like trouble moving into the area, sometimes the best thing to do is postpone one's trip. I've seen more than once people who assumed they'd be out before the storm and then either they were delayed or the storm moved in more quickly than expected, and they got into trouble. One person I know of died in just such a scenario, and another, a friend of mine, came very close.

I frequently make "alpine starts" (super early, pre-dawn starts) on my hiking trips. It's a real temptation to check the weather the night before and then sleep in as much as possible, jumping off at the last possible moment. This story is a good cautionary tale. It's worth it to get up that extra few minutes early and check that weather report.

HJ

Yeah, I know, far too easy. My 'mental map' reflects the Rocky Mountains -- essentially a different planet -- thus my questions may not be relevant. Every mountain range has its moods and its absolutes; I defer to your knowledge of the area.

If the cliff didn't show on the topo, that makes their last-ditch move understandable.

But most importantly, they all got out. A win is a win, period.

I've been in this area,Many times over the years & just about every year,the topography changes mostly due to the fires & violent squalls that have been here since time began!Some friends & I hiked/camped on the outskirts of Lockwood Valley on a Memorial Day weekend some many yrs ago,& It snowed on us overnight,we didn't pack tents but we had Ponchos,Everything was soaked in the morning as the snow had melted,our 30+ lb. packs became Much heavier packs,All 6 of us were soaked wet on our backsides,we couldn't find anymore drywood to burn,so we ate cold chili,spam,velveeta & crackers,then it started to rain just enough to create havoc on us,we packed up hastily,unevenly packed off balance,wet & cold,the wind came from Nowhere but it was warm wind,the clouds disappeared & It was dry hot summer,All of a sudden,we had a miserable rugged hike back to our vehicles of which we had to cross over Sespe creek twice,however the creek was no longer shin deep,it was a raging rapids in many area's,so we had to hike an xtra 3 miles over a 4 mile hike back,on the North side till we came to the fork,however the fork No longer existed as the flashflooding had changed everything,we now had to cross a flood plained area,the water was shin deep but the muck was knee deep,we made it,the water was freezing cold,we made it back to the vehicles to find we had tickets on our windshields,for parking in an Unauthorized area!Just because it's Southern California is Not to be disrespected,Ma' Nature Rules,Everytime!

In the final analysis, I think that would have been the right decision. There may have been some element of panic in their decision to make a mad dash for the trailhead after having waited for a considerable amount of time in the rain without taking action.

For future reference for me: Survey the area when camping near a stream that might flash flood. Where is my "bug out spot" to hunker down in if I need to get away from the stream?

HJ

Good move. John Long wrote about hiking with some friends in arroyo country when he was younger, and they barely escaped a flash flood that thundered through. Read about it here.

Does anyone know a method to download and save the video file?

I only know how to do it in Opera:
Empty the Disk cache, load the video, look for the recent and big file in cache (it should be 33.3 MB in size), then rename the file extension to *.flv. Quite a lot of video players support this format, for example Media player classic HC or VLC player. Let me know if you need more detailed instructions.

http://videomedia.vcstar.com/media/videos/2011/06/rescuevideo.mp4

Just right click on the above link and select 'save target as' etc

Thank you sir! Worked great.

Questions that I didn't get answered from the video...

Was it luck that the rescuers on the road saw the hikers' lights?

Or did the hikers intentionally signal the rescuers?

Did the hikers use S.O.S. at all?

What kind of headlights were the hikers using?

Pure luck. Unless you believe in God.

HJ

yes. what hikin jim said.
no.
no.
not stated.

read the accompanying story here.

and

sierra club newsletter - page 7

According to that article, once the rescuers made initial contact, the rescuers yelled and the hikers yelled back. Apparently, the distance was so far that they were basically just communicating noise (and flashlight beams).

There were no whistles? OK, I know it's easy to armchair quarterback, but this seems like the textbook moment to be using a whistle and S.O.S. (by flashlight beam and/or whistle). It seems like the hikers were otherwise prepared. I'm confused.

From the article at http://www.vcstar.com/rescue/



That's remarkable to me. I'm not a climber, so that seems like the rescuers engineered a new rope system on the spot in harsh conditions.

To the climbers out there, can you tell me if the rescuers did something you can learn beforehand or if the rescuers mostly improvised on the spot?

After watching the video of how the events unfolded, I don't think that any of the hikers were actually prepared.

Firstly the group essentially panicked, firstly by the overnight snow and the assumption that they were just about to washed away in a flash flood. This assumption that a flash flood was likely was basically unfounded considering the weather conditions of lying snow and sleet later in the morning.

Secondly they left some of the most important gear behind in weather conditions which would have saved them if they got into trouble making their exit. They would have perished from exposure that night, where they ended up, not having had the good fortune that someone saw the commotion on the side of the hill.

Thirdly, the group leader most likely could not read the terrain contours on her map and stuck to the compass bearing blindly to reach the intersect with the road. i.e. did not recognise the contours were getting closer together on the other side of the hill/ridge they had to traverse, i.e. they should have detoured around the obstacle, even though it would have been further to go. There was a lack of ability to think in 3 dimensions. It must have came as a surprise that the hill became steeper and steeper as they descended down the hill. They failed to recognise that they should have turned back and found another way down even if it meant going back up the hill once more. But probably by this time arguments, recriminations and emotions would most likely got the better of the group dynamic with some probably refusing to budge deciding to risk other folks lives in a rescue if they were eventually discovered on the side of the hill next to the highway.

If these folks had perished on the side of the hill only a few hundred feet away from the road, the mystery would have been how they actually ended up where they did and the irrational logic behind their incompetence.

I guess it goes to show that if you rely on someone else to do your thinking and navigating for you, you have no business getting upset when you get stuck on the side of a 'cliff'/sleep hill when deferring those skills to others.