Warm Night and Common Sense Sustain Her on the Notch Until Morning Rescue
"That decision to stop moving possibly saved her life, given the terrain she was in."
Courtesy of Stowe Mountain Rescue
We were on the point of leaving the station this morning for a multi-agency training that we were hosting when a tone went out for a stranded hiker, high in the cliffy terrain of the Notch.
Our young subject had taken a nice walk yesterday afternoon, climbing up to get the view. As darkness fell, she realized she couldn’t find a safe way down, so she opted to hunker down for an unscheduled overnight. When she woke this morning, she realized how heavily out of her depth she was and she dialed 911, shortly before her phone died.
We sent a small team up to the subject on account of danger from rockfall. Two of our members climbed up to her with three others staged up high to set up ropes for the extraction. Others staged the litter and associated gear at a lower elevation, on standby.
We were happy to find our subject in good physical and emotional shape, bolstered no doubt by the optimism of youth. She was lowered down through the technical terrain, passed between rescuers and rope systems until she was walked out to the road.
Several things occurred to us. One is Thank Heavens last night’s temperature allowed her to get away with that unequipped overnight. That decision to stop moving possibly saved her life, given the terrain she was in. The other is that the rescue was a lot less stressful in daylight than it would have been at night. So everything worked out beautifully, but only by chance. The high terrain in the Notch is extremely dangerous, hiking unequipped is dangerous and hypothermia is dangerous. Luck was on her side, and ours too.
Apologies to the rescuers from our partner agencies who came to train with us only to get turned around. And thank you to the three with technical training who were able to join us on the mission. They carried in our litter and wheel, which is the SAR equivalent of the short straw and didn’t do justice to their skill sets.