ILL-EQUIPPED HIKERS CAN END UP IN A HEAP OF TROUBLE

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, January 14, 1992                   TAG: 9201140011
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
ILL-EQUIPPED HIKERS CAN END UP IN A HEAP OF TROUBLE
Ed Smith got the call at 8:55 p.m. Five hikers were lost in the Ramsey Draft Wilderness Area, a rugged, 6,500-acre chunk of the George Washington National Forest 20 miles northwest of Staunton.
Smith, who is a national forest technician, was on annual leave, but he told the Augusta County Emergency Operations Center he would assist any way he could. Let him know.
Five minutes later, a dispatcher called to tell Smith he had better come. A rescue effort was being organized. Smith had been assigned to the district for 21 years.
"There aren't many places I don't know about," he said.
The hikers were family members, from California, Oregon and Louisiana. They had gathered at their parents' home in Bridgewater, where hearty home cooking had dictated the need for fresh air and exercise.
It was late in the day, but what the heck, why not take a hike in the wilderness?
They left the top of Shenandoah Mountain at 4 p.m. with the idea of hiking down Jerrys Run, then down Ramsey Draft to Mountain House Picnic Area where their dad would pick them up. If they weren't there by 6 p.m., they told him to sound his car horn.
When Smith arrived at the edge of the wilderness, he learned that the hikers, two women and three men, were ill equipped for such an outing. Their clothing was light and at least a couple of them wore sneakers. They had neither matches nor a map. They had never hiked the area.
Jerrys Run and Ramsey Draft, which they would have to cross, were swollen from recent rains. The mountain temperatures dipped into the teens when the sun went down.
"The thing about Ramsey Draft, it is difficult to get to that place even in the daytime," said Smith.
The famous flood of November 1985 had damaged the trial, rerouted the streams and heaped piles of refuse.
The group had two small flashlights, but Smith figured they would peter out quickly.
At 10:30 p.m., Smith, along with Deerfield Rescue Squad members Ozzie Kelley and John Bass and John's dog, Chelsie, started into the wilderness. They searched for footprints. They paused to yell, hoping for a response.
"We were very surprised at their persistence to continue on after finding the swollen streams and down trees in the lower half of Jerrys Run," said Smith. "We knew that they had wet feet and legs as well as being cold."
By 8 p.m., the hikers had given up on finding their way out. Their flashlights had grown dim. Their wet clothing was pulling their body temperature down. Shivering, they cut boughs from a hemlock to make a blanket.
Smith and his companions located the hikers about 2 a.m. They found them in good shape.
"If we had waited until daylight to go get these people, we would have carried some of them out of there," Smith said.
Smith said there is a lesson here for hikers. Even Eastern wilderness areas have an element of risk, and those risks are compounded during harsh weather and when visitors fail to equipment themselves with the gear and know-how needed for winter travel.
The hikers did have a couple of things going for them. They had told their father where they planned to hike and when they expected to return. He had called the authorities when they didn't show up.
They hadn't panicked. They stayed put when it was obvious they wouldn't be able to find their way out.
"It is hard to tell where they would have been if they hadn't done that," Smith said.
The family wrote a letter of appreciation to their rescuers and enclosed a $100 contribution for the squad.
When Smith contacted the hikers a few days later, he found they were doing fine. Their father had a cold, apparently from waiting for his family to trudge out of the wilderness.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB