highdesert wrote: Sat Jul 31, 2021 6:15 pm
tonguengroover wrote: Sat Jul 31, 2021 5:58 pm
We consistently have snow birds and travelers from Europe come here and go hiking in the middle of the day without enough water. I see'm going up trail with one little water bottle. I tell them turn around or your going to die. Even in temps around 90F the desert is unforgiveable.
See them over here too. Dry heat is deceptive for people who are used to high heat with high humidity. They aren't soaked with sweat so they don't think it's hot ,but they are sweating it just evaporates quickly. Flashing sign on a highway near here reminding hikers to carry a lot of water.
Case on point.
A Massachusetts woman was found dead Friday afternoon after a hike at Camelback Mountain near Phoenix, Ariz., amid scorching heat, officials said.
The woman is believed to have been in her 30s and from the Boston area, Phoenix fire Captain Rob McDade told reporters at the scene Friday, according to video from ABC 15 in Phoenix.
The woman was found at about 4:40 p.m. off the Echo Canyon Trail near a home on the northeast side of the mountain, the Phoenix Fire Department said in a statement Friday.
She was found unresponsive “beyond resuscitative efforts and was pronounced deceased,” the statement read.
She appeared to not have water with her when she was found and was possibly attempting to seek help during the heat, McDade said. The National Weather Service in Phoenix said 104 degrees was the high for Friday.
“But at that point in time, [she] could have conceivably been in the early stages of heat exhaustion and heatstroke, where you become delirious, and unfortunately, your faculties are not about you,” McDade said.
The woman had arrived in town the day before, McDade said. She was hiking with a male companion who lives in the Phoenix area up Camelback Mountain, when she became overheated halfway up the trail and turned around to go to the parking lot, officials said. Her companion continued up the mountain.
Her companion told officials that he is very familiar with the mountain and “hikes it at this time of day all the time, from the top to the bottom,” McDade said.
The pair was set to meet up back at the parking lot, but when her companion got back down, her belongings were all in the car but she was not there, the fire department said. He called 911 at about 1 p.m. and teams began to search for her.
McDade said those who were searching got worried when they were told that she was visiting from out of town.
“With the information we were given that she was visiting from out of town, from Boston, or the Massachusetts area, unfamiliar with this terrain, unfamiliar, possibly, with hiking in these elements — that’s when we became concerned,” he said.
Round trip, the trail is about 2.5 miles long and is considered to be difficult — an expert level hike when taking into account environmental factors, McDade said in a telephone interview Sunday. He said when it gets hot — like Friday’s 104-degree weather — the level of difficulty is comparable to a double black diamond trail in downhill skiing.
“It’s very unforgiving, is the word I like to use. This mountain doesn’t care who you are, or how great of a hiker or an experienced hiker you are,” McDade said Friday. “The mountain, in a situation like that, usually wins.”
Under a pilot program launched last month in Phoenix, trails can be restricted or even closed during periods of excessive heat. Friday’s temperature was just shy of meeting that mark, McDade said Sunday.
“That day didn’t qualify — it missed it by like a degree,” he said. “So, there’s a possibility the mountain would have even been closed that day.”
He added that it’s important to never separate from your hiking group.
“If you have an inexperienced hiker from out of town, that person is overheated, you stay with them, you turn around, you return back down,” he said.
The incident remains under investigation by Phoenix police.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/08/01/ ... n-arizona/
Dry heat is deceptive.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan