Emily Sotelo, 19, was found dead on a New Hampshire mountain trail on what would have been her 20th birthday. Emily had only recently taken up hiking with little experience of winter conditions.
www.dailymail.co.uk
- She only had granola bars, banana, water - light pants, a jacket, sneakers, and no hat
- Her goal was to summit all 48 peaks over 4,000 feet by her 20th birthday
- On the first day of her final hikes, Emily encountered extremely cold conditions
- It is believed that she got lost and was unable to find her way back to the trail
Reminds me of a few months ago. My buddy and his girlfriend wanted to find this geocache that was over a mile into the mountains and invited me along since a mountain adventure sounded right up my alley. She got him into the geocaching thing but neither of them were outdoorsmen by any means. Until then they had just found the ones in parking lots and right off the side of a road and stuff.
So I show up at his house before we depart and he hands me this menu for a restaurant local to the geocache area and asks me what I think of this place. Big, hot, heavy meals like lasagna and pizza and stuff. I said yeah, looks like a good place to stop AFTERwards. These idiots wanted to stop and eat before trekking a mile into the woods. I was also mindful of the fact that it would be getting dark in a few hours. So after talking everyone into just throwing a quick light meal together quick instead we were about to leave.
"Ready?" he says. I took one look at them and literally laughed out loud. They're standing there in short sleeves and sneakers holding a bottle of water and no gear whatsoever. I said that's all you're bringing to walk a mile in the woods somewhere you've never even been before? Whatever. Meanwhile, l had long sleeves, boots, gloves, and a backpack with probably a half gallon worth of water. So I was completely hands free. My GPS was also a separate unit from my phone but they were gonna be burning up their cell phone batteries the whole time.
We drive over to the area and start walking in. The first few hundred feet were kind of a "trail" but after that it was just straight woods. It wasn't long before they found the hard way that carrying that bottle of water in their hands got old real quick. Eventually we had to go down this steep grade that we estimated to be about 300 feet high by the topo map. His girlfriend rolled her ankle because like I said neither of them had boots. I pretty much just climbed down it because my hands were free and I had gloves on so naturally I made it to the bottom first.
So after a while more of trekking we find the cache and it's time to go back. Sun will be going down soon and neither of them brought flashlights of course. "oUr PhOnEs HaVe LiGhTs." Yeah, that you've been using for GPS and are about dead. So there was no time for pissing around. It was time for me to take point. I set a course and kept my bearings. Eventually it was time to climb
up the aforementioned grade so that was fun. I wanted to get out of the woods before it was completely dark so I pretty much maintained a beeline straight through everything and kept the pace pretty high. Jaggers and such weren't much fun though for them with short sleeves on but oh well.
Eventually we got out just in the nick of time before it was completely dark. The restaurant they wanted to try was closed by then but too bad. His girlfriend had a tick but that's just another reason I keep as much skin covered as possible when innawoods. So we found the cache and got out before dark without anyone getting seriously hurt so I'd say things were a success overall. And my buddy got shown up in front of his girlfriend after displaying his full ineptitude in the woods which is kinda embarrassing if you ask me.
T choices by people never will.
