A hiker who was stranded for seven hours on Trap Dike on Mount Colden in the Adirondacks—not knowing if his call for help went through—was recently rescued by forest rangers in a mission that involved a “grueling bushwhack.”
According to New York Department of Environmetal Conservation officials, forest rangers received a report of a satellite beacon activation on Mount Colden at 6:22 p.m. on Wednesday, October 21.
The coordinates of the signal indicated it was activated at the north edge of the slide that serves as the exit route to the Mount Colden Trap Dike in Keene, New York.
According to officials, the signal came from Eric Le Bourhis, a 60-year-old hiker from Canada, who was stranded on the slide, roughly seven feet from its forested edge.
Le Bourhis was stranded on a ledge that was approximately one foot by three feet. The ledge was iced over. He had crampons, but had dropped and lost them while trying to put them on.
For seven hours, Le Bourhis stood on the ledge trying not to fall, and not knowing if his beacon had worked.
Forest rangers reached him at 1:16 a.m. and began assembling a high-angle rope rescue. The team of rangers were able to get a rescuer to Le Bourhis and then get both rescuer and hiker to the vegetated edge.
But the ordeal wasn’t over. According to officials, the ranger and hiker then began a “grueling bushwhack” through the forest toward the summit and trail.
They descended to Marcy Dam Outpost, where they met two rangers before using ATVs to exit to the trailhead. The incident was clear at 8 a.m.
The hiker and two forest rangers involved in the rescue recently talked about the incident with NYDEC officials.
Le Bourhis is an experienced hiker—who is experienced hiking in winter—and he said this was not his first time on Trap Dike. He said conditions seemed dry and good early on, but he acknowledged that he should have acted sooner when things began getting wet and icy.
“My first bad mistake was to not put my crampons on soon enough,” said Le Bourhis. “I waited until I was right in front of the ice at an incline.”
He said he lost both crampons at once because they were together in a bag that fell as he was taking them out. “That bag slides quite well,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said the water below him had refrozen, essentially painting him into a corner.
He said he agonized over what to do, whether to try jumping or to activate his beacon. With the sun setting, he decided to activate the beacon.
“I felt a huge rush of guilt and shame that I was the one to do that,” he said. “I never thought I would be the one … I never thought I would have to use it.”
As he stood on the ledge for seven hours, he said he became tired, wobbly, and started to get cramps.
“I didn’t even have enough room to sit,” he said. “I did my best to not get dizzy.”
Forest Ranger Nate Jeffrey said rangers knew immediately it was going to be a difficult rescue in a very tough to reach place on Mount Colden. When they reached Le Bourhis and saw his predicament, they realized it was a bad scenario.
“It’s like a heart-in-your-throat kind of moment,” said Jeffrey. “There’s rope work involved and high consequence and a diminishing timeline to get the subject to safety based on how long he’s been there.”
You can watch both interviews below.
