Rangers assist in trail, water rescues
Others caught out after dark without headlamps
Hikers without flashlights (again), a helicopter rescue and the search for a kayaker who had to bail out of his trapped vessel kept state forest rangers busy during the past week.
On Oct. 27 at 11:15 a.m., Essex County 911 contacted DEC’S Ray Brook Dispatch reporting a 66-yearold hiker from Elizabethtown had suffered a nonweight-bearing knee injury on the Mount Fay summit. Due to the hiker's location, a State Police helicopter was requested and rangers were picked up to perform a hoist rescue. At 12:40 p.m., a ranger was inserted to the hiker’s location, evaluated his injuries, and packaged the hiker to take off from the summit. The injured hiker was turned over to Lake Placid EMS and taken to a local hospital.
Then on Oct. 30 at 6:17 p.m., DEC’S Ray Brook Dispatch received a call from a hiker reporting two members of his party overdue from hiking Mount Marcy. The pair was last seen at the summit at about 2:30 p.m., with only their cellphones for a light source. A ranger responded to the trailhead to meet with the reporting party. At 7:06 p.m., the ranger located the 24- and 26-yearold hikers from Ithaca, gave them head lamps, and escorted the pair back to the parking area where they were reunited with their hiking group at 7:48 p.m.
On Oct. 31, DEC’S Ray Brook Dispatch received a report of a stranded kayak in the north branch of the Boquet River.
Rangers responded and found the kayak trapped between a rock and a log just upstream from the confluence of the north and south branches of the river. They swept the river shoreline, downstream and upstream, and checked all put-ins and take-outs to find the kayaker.
Other whitewater kayakers in the area volunteered to help remove the pinned kayak. The owner of the kayak later contacted dispatchers to report himself as the missing kayaker after he was rescued from the river by a fellow kayaker with a throw bag after not being able to handle the water levels and intensity of the rapids after the rain.