14ers.com

I think a lot of front line emergency medical personnel are adrenaline junkies. That trip itinerary sounds consistent with that personality. I'm sure he was leading the life he wanted to live. RIP.

somethingrandom wrote:Lenny was a hero of all heroes. A fireman who put his life on the line for others. The world is a lesser place without you Lenny. My condolences to Lenny's family and friends.

Very well said. May you RIP Lenny.

So sad to here. I was up on Thunder Pyramid the day before. Tough group of mountains. Stay safe my friends.
RIP brother...

I was camped next to this guy with some friends of mine. We packed in on Friday morning, set up our camp and noticed the tent about 100 ft from ours. Figured the owner was hiking or climbing without thinking much more about it. The next day we all noticed that nobody seemed to have shown up at the tent. Thought it was strange but maybe they posted the tent there and went on an over night hike. Sat night, nobody showed. We became more and more curious what was up. Sunday morning we were packing up our camp and still had never seen anybody show at the tent next to us. We decided to check it out to see if somebody was inside, maybe sick or something. Nothing but a large backpack inside. The tent appeared to be put up hastily, the rainfly wasn't secure or on correctly. We headed out around 10:00 am and decided we'd let the park rangers know about it in case somebody was missing. We hadn't heard or seen any type of rescue or search operations going so maybe nobody knew this person was missing. I came upon a volunteer guy on the trail out to the Maroon Bells parking lot and told him the campsite number and that we'd been there 3 days without seeing anyone at that tent. He seemed completely unaware of any missing hikers, but he was a volunteer and probably not up to date on that sort of thing. At that point I started to expect to hear of a fatality pretty soon. Still, it's a strange feeling. We were so close to this guy but didn't meet him. We camped directly below N. Maroon but didn't have a clue he was laying up there somewhere. We even spoke to climbers coming down from the peak on Sat and nobody mentioned anything. There were appoximately 9 climbers on that peak that day. You'd think somebody would have seen him. Just reminds us all how easily things can go wrong and without notice. For the record, we touched nothing inside the tent so it should have been completely intact when the park officials got there. My sincere condolences to the friends and family. Sounds like he was a great guy, somebody who we desperately need many more of on this planet.

Does anyone have a solution to communications for this area? I've never been able to get a cell signal in the area except for on the summit of the peaks, and I've wondered often what type of communication device is advisable in areas such as this? On Sat we wanted to call out to authorities to report the empty tent, but had no cell signal at all. Maybe that would have been dismissed if they didn't have a missing person notification, but still am wondering. If I had my Motorola radios with me, is there a channel that is used for emergency situations? I'd really like to know now for future use. I'd like to think that if I fell and was still concious, or found an injured person in the backcountry that I could communicate with emergency services somehow in some instances.

There was a pretty cool device that someone used to communicate to emergency personnel about the incident on Windom. I forgot the name of the device. I'll try to find the name of it.

DeLorme Inreach I believe is what you're thinking of Barry.

I'm very sorry to hear this outcome. My sincere condolences to his family and friends and prayers for comfort and peace in their lives at this difficult time.

RockyMtnHigh wrote:DeLorme Inreach I believe is what you're thinking of Barry.

Yep, that's it. Here is the link.

http://www.inreachdelorme.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Interesting. Thanks guys. A bit more costly than I'd hoped, but in an emergency it would probably be worth it as long as it works.

I use the Delorme In reach and have found it to be a very nice product. Although I have never used it in an emergency and pray I never have to. Got a link to that thread? I would very much like to have more confidence in this product, especially given the failure of the android interface.

Tango2Hotel wrote:I use the Delorme In reach and have found it to be a very nice product. Although I have never used it in an emergency and pray I never have to. Got a link to that thread? I would very much like to have more confidence in this product, especially given the failure of the android interface.

I PM'd it to you.