Case Study 4

1. Case Study 4 Jack and Jill wanted to try something different, so they signed up for an AMC hike up Mt. Ascutney in Vermont led by Mirk and colead by Jorge. Their plan was to take the Weathersfield Trail to the summit and the Windsor Trail down the other side of the mountain to where they had spotted two of the vehicles. Mirk had a GPS receiver and map. He showed the map to Jorge, but no one else, in the parking lot and then put it back in his truck. Jorge went first up the trail, at a very quick pace. It was a well equipped group. Everyone but Jack had hydration bladders on this hot, muggy August day. Jack had an old Army canteen and two Red Bulls inside his pack. Mirk knew the group was going too quickly, but did not want to seem like an old man by complaining. By the time Jorge paused at the waterfall halfway to the summit Jack was feeling tired. He got a chance to grab a few gulps of water before the group took off again. About one hundred yards beyond where they first stopped Jack got a painful cramp in his leg. He stopped, but insisted everyone else go on. Mirk, who had been hiking in the rear, waited with Jack while he gulped some more water. Jorge did not rest the group again until he reached the summit. It became clear to Mirk that he should set the pace on the way down. There were at least two trail junctions that they would pass and Mirk had the GPS receiver that they could use to know when the Brownsville Trail split from the Windsor Trail. Mirk was nervous that he would look like an idiot for having left the map in the parking lot when the group came to the first junction and he had no satellite signal on the receiver. He decided to take the group to the left, thinking the trail to the right would just take them back to the summit. In reality, they had missed the first junction in the overgrowth and they were now descending by the Brownsville Trail. Shortly after passing an abandoned granite quarry the group stopped by a stream. Mirk realized that there was no granite quarry along the Windsor Trail and that he had taken the whole group down the wrong trail on his first trip as a leader. Fortunately, Jorge was a runner. Jorge went ahead to the parking area and then ran down the road to the other trailhead where they had spotted the vehicles. Had he taken the right keys with him, he could have driven one of the vehicles back to the trailhead. He only had his car keys and his car was on the other side of the mountain. Back near the quarry, Jill, who had been drinking steadily all day, told Jack that she was going to the “girl’s tree”. As the group was getting ready to leave several minutes later Mirk noticed that Jack was looking worried. Jack told Mirk that Jill had gone off the trail, leaving her pack behind, and he had no idea where she was, other than being to the west of the trail. After waiting several more minutes and calling for Jill, Mirk decided that he had a lost hiker. It was getting near sunset. Jill was wearing a brown shirt and brown pants and carried no whistle so that she might be heard over the sound of the stream. Jill had been tired and lost her bearings after she had gone to the bathroom. She got scared when no one responded to her screams. She knew she would eventually find civilization if she headed downhill, so she took off through the brush as quickly as she could go. Who screwed up and how?