But the article directs people wanting more information about safety to go to "hikesafe.com", and this is what I found there:
NH FISH & GAME AND THE WHITE MOUNTAIN NATIONAL FOREST REQUEST THAT YOU FOLLOW RECREATE RESPONSIBLY GUIDELINES.
Know Before You Go: Check the status of the place you want to visit. If it is closed, don't go. If it's crowded, have a backup plan.
Practice Physical Distancing: Keep your group size small. Be prepared to cover your nose and mouth and give others space. If you are sick, stay home.
Plan Ahead: Prepare for facilities to be closed, pack lunch, and bring essentials like hand sanitizer and a face covering.
Play It Safe: Slow down and choose lower-risk activities to reduce your risk of injury. Search and rescue operations and health care resources are both strained.
Explore Locally: Limit long-distance travel and make use of local parks, trails, and public spaces. Be mindful of your impact on the communities you visit.
Leave No Trace: Respect public lands and waters, as well as Native and local communities. Take all your garbage with you. Pack it in, pack it out and pack it home.
Build an Inclusive Outdoors: Be an active part of making the outdoors safe and welcoming for all identities and abilities.
So, if this poor kid had followed this advice, he would have brought hand sanitizer and a mask, stayed away from others, didn't need a backup plan because it wasn't crowded, was (I'm sure) ready to cover his nose and mouth, and to make sure his trail was "safe for all identities", and despite that he got lost and froze to death.
Maybe "hikesafe.com" should have given some advice about clothing, shelter, equipment, and backup, and forget the hand sanitizer, masks, and "other identities".
“Plan Ahead: Prepare for facilities to be closed, pack lunch, and bring essentials like hand sanitizer and a face covering.”
Oh please, masks are debatable, at best, Omicron is no worse than the flu, and nothing spreads outdoors.
How unfortunate for these young uns.
Were they vaxed & boosted?
Hiking up a mountain in winter in a day trip....
You being everything you need to survive for a night.
I bet they got a federal grant for that.................
People are very creative figuring out ways to kill themselves.
Cannon Mtn faces north and well known to be dangerously freezing into Spring. I wonder why anyone would attempt to hike it on the coldest of days rather than waiting until summertime.
What was the cause of death?
First and foremost is he prepared for an unexpected night out in any weather. Even on short hikes we have enough provisions to spend the night in the wilderness
The second is never hike alone
Always have your satellite located/transponder. The price on these have come way down and there is no excuse not to have one
Editing
Man hiking solo and trying to summit Mt.Lincoln was found dead.
This is NH or Vermont, right?
These hikers had to be inexperienced, else they 1) don’t go at all in such conditions or 2) would have adequate provisions, gear and safety/comm equipment for whatever might happen.
Hiking the Whites in these conditions is reckless.
Screw the hand sanitizer and masks; I carry a Kimber 1911 .45cal ACP w/ 230gr w/ mags of FMJs and HPs.
Oh man, this is so sad. And hikesafe is insane. Purely insane!
Perhaps locals who know the trail and winter weather conditions there with the right clothing and equipment* could safely hike on such a day, but a lone inexperienced hiker from a foreign country? No way! They are going to have to start closing these trails or somehow limiting use to certified experienced hikers with correct clothing, equipment and provisions.
Winds can suddenly whip up at higher elevations blowing snow off trees, etc., and obscuring the trail. So easy to get lost with little chance of survival for an unprepared hiker. One would hope stern warning signs were posted at the trailhead, but the stupid hikesafe site makes me doubt that somehow.
I’m more familiar with the Green Mountains of Vermont, which I imagine must be less formidable in winter than the White Mountains of New Hampshire — but even though I had the right clothing and gear when I lived there for a time long ago, would never have risked a solo hike on such a day. This young man should never have been on an 8-mile trail yesterday.
Speaking of 8+ miles — in those conditions, it would have been a four- to five-hour hike at minimum, and he started at 11am? Crazy!
That poor rescue team who gave up their Christmas Eve and Christmas morning only to find tragedy in the end. And the poor grieving family of that young man. This should never have happened.
*A proper list is extensive and expensive. Why doesn’t hikesafe have a list like this one (and I would add an emergency beacon — or at least emergency flares — to the list):
https://sectionhiker.com/sectionhiker-gear-guide/recommended-winter-hiking-gear-list/
Hand sanitizer and masks are NOT essentials.
Food and water are, plus something to help protect you from the elements.
Practice Physical Distancing: Keep your group size small. Be prepared to cover your nose and mouth and give others space.But nothing about advising inexperienced hikers to NOT head out for 9 mile mountain peak hikes when overnight temps will be below zero? Who writes this garbage?
I had an acquaintance who was moving to Colorado to work on his PhD. On his way he stopped at a trailhead and he and his dog went for a hike just as snow was starting.
They found him in the spring.
His dog made it out OK though.
Some people simply don’t use the sense that God gave them.
Even little mice have enough sense to shelter (sometimes in my garage)
I’m unconvinced we’re a higher level of animal like libtards believe
The weather in the White Mtns. Is capable of killing you with little warning. In the late 80’s I did the Mt. Washington Hillclimb race (bicycle). It was sunny and 80 at the start, and 45 and 10 foot visibility at the top. Although I now live at 7500’ in New Mexico, and have spent a fair amount of time hiking and cross country skiing above 10000’, the weather here is far less scary.
I spelunked with a couple of rappels deep in caves in North Alabama before I reached my teens. I backpacked in to an "Eskimo Weekend Camporee" and woke up the next morning with six inches of snow around our pup tents. I hiked The Priest in the "George Washington National Forest" when I was in junior high school. My bruiser of a little brother carried a very heavy homemade plywood backpack with him up The Priest and when one of our fellow Scouts could only make it halfway up he carried the other guy's backpack, at the same time to the top, one on each shoulder. [that mousey guy later stole my girlfriend]
To prove what fun we had on every venture into the wilderness, on a canoe trip down the Cowpasture River in Virginia we pulled our canoes up to a sloping bank for a rest and one of the Scouts noticed an electric fence several yards up the slope. He had the great idea of grabbing the fence with a few of us joining hands to reach down to the river. When the next canoe pulled up, the guy at the water's edge offered his hand to help the other kid out of his canoe. The daisy chain of hands were not well grounded, but the kid in the aluminum canoe on the water sure was. We all heard the SNAP when their hands touched. Well, I guess it wasn't fun for one of us.
I just remembered when we camped the first night outside of the cave in Alabama, one of the other Scouts micturated on our campfire. That wasn't fun at the time either.
Mt Lincoln is 5,000 ft. Not quite as high as Mt Washington at over 6,000, but those mountains can be dangerous to climb in the summer if the weather turns.