BY DAN
KENNEDY
Serving the reality-based community since 2002.
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Monday, March 29, 2004
WHITE DEATH.
Here
was the story of the weekend - Ken Holmes, a 37-year-old father of
five, hiked into the Pemigewasset Wilderness on January 12 and froze
to death. Garry Harrington's piece in the Boston Globe
Magazine portrays a man who was in excellent physical condition,
who packed plenty of cold-weather gear, but who nevertheless had an
exceedingly cavalier attitude about how quickly conditions can turn
life-threatening in New Hampshire's White Mountains.
I have my own memories of the Pemi.
In November 1987 my friend Brad and I set out on what we hoped would
be a three-day trip. It soon started snowing, and we ended up camping
right in the middle of the trail, with the snow piling up and the
temperature dropping into single digits. We couldn't get our
backpacking stove to light, so we ended up eating granola bars and
huddling in our sleeping bags. We clambered up the summit of
Owl's
Head the next morning and
then bugged out.
Eleven years later we were back,
hiking in a steady, at times heavy, rain over Columbus Day Weekend.
We camped out the first night. The second night, after making our way
over the summits of Bondcliff,
Bond,
West
Bond, and Zealand,
we talked our way into Zealand
Falls Hut, which had been
booked to capacity but had some vacancies because of the weather.
Zealand is open year-round. If Holmes had made it there, Harrington
notes, it might have saved his life.
In August 2001 I took my son, Tim,
and his friend Troy, then both 10, up to Galehead
Hut for their first
extended hiking experience. Accompanying Harrington's article is a
photo of Holmes's backpack in front of Galehead. I've got a picture of
Tim, Troy, and me taken in more or less that very spot.
For those of us who love the White
Mountains, Harrington's story was both a thriller and a cautionary
tale.
HOW DID KELLEY DO IT? "It's
like medical malpractice - doctors don't turn one another in." Howard
Kurtz offers
some insights in this
morning's Washington Post into how former USA Today
reporter Jack Kelley got away with it for so long.
posted at 9:13 AM |
|
link
MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES
Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
