Wilderness Rescue/Medicine Ethics in the Grand Canyon?!?!

Interesting read from one of the Grand Canyon forums

I am interested in how much help hikers in the group have offered or are willing to offer to others in need in the Grand Canyon backcountry. I have certainly provided water and advice to a good number of groups in the past. As an EMT, I would be willing to offer assistance to those having a medical emergency. However, let me start this discussion by recounting a specific experience my girlfriend and I had with helping others for about forty hours on the Royal Arch Loop back in mid-May.

We planned an ambitious hike entering via Point Huitzil, doing the Royal Arch loop, continuing along the West Tonto, exiting the Boucher, and returning to Pasture Wash Ranger Station via Boundary Road. Excessive late May heat probably made the execution of our aggressive plan unlikely. The South Bass Trail was always in our mind as the escape route before the point of no return. Regardless, the critical error of another group and the assistance we provided for them certainly forced us to abort the Tonto portion of our trip. Besides the inconvenience of shortening our vacation, it nearly cost us our lives!

Point Huitzil was a pretty exciting entry into the Canyon. We didn’t make it to the creek the first day which made for a pretty dry night down in the Redwall of Royal Arch Canyon. The next morning I got up early to hunt for some water while my girlfriend slept in. I passed up a few stagnant looking potholes hoping for some great bountiful flowing water source since the park handout indicated that there was going to be water in the Redwall. While hiking down canyon, I heard two gentlemen conversing hidden somewhere away from my view. I croaked out a dry “hello” and asked them if they knew where some water might be. They indicated that they were sitting next to water. I found them pumping out of a pothole that looked no better than the ones I had passed up canyon. They graciously lent me their ceramic filter since I only had Aqua-Mira, a bucket, and alum. My girlfriend had a squeeze filter, but she had that somewhere in her pack under her sleeping feet in the tent twenty-five minutes back up canyon. I was grateful for the help from these two gentlemen, gathered a gallon of water, and headed back up to my camp. I will call them J&N for the duration of this anecdote since one of them is a member of this group.

So, my first encounter with J&N was them helping me out! They allowed me to pump water with the same heavy MSR filter that I own but did not want to bother carrying. Not only did I use their filter, I had to clean it twice for every liter pumped. They entrusted me to use a valuable piece of gear that they were depending upon. I felt indebted to them. This emotion almost turned into a lethal mistake four days later…

After packing up camp, we headed down towards Royal Arch. It got hot as we bouldered with heavy packs! We ended up resting in the shade until a few shadows crept into the side of the canyon. It was a joyous moment of soaking hats when we got to the creek in the Muav. J&N were napping on the shelves under Royal Arch taking it easy. J&N, my girlfriend (who I will now refer to as E in order to remove possessive sexist language), and I were trying to decide if we were going to head to the River that afternoon. We all decided to camp out at Royal Arch and head down the next morning. The four of us had a nice conversation getting to know each other, chatting about Grand Canyon, and hiking. I felt inclined to share a little whiskey since they had made my morning so much easier. All in all it was a nice evening with new friends met in a remarkably remote and beautiful place.

E and I left early the next morning beating J&N out of camp. We spied them from above the rim of Royal Arch Canyon and gladly shouted down advice on how to find the exit. The night before we all had discussed the upcoming rappel. It seems J&N felt gear should always be there, but they had brought 30 feet of rope, webbing, harnesses, and ATCs just in case. They had no climbing experience, had been advised how to set it up, and planned to make their first rappel in the remote GC backcountry. Warning bells should have been deafening my ears! They seemed so confident. E and I were pretty much expecting gear to be there, but we brought 50 feet of webbing to make an anchor and handline if nothing was there. We brought less gear, but KNEW we could set up a 20 foot handline to make it down the obstacle-from experience.

We got to the rappel well ahead of J&N. The approach cliff was pretty exposed and a little challenging with packs on. At the rappel there was a nice anchor, a handline, and a dynamic rope already there. E went down the handline, I roped the packs down to E utilizing our webbing, and then I went down the handline. It was lots of fun and a piece of cake! Here, I must digress and talk about the mechanics of lowering packs. E and I had done this a number of times by handing them down or by utilizing our webbing. Point Huitzil demanded it! Royal Arch Canyon requested it. The rappel required it! When lowering packs, the person above gently lowers the pack from a safe position until the person below gets hands upon it. At this point the person below communicates that he or she has a hold on the pack. The person above verbally confirms this and states that he or she will continue to slowly lower the pack until the person below places it in a safe stable place. The person below communicates that the pack is down and that the person above can take the webbing back. The person above communicates that he or she is about to let go of the pack and remove the webbing. The person below confirms this with an okay. Pack management based simple, safe, and sound on common sense. I only mention these details because of a soon-to-occur critical fail that would drastically alter the rest of our week.

After completing the rappel, E and I took a shade break enjoying our view of the inviting Colorado flowing below us. As we started down, we saw J&N appear on top of the approach cliffs above the rappel. They didn’t see us, but we expected they’d probably be down about an hour and a half after we got to the River. The beach was glorious! E and I enjoyed our skinny dip for an hour, got dressed, and then started to look up towards the cliffs for J&N. Several hours crept by, and we started to get consumed with worry. E and I are both EMTs, so we were imagining the worst bloody dehydrated trauma possible as we stared up towards the blank cliffs. Where were they? Should we have assisted these inexperienced climbers down the technical part? Should we hike back up there? Yes! After almost four hours at the beach, we filled up on water and got ready to go look for the bodies. And then….there they were, slowly coming down the last leg to the beach. Phew! That was close, but here they came! Everything was just fine!

But, wait……I congratulated J&N only to hear that they……..
.lost a pack. What?!?! It was true. As they came to the difficult approach cliffs above the rappel they decided to lower their packs. E and I didn’t lower there, but I can see that as a reasonable lowering spot. Through some sort of miscommunication J let go of the rope on his pack before N had it. The pack disappeared off a cliff in the middle of a very remote part of the Grand Canyon. CRITICAL FAIL!!! Not only was that nice ceramic filter gone, so was a bunch of food, water bottles, squeeze filter, sleeping gear, stove, fuel, hiking journal of 40 years, binoculars, wallet, and single key to the rental car sitting at South Bass Trailhead.

J&N had spent plenty of fruitless time trying to get the pack back, hence the four hour delay to the beach. They found plenty of nalgenes dropped from other hikers, but did not locate the pack. They couldn’t even see or hear where it landed after it dropped into the abyss. J&N arrived at the beach dejected and dehydrated. E and I empathized and immediately offered to help with their problem. If only we had known that their problem would become our problem we may have taken a different approach.

First, E and I spent over an hour trying to hike up from below to see if we could spot the pack. It was a silly dangerous off-trail endeavor to try to find a needle in a haystack. The only thing we gained from that foray was bleeding legs. After returning to the beach, we tried to help J&N formulate a plan. Quickly, E and I discovered that all suggestions and ideas were our own and that J&N were not even trying to figure out a solution to the problem their mistake had created. We discussed flagging down a rafting group to get a small backpack, water bottles, and food for the two men. When rafts came by, J&N didn’t even get up to summon help. Luckily for them, E immediately went out waving her arms getting the rafters’ attention. Seeing a beautiful woman in distress got a pretty quick response! We made J&N do the talking as it was their problem. They got some gear, food, and a satellite phone call before the rafters took off. J&N still seemed completely clueless as to how they were going to get out of GC alive. It was a two day hike out from Toltec Beach, but they were really only concerned with how they were going to get the rental car back to Phoenix and make their flight on time. I tried to remind them that survival in the Canyon is much more important than the details of being out of the Canyon. This reminder went unheeded!

South Bass Trailhead is about thirty miles down a waterless dirt 4X4 road from GC Village. J&N decided that leaving a reserve of one liter each in the car was sufficient. They also decided to leave their cell phones at El Tovar. These decisions bewilder me as I always leave gallons of water in my vehicle that I don’t plan on drinking, and I personally know that cell phones work in the vicinity of South Bass Trailhead since mine did when I drove around out there. Even without a key, I could get to my water and phone with a tenacious rock. Even if J&N made it out South Bass, how were they to get out?

Luckily for them, I have a Delorme InReach. This device allows one to send and receive text messages via satellites. I started slowly and painfully texting messages out to N’s wife. She offered no real assistance even after contacting the rental car company and GC Dispatch. The response was that J&N needed a tow or a locksmith and needed to walk or hitch out. I got my father involved asking him to contact GC Dispatch and actually get something done. Dispatch’s response to him was that E and I were under no responsibility to help with the lost pack, the key, or getting J&N out. That is easier said then done when there are people in serious need.

Eventually it became clear that J&N were not just in need but NEEDY. Our assistance at Toltec Beach included searching for the pack, flagging down rafters, offering up our squeeze filter even though they had another Katahdin filter with clear CO River water, using countless messages on my device that I typed (I haven’t got the bill from DeLorme for that one yet), running down my batteries, using our stove and fuel, borrowing superglue, and borrowing medicines from my small first aid kit. They also asked for some snacks and Gatorade, but I was confused why they wanted ours when they should have got what they needed from the rafters?!? The next day I finally got in direct contact with GC Dispatch and eventually got them to commit to sending rangers out to South Bass TH to meet J&N a day and a half later.

J&N left Toltec ahead of E and I with Copper Canyon being everybody’s destination for the day. Dealing with their problem the day prior had been mentally exhausting, and I was glad that E and I got to hike by ourselves. Shortly after leaving Toltec Beach, E and I found J’s hat. What the hell is going on? J is bald, so why did he drop his hat? My mental exhaustion deepened. It got really hot on the Tonto! E and I eventually took some hard to find shade breaks here and there. We caught up with J&N, gave J his hat, and leap frogged them a few times on the way to Copper.

E and I beat them to Copper getting there about an hour before dark. I did a reconnaissance hike down canyon looking for water and found some less-than-appetizing potholes about twenty minutes below the Tonto crossing. I returned to E, got the Aqua-Mira, squeeze filter, bucket, and alum when J&N appeared. They asked if I knew where there was water, and I informed them of its location. At this point they told me that they only had one headlamp, and its batteries were dead. What?!? So, I guided N down to the water, and it quickly got dark. N’s filter would not work, and the squeeze filter stopped working after a lengthily filtered gallon. I informed N he was going to have to settle water overnight and use my Aqua-Mira. We scrambled back upcanyon in the dark with my headlamp and found J and E sitting at the Tonto crossing. My girlfriend was dehydrated, exhausted, mentally worn, and physically spent from helping these two. I was in the same boat. I was getting worried about E and I. J&N borrowed our light and stove to make dinner and bummed a quart of water out of my gallon. E still had two liters, and I had about four. J had drained her headlamp while we were getting water. Ugh. E did not even have the energy to search for her extra batteries. I got her to bed, came back for J&N, took them to their camp, loaned them my light for a few minutes, and then informed them I needed my light because I had to go to bed.

The next morning J&N got up an hour after sunrise. I was so completely exhausted and dehydrated that I struggled to get up to loan them my Aqua-Mira. I explained how to use it. Later, J asked me if it was okay that he just put the drops in the water without letting them react first. NO! That is not how it works, so he used another round of my dwindling water treatment supply. While I was laying on my sleeping bag in dehydrated misery, I heard J yelling my and N’s name somewhere from up canyon. What could it be now? How much more help can he possibly need from me? It turns out he got himself lost five minutes up canyon from the Tonto crossing campsites probably going out for his morning bowel movement. I yelled so he could find his way back. J may be directionally challenged, but I believe dehydration and exhaustion were to blame. Finally, it was 7:30 am. The sun had been up for two and a half hours. I told J, “If you’re going to go to the rim, you gotta go!” J just needed a couple more favors before they left. Could he get some food from me? Sure…. Could he get one more liter of water? No…well…okay. After they left, I said to E, “how could I have given away the water that we so desperately need?” I started crying. Boy, helping out those in need had really done a number to my mental state. My last text to GC Dispatch said, “J&N left at 730. They had 4 liters of water (inadequate), they plan to make the rim by 700 (unlikely). We can NO longer offer any assistance to these people!!!!”

I hiked back down Copper to a bucket of water that had settled somewhat overnight. Even after the settling, I would say that the water was quite ALIVE. I brought it back up, and we managed to filter two extremely slow liters before the squeeze filter was totally shot. I stashed the rest of the lively untreated water in my pack-just in case. We were dehydrated, we weren’t thinking clearly anymore, it was late, it was hot, and Copper Canyon was awful! We had to make it down to South Bass Beach. Thus began the most miserable hike of my life. It was about five miles down to the beach, with no shade, little water, through an oven, where we could often see but not reach the River. I now know what heat exhaustion feels like. I was stumbling. My thoughts were jumbled. I felt like throwing up but knew I better not. My head pounded. My skin felt hot and tingly. E looked distraught. Everything seemed so far away. We couldn’t stop. Time was too precious for a break. If one of us fell it was over.

Eventually we made it to the beach where a rafting party just happened to be having lunch. Keith, a river guide and critical care nurse from Tuscan, quickly said, “how about you let me manage your problem.” Thank you Keith for helping us out! If anybody knows Keith, I would love to send him a personal thank you note. Keith set us up with water, cooled us in the River, took our vitals, gave us Gatorade, gave us food, sanitized out nasty water bottles, topped them completely off, and got us stabilized in about an hour. E and I stayed at the beach that night, the next day and night, and left early for the South Bass TH the following morning.

While driving back out the South Bass Road, we came upon a tow truck. N was sitting in the truck with the driver, and we had a brief moment to ask how it all turned out. Apparently N made it to the TH by 900pm where SAR rangers were waiting. J was rescued by SAR the following morning. We asked N if they would have dinner with us that night. He said yes but never contacted us. That’s a little disappointing since they had offered us up a dinner at EL Tovar while we were in the midst of helping them. Even more disappointing is that they never sent a thank you note. Really, I would just like to know the details of their rescue. I know they got out, had to get the rental towed to Phoenix, and missed the flight. If one of them is reading this, I’d love to hear the end of the story.

As for the folks on this group that made it this far, I would greatly appreciate hearing a discussion on the ethics of helping others in the wilderness. What is your reaction to this story? Do you have a backcountry anecdote that mirrors or contradicts this? As for me, I go back to my EMT training that I so blatantly ignored while trying to help these two gentlemen out. In order to help I must first take care of me, then my partner, then the public, and lastly the patient. I feel that I should have offered an hour of help at Toltec and then told them that their best hope is with soliciting help from rafters. E’s and my assistance exhausted our mental and physical capabilities as well as the actual resources from our packs. We could have died from heat. I didn’t get to day hike to Elves Chasm. We aborted our Tonto hike. Next time my help will be a lot more brief, cold, and exacting. I also am going to be less likely to ask others for help for fear that I might owe them something.