Lost in the Woods

Lost in the Woods

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CAMPUS

RESCUES

The College’s outdoor programs office (OPO) has “significant room for improvement,” according to an external investigation conducted after a student hiker went missing from a physical education trip on Mount Moosilauke in May. Following a two-day search by the N.H. Fish and Game Department’s enforcement division, hiker Arun Anand ’19 was found safe on May 13. The search involved an Air National Guard helicopter, three canine rescue teams, and about 70 other searchers.

“He is a very lucky young man,” says Col. Kevin Jordan, Fish and Game’s chief law enforcement officer. “It was a miracle.”

Anand, who had never hiked before, was wearing short pants, a rain jacket, sneakers, and no winter clothing. The hikers ran into snow on the trail less than an hour after leaving Moosilauke Lodge shortly after dawn. Anand told hike leader Trade Williams ’05 he felt unprepared and wanted to head back. She allowed him to do so unaccompanied, according to Jordan.

Anand quickly became lost. He tried calling 911 and texting friends without, he thought, success. His disappearance was not reported until near sunset, 12 hours later. A text Anand sent to his father the first day contained only his GPS coordinates. His father did not report it until he learned his son was missing. Unfortunately, the coordinates were inaccurate and led rescuers astray, according to Fish and Game Lt. James Kneeland, who led the search the first night. Anand wandered for 49 hours in foot-deep snow trying to find the trail.

One of Anand’s calls did connect to the 911 center “for a second,” Kneeland says. Its computer had his coordinates, but since “911 probably gets hundreds of [disconnected] calls a day, it had no reason to associate that number with anything until we researched it,” adds Kneeland. “That coordinate was more accurate. Once we got people over [there], he was located.”

When ground rescuers found Anand, he was barefoot, disoriented, dehydrated, and hypothermic. He had found the trail, which was covered in hard-packed snow and ice, a mile from the Ravine Lodge, which is located at 2,460 feet. (Moosilauke’s summit rises to 4,803 feet.) During the first night one search team came close to finding the lost hiker, according to Kneeland. They blew whistles and yelled, but Anand had holed up next to a brook whose sounds drowned out the searchers.

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“We had put out a number of press releases prior to this event, describing that we still have mid-winter [conditions], and

When rescuers found Anand, he was barefoot,

disoriented, dehydrated, and hypothermic.

at the time of this event we still had a couple of feet of snow on some of these 4,000-foot peaks. You’ve got to have some winter gear with you,” says Jordan, who adds that the trip leader made two almost-fatal errors by failing to ensure the student hikers were prepared and by allowing Anand to leave alone.

The trip was offered to fulfill a phys-ed credit and was originally listed as a trek on Moose Mountain, where there was no snow due to its 2,200-foot altitude. The hike’s location was shifted because of “a housing availability issue,” according to a College spokesperson.

“The vast majority of the group weren’t dressed for snowy conditions,” says Kneeland. Twenty-one students participated in the trip.

In June OPO director Tim Burdick ’89, DMS ’02, resigned. Trip leader Williams no longer works at the College, according to the spokesperson. An interim management structure now runs OPO, with recently retired deputy director Brian Kunz on board as an advisor. “We look forward to gathering feedback in the summer and early fall from students, faculty, staff, and alumni on what skills and talents they think the next leader of our program should have,” says Eric Ramsey, associate dean for student life.

The College has paid the state $19,000 for the cost of Fish and Game’s rescue operation and has promised to pay additional expenses, which could include an estimated $40,000 for helicopter services.

“It all could have been avoided,” says Jordan.

George M. Spencer