A climber on the Abol Trail has fallen to his death.
The deceased climber's name has been identified: John H. Stetson, of Holden, ME.
Climber, 68, dies in 1,000 foot fall in Baxter State Park
A climber on the Abol Trail has fallen to his death.
The deceased climber's name has been identified: John H. Stetson, of Holden, ME.
Climber, 68, dies in 1,000 foot fall in Baxter State Park
Teej
"[ATers] represent three percent of our use and about twenty percent of our effort," retired Baxter Park Director Jensen Bissell.
What kind of medical event requires quotation marks around "medical event"???
I hiked the Abol trail this year to check out the new section. When heading down the turn off the old trail to the new one is quite an eye opener. Above that point is steep but there are terrain features while the old section is straight down. Given the warm weather over the weekend and the south exposure I expect the Abol was wet ice.
I was up there on the day of the incident. I had two technical ice axes and ice climbing crampons due to the nauture of our mission. The trail is covered in 3" of solid blue ice. You could have sunk a stubby ice screw in the trail and it would have held a fall. Probably the worst conditions I have ever seen on the trail, but there was no free water since max temp at elevation never broke 25. A regular mountaineering axe would have had very little opportunity to dig into the ice except for a few of the neve and punchy crust sections that were found in more sun affected locations.