Mansicle Hunt
This past weekend, instead of the usual hutchecking tour, I found myself skiing the longer-than-usual Gale River Trail towards South Twin Mountain with huts manager Mike.
A fellow's car had been parked at the Gale River road junction with US 3 for nearly three weeks, and he was presumed lost in the woods. He had set out in late January, during the cold snap that brought lows down into the negative twenties. Unfortunately, he had few people at home who noticed that he was missing- Fish and Game only began to act in mid-February, going solely on the note he'd left on his car.
Last weekend, a number of groups traced his assumed route from Route 3, up Galehead, over the Twinway toward Zealand. Helicopters also flew over the route and canine teams searched near the logging roads in the Gale River Road area. Mike and I skiied from the Beaver Brook parking lot to the closed Gale River Road, then kept on skiing on thin snow until we reached the footbridge. From there we hiked (there was so little snow that I only wore sneakers) to Galehead Hut, where we scouted around for signs of old tracks, then onward to meet Matt (the other Zealand caretaker) on S. Twin.
It was uneventful, but the nature of the trip was still somewhat macabre. The running joke was that we were probably looking for a frozen "mansicle", although the weather that day was beautiful: sunny and mild, as it had been for most of the previous week The guy for whom we were searching allegedly had a penchant for bushwhacking, and though we were looking for off-trail tracks, it was unlikely we would see any three weeks later. After the intense involvement of so many people last weekend, Fish and Game has decided to call off the search.
During my stint next week, I'll probably creep myself out a few times as I imagine a frozen body somewhere in the vicinity of the hut (which was, according to his note, one of his destinations). But after the fruitless search, I prefer to think of a diffent scenario. After all, if someone wanted intentionally to disappear without a trace, this guy found a pretty good way to do it: park your car at the edge of a wilderness, leave an ambiguous note, and leave with nothing but what you've got on your back. He could be frozen. But it's not impossible that he could be lying on a beach in the Virgin Islands, a completely new man. Time will tell.
A fellow's car had been parked at the Gale River road junction with US 3 for nearly three weeks, and he was presumed lost in the woods. He had set out in late January, during the cold snap that brought lows down into the negative twenties. Unfortunately, he had few people at home who noticed that he was missing- Fish and Game only began to act in mid-February, going solely on the note he'd left on his car.
Last weekend, a number of groups traced his assumed route from Route 3, up Galehead, over the Twinway toward Zealand. Helicopters also flew over the route and canine teams searched near the logging roads in the Gale River Road area. Mike and I skiied from the Beaver Brook parking lot to the closed Gale River Road, then kept on skiing on thin snow until we reached the footbridge. From there we hiked (there was so little snow that I only wore sneakers) to Galehead Hut, where we scouted around for signs of old tracks, then onward to meet Matt (the other Zealand caretaker) on S. Twin.
It was uneventful, but the nature of the trip was still somewhat macabre. The running joke was that we were probably looking for a frozen "mansicle", although the weather that day was beautiful: sunny and mild, as it had been for most of the previous week The guy for whom we were searching allegedly had a penchant for bushwhacking, and though we were looking for off-trail tracks, it was unlikely we would see any three weeks later. After the intense involvement of so many people last weekend, Fish and Game has decided to call off the search.
During my stint next week, I'll probably creep myself out a few times as I imagine a frozen body somewhere in the vicinity of the hut (which was, according to his note, one of his destinations). But after the fruitless search, I prefer to think of a diffent scenario. After all, if someone wanted intentionally to disappear without a trace, this guy found a pretty good way to do it: park your car at the edge of a wilderness, leave an ambiguous note, and leave with nothing but what you've got on your back. He could be frozen. But it's not impossible that he could be lying on a beach in the Virgin Islands, a completely new man. Time will tell.
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