Everybody's Okay But . . . .

We did have a student return to campus this morning. You'll remember that I wrote a bit about hearing from the Gordon Pond crew last night. It turns out that Jess's ankle didn't get any better over night so I connected up with the group this morning and brought her back to campus.

It was nice to see Mr. Stiles and Leah as well since they had hiked to the trail head to help Jess down. We have a no solo-hiking policy so that meant that Mr. Stiles and Leah needed to hike Jess out together so they could hike back into the group together. This is important since one of the first rules of wilderness medicine is not, while helping one person, to injure someone else!

It turns out that last night wasn't as cold as I'd previously reported. In fact it was noticeably warmer than Sunday night even though they were at a higher elevation.

While I was meeting with Jess, Stiles and Leah, the group was continuing on under the guidance of their wilderness instructor Lindsey. As I drove away with Jess the two started their hike back to catch up. The Beaver Brook Trail looks considerably more friendly today than it must have on Sunday!

Their plan is to stay on schedule by hiking further today than originally planned and getting back on track. That will be a big day, but if they aren't up to it they can always call me to revise their pick up.

Overall it sounded like the group was in good spirits. Jess said they had a delicious meal of macaroni and cheese last night but that she didn't like the oatmeal for breakfast that much. She also reported that they were mostly dry now although they had been somewhat wet after Sunday's rain storms.