Faded boot prints lead to hiker’s rescue on Mount Marcy

ESSEX COUNTY, N.Y. ( NEWS10 ) — A lost hiker was found on Mount Marcy Saturday amid a large snowstorm that happened Friday evening. The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) says faded boot prints helped lead forest rangers to the location of the lost hiker.

On Friday, around 9:45 p.m., a woman reported her 33-year-old son from New York City hadn’t returned from a hiking trip on Mount Marcy and the Gray and Skylight Mountains. Around 10:28 p.m., a forest ranger found the hiker’s car at the Adirondak Loj.

Once the car was located, forest rangers attempted to retrace the man’s steps, and started their search by going up and over Mount Marcy and down to Four Corners.

At 4:25 a.m., a forest ranger finished searching the trail and campsites to Lake Colden Outpost. They then headed up to climb to Four Corners with another caretaker.

Due to the impending snowstorm threatening to hide footprints or other clues of the hiker’s whereabouts, 15 forest rangers were sent out in the early morning hours from Elk Lake, Upper Works, the Garden Trailhead, and a larger team from the Adirondak Loj.

A grid search was performed and at 8 a.m., a single set of boot tracks were spotted near the Feldspar lean-to. Crews followed the tracks up the Lake Arnold trail where the tracks lost the trail and started following the north branch of the Opalescent Brook on the northwest face of Mount Marcy, according to the DEC.

At 10:10 a.m., the hiker was found at 4,000 feet in elevation and his clothes were frozen to his body. Rangers used a patient care kit to change the hiker’s wet clothing. He was fed, given new clothes and liquids, and was walked to the trailhead with rangers where they met Lake Placid EMS at 3:25 p.m.

The hiker was taken to the hospital for treatment of hypothermia and frostbite. Resources were cleared at 5:07 p.m.

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