Re: Helicopter Rescue Today At DCHS ( Dec 4th )

Instead of starting a new post I'll insert my trip report here :~)
I arrived at the Freedom trail head @ 1 hour before sunset on Friday evening. I left my watch in my back pack. The sunset was spectacular, many shades of pink, orange, grey, purple and red.
I felt the need to hike so I ventured into the canyon where that 3 foot tall Road runner from a few weeks ago went. While I was loading my backpack I saw 2 very large red tailed hawks flying in formation together. My first thought was it must be hawk mating season. They circled my campsite very quickly then disappeared behind a cliff. Then reappeared just as quickly as they did I noticed that the hawk on bottom had a large mouse in his claws. Once again they disappeared only to circle back again very fast. This time the hawk with the mouse dropped it @ 100 feet in front of my camper. The other hawk dived for it and flew away with it @ 1 minuet later. I felt very fortunate to experience this spectacle. I only wish I had captured it on my video camera for all to see.
I must have been very comfortable because I slept in later than I wanted too. I did not wake up until after 8 am. I had planned on getting to the springs as the sun was coming over the horizon. Getting old is a bitch.
I arrived at the springs just before 9am. There was only one person there a hot springs regular. I hiked to him and discussed the hot springs w/him. He said some young women and men had partied all night at the springs and left over 50 beer cans and several bottles at the springs, some were broken. I thanked him for cleaning up the springs. Then I put my goggles on and searched for broken glass in the pools. I found several shards in the serenity pool. One had lodged into the thick skin on the bottom of my foot.
Some one had sand bagged the Serenity pool up so the water from the crab cooker was flowing into it. And it was probably 4 feet deep. Very NICE thank you some body.
It was nice to have the springs to my self for a while but as soon as I thought this 33 persons from a meet up .com group from San Diego started coming down via the Bradford ridge.
As they appeared me and the hot spring regular were grading the women by their looks. There were @ 70% women in the group and exactly 33 of them. (good estimating Wizard). There were many 7's, 8's and a few very strong 9's.
While in the Anniversary Pool 2 of the # 9's hiked by and asked if they could dive from the rocks. I told them to be careful because it was a long way to the hospital. I said I would carry them there if necessary, jokingly. They smiled and said they would be careful.This happened at 11am.
After they left I got my thermometer out to take the pool temps.
The outside air temp was 64.7 degrees. All pool temps were from the center of the pools and near their surface.
The Crab cooker was 114.2 degrees.
The Serenity pool was 107.7 degrees.
The Womb was 98.9 degrees.
The Anniversary pool was too crowded so I went to The Arizona pool which was crowded too and asked a pretty woman to tell me what the temp there was. She said it was 106.1 degrees.
Then I went to my spot just upstream from there and got the creek temp. It was 48 degrees.
While doing this some one said Amanda was hurt. This put me in my automatic emergency mode. I instantly went over to investigate. When I got there 3 guys and a girl were in the water helping here get onto the rocks. When she got comfortable it was clear she had busted her knee cap. I did not want to make the matter worse so I held my tongue and asked for some aspirin and gauze from the others there. We bandaged her knee which was bleeding badly and gave her some Tylenol.
It took us @ 20 minuets to convince her not to walk out but to seek a helicopter rescue. Which was reported here very accurately by Wizard. This was the same pretty woman I had joked with about carrying her out if she got hurt. Such events ruin the rest of your day but seeing my friend Wizard and Celtfire made my day go much better afterward.
The rest of the day went very well as a guy named Cole and his girlfriend Elizabeth started a very interesting conversation about global events. Which every seemed to enjoy very much.
It was another beautiful sunset, again.
Happy soaking and PLEASE take out your and others trash.