KAREN SYKES

We lost a notable hiker last week.  Karen Sykes wrote a ‘Hike of the Week’ column in the PI and kept up a blog detailing various hikes throughout the Northwest.  Her summaries were concise and guided hikers on how to get to the trailhead, what to expect, and generally made it easy to get out and hike.  She also was an active blogger and served as an inspiration to many to stay active and get outside.

I recall one blog entry where she wanted to go up Mail Box peak (pretty much the steepest hike around here) until it didn’t hurt anymore.  Up she’d go, down she’d come, and if she was sore the next day she’d schedule another trip up.  She finally got to the point where she came down and wasn’t sore.  She had, if memory serves, just celebrated her 65th birthday.

She was hiking near Mount Rainier last Wednesday and ran into snow at 5,000 feet.  She hiked ahead of her companion as was her habit.  Her companion waited for her but the appointed time arrived and then passed.  He went down for help.  A search was launched and they found her Saturday.  She had died of hypothermia with heart disease as an underlying factor.  Karen Sykes was 70 years old.

I started to think about how someone, who had hiked so much, was prepared like few others, wound up dying of hypothermia.  I can only speculate.   Should she have stuck with her companion?  Maybe, but she was, by all accounts, an extraordinary strong and fast hiker.   She would repeatedly forge ahead and come back just fine.  It would have been a drag to hike slow – she would have missed many stories and many pictures if she stayed strictly within the safe cocoon that the books describe.
 
Should she have stopped when confronted by snow?  I don’t know how steep the terrain was nor do I know if she had traction items like micro spikes or crampons.  Snow, in and of itself, isn’t dangerous.  Slope and equipment would be strong inputs.
In any outdoor endeavor, you are (or should be) constantly managing risk.  Gauging your energy level, the conditions of the trail.  Did she miscalculate?  Maybe overconfident?  Or, if there was some underlying heart disease, did she get it just right?

Managing risk doesn’t always mean you come out on the right side of things.  Perhaps she just sat down and was more tired than she thought.  Maybe she got a little sleepy and in an cold environment the judgment gets clouded.

Whatever the situation, she died doing what she loved.  None of us get out of this life alive, and it’s the relative few who have peaceful endings pursuing their passion.  Let’s hope that’s what happened.