Four High Peaks rescues in 3 days creates busy Adirondack weekend for rangers 

By Gwendolyn Craig

A rescue Friday, two rescues Saturday and a rescue Sunday: All in a weekend’s work for state forest rangers in the Adirondack mountains.

Rob Praczkajlo, 51, celebrated his 24th anniversary as a state Department of Environmental Conservation ranger on Wednesday. He recalled his intense weekend to the Explorer on Thursday.

It included one 33-hour shift managing 30 rangers rescuing people on two of the state’s highest peaks.

Praczkajlo, a rangers’ union delegate who works in Essex and Franklin counties, and Forest Ranger Andrew Lewis responded to a 7:30 p.m. call on Friday. A hiker had cut his leg on Wright Peak, the 16th highest mountain in the state with an elevation of 4,580 feet.

Luckily, the 43-year-old man from New Jersey had made a temporary tourniquet for himself, according to the DEC. Praczkajlo said it was a 5- or 6-inch laceration. The hiker wasn’t too far up the mountain and was assisted to an ambulance by 8:30 p.m.

Around 6 a.m. the next day, six forest rangers participated in the Saranac Lake 3P, a race that involves skiing, biking, paddling and running, starting at Dewey Mountain. Lewis and Praczkajlo were among the participants. It was their day off.

The crew placed second overall and won the race’s “spirit award.” Little did they know that a few hours later, they would be called for teamwork in some of the Adirondack Park’s most rugged terrain.

Around 2:45 p.m. a call came in for a 61-year-old hiker with a lower leg injury on the western side of Saddleback Mountain. The hiker was about nine miles from the Johns Brook Valley area trailhead, according to the DEC. 

As rangers were assembling a rescue team, another call came in for a 38-year-old from Maryland with a leg injury on Basin Mountain, also about nine miles from the same trailhead. Saddleback is the state’s 17th highest peak with an elevation of 4,528 feet. Basin Mountain is the ninth highest peak with an elevation of 4,826 feet.

Praczkajlo became the incident commander for both rescue operations. Rangers set up shop in the Keene Valley Fire House and Praczkajlo called for 30 rangers, fewer than he actually thought necessary. Yet, his request made management balk as they feared that if another incident happened in the state, there wouldn’t be enough rangers to respond, he said.

Praczkajlo was unable to assign someone at the Johns Brook Outpost, a ranger cabin a few miles from the trailhead, to set up food and a fire for the crews that would be coming down the mountains. He also opted for a volunteer paramedic to help with the hiker on Saddleback Mountain. 

The Saddleback rescue, led by Lewis, required a high-angle rope system to raise the hiker to the summit before rangers could carry the person out.

Videos rangers posted on social media show blowing snow, and headlamps flashing in the dark during the rescue.

Two rangers guide the injured hiker in a sled tethered to ropes. He is raised up the western side where he had fallen. You can hear the rangers’ crampons, special traction devices on the bottom of shoes to climb snow and ice, kicking into the icy mountainside. It’s a hollow, crunchy noise in the midst of the roaring winds. The weather was not suitable for a helicopter rescue.

Rangers came from other regions to assist, including one from south of the Catskills— a 3½ hour drive.

The unseasonably warm winter also made the rescues more challenging. Heavy snowpack can be an advantage, allowing rangers to slide a hiker partway down the mountain. But this time, Praczkajlo said, the snow disappeared in parts and rangers had to carry the injured people on icy and rocky terrain.

“We call it the pain train on carry outs like that,” Praczkajlo said.

The Basin rescue team, led by Ranger Hannah O’Connor, reached the Johns Brook Outpost around 7:30 a.m. Sunday. It was just before 11 a.m. that both rescue teams got their patients to ambulances.

Later that evening, Praczkajlo and Ranger Jenna Curcio were in the woods searching for a 70-year-old hiker who had lost his way in the Seward Range on the side of Donaldson Mountain. The mountain is the 33rd highest in the state with an elevation of 4,108 feet. The hiker had activated a locator beacon around 5:30 p.m.

Praczkajlo said he had been able to talk to the hiker for a few minutes before the man’s cell phone battery died. Praczkajlo had told him to hike downstream for a mile and wait for rangers. But Praczkajlo thinks the man became confused in his hypothermic state and he wandered much further, about 2½ miles.

“He was absolutely drenched. He had been postholing and walking through spruce fir,” Praczkajlo said. Fortunately he had a working headlamp, and Praczkajlo spotted it across the drainage after bushwhacking a couple of miles.

“We were super lucky,” Praczkajlo said. “Had I not seen that headlamp, that probably would have been an all-night rescue.”

They found the man around 8:45 p.m. Praczkajlo was home by about midnight.

He hung up his wet gear, turned on his dehumidifiers and fans, hoping it would all be dry in time for the next call.

Top photo: Rescue on Basin Mountain on March 2-3, 2024. Photo courtesy of NYSDEC