[pct-l] enabling risky behavior

[David Hough on pct-l]

After not seeing a soul for 48 hours in Kings Canyon,
around Woods Creek/Pinchot Pass,
on Monday I met Teddy,
a young Frenchman hiking up the Woods Creek trail...
toward Death Valley.    We chatted and it turned out that he intended to
hike over the Sierra crest to 395 and then hitch.     He had already hitched
to Fresno and then to Kings Canyon Roads End, remarkable hitching
accomplishments, so I figured that part was OK.    However he was hiking
with the aid of a guide book in French for the whole of the US, I think,
about the size of a Lonely Planet guide, with its map of Sequoia/Kings 
Canyon National Parks on the margin of one page with the Rae Lakes loop
indicated.

I finally talked him into accepting my Tom Harrison
map (I was 3 miles from my car and
heading home) and turned him around back to the Bubbs Creek trail junction
(which was signed unhelpfully, I saw - it indicated Woods Creek to reach
the John Muir Trail, which was correct in itself, but did not mention that
the JMT was also reachable from Bubbs Creek and further didn't even mention
Bubbs Creek or the JMT or Kearsarge Pass, only Sphinx Creek and
Junction Meadow.)

Anyway I repeated the itinerary several times:  Bubbs Creek, Vidette 
Meadow, Kearsarge Pass, Onion Valley, and hoped for the best.    He had
about 25 miles to go, no problem in good weather for an energetic hiker.
But... it was doubtful he would meet anybody else until Onion Valley.
The trail signs in Kings Canyon are minimal, quite unlike the 
bien-balisee Grandes Randonees that he might have been used to at home.
He said he had two sleeping bags and a pneumatic mattress and five or six
cans of food, and no water treatment system.    
I didn't inquire about bear cans or headlamps or wilderness permits or ...

If he got through last night sleeping with his food in warm (mid-thirties) temperatures, somewhere along
Bubbs Creek, he can probably get to Onion Valley today, and perhaps can
hitch down to Independence tomorrow.     Hitching on 395 is no cinch but
maybe somebody will tell him about the CREST bus.

He better be out of the high country by Wednesday though.    Winter is
forecast to resume precipitately on Thursday:
 http://www.wunderground.com/US/CA/096.html#SPE

I cut short my previous outing two
weeks ago and bailed over Taboose Pass to avoid being out in what turned
out to be eight degree temperatures on 12 October (and that was at the
Mammoth Motel 6).

So a question for you to ponder - was I enabling a once-in-a-lifetime
youthful adventure or a possible catastrophe?    What would John Muir
have done?    He generally didn't encourage other people to take exactly
the same kinds of risks he was willing to undertake alone.

One of my colleagues said I should call the Kings Canyon backcountry
rangers and alert them to the situation.     But what are they supposed
to do about it?    He did not say he would contact me when he made it
to Independence.