Early Monday morning on August 21, at about 2:45 am, New York State Forest Ranger Martin received a call from Ray Brook Dispatch about an injured subject on Mount Tremper. The peak is located near the hamlet of Phoenicia, in the valley of Esopus Creek in the town of Shandaken in the Catskills in Ulster County, NY.
At about 3:10 am, Ranger Martin made phone contact with the 36-year-old from Connecticut who claimed he got into an altercation with his hiking companion and believed he was “being hunted like in Predator.” The hiker said he had twisted his ankle while escaping.
Three more Rangers responded with a six-wheeler and found the subject at about 5:50 am, asleep off the trail. Rangers then found the hiking companion, a 31-year-old from Beacon, in Dutchess County, NY, in the Mount Tremper lean-to.
Rangers reported that interviews of both subjects indicated significant drug and alcohol impairment.
Read past Forest Ranger search and rescue reports here.
Photo: A still from film The Most Dangerous Game (1932), based on a 1924 short story of the same name by Richard Connell, a Poughkeepsie native who began his writing career at the Poughkeepsie Journal newspaper.
Pic from the film is a nice touch! (Ditto the last sentence….)