He noticed me watching and said, in a tone that suggested he was hoping someone
would take an interest, "It's an Enviro Monitor."
"Oh, yes?" I responded politely.
"Measures eighty values--temperature, UV index, dew point, you name it." He tilted the
screen so I could see it. "That's heat stress." It was some meaningless number that ended
in two decimal places. "It does solar radiation," he went on, "barometric pressure, wind
chill, rainfall, humidity--ambient and active--even estimated burn time adjusted for skin
type."
"Does it bake cookies?" I asked.
He didn't like this. "There are times when it could save your life, believe me," he said, a
little stoutly. I tried to imagine a situation in which I might find myself dangerously
imperiled by a rising dew point and could not. But I didn't want to upset the man, so I
said: "What's that?" and pointed at a blinking figure in the upper lefthand corner of the
screen.
"Ah, I'm not sure what that is. But this--"he stabbed the console of buttons--"now this
is solar radiation." It was another meaningless figure, to three decimal places. "It's very
low today," he said, and angled the machine to take another reading. "Yeah, very low
today." Somehow I knew this already. In fact, although I couldn't attest any of it to three
decimal places, I had a pretty good notion of the weather conditions generally, on
account of I was out in them. The interesting thing about the man was that he had no
pack, and so no waterproofs, and was wearing shorts and sneakers. If the weather did
swiftly deteriorate, and in New England it most assuredly can, he would probably die, but
at least he had a machine that would tell him when and let him know his final dew point.
I hate all this technology on the trail. Some AT hikers, I had read, now carry laptop
computers and modems, so that they can file daily reports to their family and friends. And
now increasingly you find people with electronic gizmos like the Enviro Monitor or wearing
sensors attached by wires to their pulse points so that they look as if they've come to the
trail straight from some sleep clinic.
In 1996 the Wall Street Journal ran a splendid article on the nuisance of satellite
navigation devices, cellphones, and other such appliances in the wilderness. All this high-
tech equipment, it appears, is drawing up into the mountains people who perhaps
shouldn't be there. At Baxter State Park in Maine, the Journal reported, one hiker called
up a National Guard Unit and asked them to send a helicopter to airlift him off Mount
Katahdin because he was tired. On Mount Washington, meanwhile, "two very demanding
women," according to an official there, called the mountain patrol HQ and said they
couldn't manage the last mile and a half to the summit even though there were still four
hours of daylight left. They asked for a rescue team to come and carry them back to their
car. The request was refused. A few minutes later, they called again and demanded in
that case that a rescue team bring them some flashlights. That request was refused also.
A few days later, another hiker called and requested a helicopter because he was a day
behind schedule and was afraid he would miss an important business meeting. The article
also described several people who had got lost with satellite navigation devices. They
were able to report their positions as 36.2 degrees north by 17.48 degrees west or
whatever but unfortunately didn't have the faintest idea what that meant, as they hadn't
brought maps or compasses or, evidently, brains. My new friend on Stratton, I believe,
sean pound
(Sean Pound)
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