I was coming down out of Tuckerman Ravine - already close to the end after a great half day of hiking. A couple passes me heading up - they were dressed I swear to god like the guy in this picture. Excep they had one of those string-backpack-thingies, and they carried one bottle of water each. Note this was late season - end of September. I stopped them with a happy greeting "Hey how's it going, beautiful day for a hike, huh?" "yeah" "You guys going up to Hojos?" (blank look) "Errr, where are you going?" "Oh, we thought we'd just go to the top and come back".

Now, it's probably 1pm. It's late season, so lets be charitable and say it was in the mid-60's at the base. They were obviously NOT geared right. "Well, it's a pretty long hike..." "How long?" "Well, if you really hustle, you can make the round trip in 4 hours" "Oh, we have plenty of time! It doesn't get dark until 7!" "Yeah, but... look, you gusy really aren't geared for this. You need better shoes and..." "Cmon Jake, lets go!" - and off they went.

I never saw them again. I don't know if they made it to the summit or not (I'm guessing no), but there were no rescues that I knew of.

You can't fix stupid. The people who think back country hiking is just like a walk in the local state park boggle the mind.