Posted on 06/22/2009 7:45:59 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has been hiking the Appalachian Trail, a spokesman said Monday, explaining a dayslong absence that perplexed fellow state leaders.
Sanford hadn't been at work for several days and his office hadn't been in touch with him. Lawmakers and his wife said Monday they didn't know where he was, leading critics to question who was in charge of South Carolina.
...
Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said Sanford left town on Thursday with plans to hike the Appalachian Trail. ..
"He's just up there to kind of clear his head after the legislative session," Sawyer told The Associated Press in an interview.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
The local PBS channel a few years ago followed these people who hiked the entire Appalachian Trail. This story made me think of congressman Steve Largent who was on an outdoor hiking trip of some kind when 9/11 happened and his staff had no way to contact him since he didn’t have a cell phone with him.
ping!
Jon Voight’s character in Deliverence while feeling a bit of alcohol by the campfire slurred that no matter what problems happens in the rest of the world or what great emergency may arise “it won’t find us up here”.
I've been there!
Sanford seems to be a good, solid conservative governor, who has made nice progress into the national limelight. So, the msm is working overtime to make the ol’ crazy taint stick to him.
No serious presidential aspirant can make a move in public anymore, without calculating for effect. That wasn’t done here.
/johnny
Did you take temporary leave of the trail at Hot Springs, NC for a shower or to soak in a natural hot spring, plus experience a little bohemian culture, lol?
It’s still a neat place, despite catching the Asheville contagion.
/johnny
The session was over, the guy wanted to get a few days away, and they couldn’t really say where he was because he’s out in the open and probably with no real protection.
But the media has had a frenzy over this, even though most of the time he has been gone was the weekend.
Meanwhile, in our state of Virginia, our governor is busy doing job — as head of the DNC. He was supposed to “work on weekends”, but he’s been off all over the country at all days of the week. And he won’t tell anybody when he’s here or away, but the news media has not spent any time at all questioning this arrangement.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2277017/posts?page=182#182
Not the whole thing. Just the Georgia part. Got lost (sort-of).
I got my BFA at Western Carolina, which is right by the GA border (if we wanted to go to “town” we road-tripped to Atlanta). I’ve hiked down into Georgia on the trail, and nearly to VA on the NC segment.
Hot Springs was a nice, slightly wacky respite back then. It’s getting a little hippie-gentrified now.
How does that work, exactly? It's a trail/path that runs generally south and north. Wake up in the morning and headed to Maine? Keep the sun on your right shoulder all morning long.
Going to Georgia? Wake up in the morning and keep the sun on your left shoulder.
I don't get it. Same thing with the Chisholm around here. Indians beat a footpath from Austin to Oklahoma that a blind man couldn't miss.
Folks get lost every year. ;)
/johnny
WAY COOL. I like the Governor even more.
right, sure he is. Pull the other one. He just decided to go, spur of the moment thing. In other news, Governor found dead.
Can’t say as I blame him...he had expressed frustrations over being forced to take the stimulus money on Beck’s show recently.
See the link in post 12.
I feel like doing the same thing.
Even The Lord needed and had His time away alone. As for the governor being out of reach? Yea sorta true mostly not. Most places on the AT though you can get out on a radio or cell these days. Turn off the share location info function on the cell and no one knows.
I remeember a couple years ago a kid using a Hand Held Ham Radio to summon help in The Great Smoky Mountains Park. It was for a drowned class mate while on a Field Trip and the area they were in was pretty darn secluded as far as any communications go.
The AT was to crowded for my taste during my tenure at Cullowhere. The Catalooche section of the Smokies, and the headwaters of Caney Fork and the Little Canada section used to get my attention when I wanted to get away from it all.
Let’s see, Chief executive of a state, goes for a walk on the Appalachian trail, doesn’t notify anyone of his absence so the Lt. gov. can take over the work load and no one will worry, including his wife according to her accounts in an earlier article. Nothing suspicious there./SAR
See the link in post 12. It was a setup.
The crowd was part of the attraction for me, part of the scene and all that college kid stuff. It was fun.
Used to take the short hike down to Rainbow Falls at night under a full moon, too, on occasion. If you’re not worried about getting soaked with mist, you can catch a full-circle “moon bow.”
Never hiked around Cataloochee, but was briefly involved with National Ski Patrol there. The main ski slopes were only so-so, even by NC standards, but The Meadows were nice, only open with substantial natural snowfall, though.
Ever been up to Shining Rock?
Next Sandy and his friend L Ron Paul will sing on AI
Didn’t have time to walk the whole Appalachian Trail. The idea was to walk part of the trail, then cut cross-country to pick up a different trail that would generally take us back to where we started. The cross-country part didn’t turn out quite as expected.
I don’t know, something doesn’t smell right....
His wife would have said he was camping, etc. Her comment was very strange.
So was this guy still in constant contact as Governor or was he not, if he wasn’t then that is troubling.
Would a Governor of a state actually be allowed to go off grid for days or would someone have given him a satellite phone and a GPS device so that he was still in charge of state government and it’s agencies?
Fixed it.
/johnny
She's smart. Think about it. Do you announce to strangers where your husband is, how long he will be away, etc if he leaves a few days? My dad took off on a two week hunting trip to Canada when I was a kid roughly 43 years ago. When someone called asking for him we were told to say he's not here and nothing more. Mom knew what he was doing and where he was going but not where he was as such. The same thing the next hunting seasons when he took time away.
Although in general it's usually safe people have been killed by crackpots when hiking the trail. His doings didn't need to be announced. It's wise to carry a weapon when doing so. He's a public figure and she and the state workers were right not to release much details.
Last I heard, it was allegedly a free country. Governors are not indentured servants. They are the chief executive of the state.
And why not? NC had any real problems that the burro-ocracy couldn't deal with?
I do not get the infatuation and insistence that everyone ALWAYS be constantly available.
It's a fetish.
/johnny
CAPS MUCH? No, I don’t trust the MSM at all; however, if she knew he was fine and on his own then say it with a statement.
See a link to a freeper explanation in post 12.
I can’t imagine a state being leaderless for hours or especially days, in California it is easy to imagine situations where hours or many hours of delay in establishing chain of command could be deadly.
You speak as though this Governor was just a private citizen that was not responsible for activating the National Guard etc.
I didn’t go to the link, thanks for reiterating the point. I still believe his wife should have given a stronger statement.
She may well have. Do you think the MSM would report anything accurately if they had a chance to torpedo a possible 2012 GOP candidate?
/johnny
I cannot argue with your point about the MSM being in the bag for libs, come on, I know!!
You really don't get chain of command. It is established. Past tense. It defines who moves up or down to fill a certain spot. Gov is gone, can't be reached, stuck in traffic? Get the Lt Gov. Lt Gov out with his boyfriend and can't be reached? Get the Sec. State.....
In California, when the Gov leaves the state, the Lt Gov is acting, immediately, as I recall.
/johnny
She did. She was misquoted. This was a setup as it was known where he was. A Rino started the rumors. He isn’t a friend of Sanford.
The time lost would be in a Governor disappearing and being unreachable, it would take time to establish the chain of command. At this point the claim is that no arrangements had been made and that in an emergency the rest of the leadership would have had to piece together what was going on and at some point determine that the Governor was out of the loop and unavailable, that takes time and weakens a response.
The policy is well established through centuries of real use. The chain of command is always established.
Or are you saying that California's first responders couldn't handle a mudslide, fire, or earthquake without contacting Ahrnohld first?
/johnny
You don’t seem to understand that the claim isn’t that he was taking time off in a formal manner but instead that it would have taken time to establish that he was gone, out of touch, disappeared.
You bought the MSM spin.
That's why even the US government (incompetent as it is) has a Presidential succession law.
Fortunately in this case, the media reports seem to be false. And the state in question is doing ok. Go figure.
/johnny
hope he doesn’t run into the occasional serial killer know to frequent the southern Appalachins
can’t carry a gun in those parks
The A.T. primarily runs either in National Parks or National Forest. Meaning he could also have access to their radio service if prior arrangements are made I'm guessing. There are several ways he can be alone, reachable, and still away from it all hiking the on A.T. and still maintain communication accessibility in an emergency. Then there is an established protocol if he isn't available.
I don't follow the mans politics but I do know about these mountains and the abilities and capabilities to communicate if needed. One thing is Park Rangers go back country and talk to each other all the time on radio's in the VHF band. Another one is the communications towers are generally placed on high ridges and mountains. The Appalachians are generally more developed in both government and private/business communication grids than western mountains. The trail except in a few places follows the crest of the mountains.
With a small bit of planning communications is not an issue. I posted earlier of a kid about 12 years old using his hand operated HAM radio to contact help. This was with high mountains all around him and he was at the base of a water fall.
Governors don’t disappear, and your childish game grows tiresome.
That is why the question is was he or was he not off grid, was this just a vacation or was it a weird act?
As I mentioned before I find it hard to believe that he didn’t take a satellite phone or make arrangements of some sort, that is why I waited for so many hours to ask that question I don’t know why it is taking so long for him to get his story out.
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