There are lots of places where rescue would be difficult or impossible any time of year. I still go there
Not more important, but it’s a big part of who these people are. If I got married, I would still expect to do mountaineering. If I had kids, I can’t think of a single activity I currently do that I feel is risky enough that I’d stop doing it. Other people have different perceptions of risk, and choose their recreation accordingly. I, for example, would never race cars but there are plenty of married people with children who do so and feel comfortable with their decision.
But to most mountaineers, they wouldn’t consider this really high risk. Certainly risker then doing the same hike in summer, but if you are well prepared and experienced enough, and you make correct decisions along the way, it’s not something I’d conisder exceptionally risky. I certainly don’t consider it “thrill seeking”, nor, I’m guessing, would any of my friends who do winter mountaineering. It’s fun, it’s challanging, and it I enjoy it.
For my money, drop hit it in 6. I have no need to assign any positive or negative characteristics to climbers - whether successful or not. But when possible I generally favor having individuals bear the costs incurred by their choices.
You wanna climb a mountain? Have fun. Hope you make it back.
IMO it is ridiculous for folks to compare mountain climbing with walking down the street. I see no problem with a society determining what categories of activity merit societal support. And, since I live in the US rather than Tibet, I have no difficulty categorizing mountain climbing as outside the norm.
Folks have described the SAR efforts as “volunteer.” It seems to me that efforts of the scope described on the news cost some pretty serious coin. Am I to assume that all of the costs - vehicles, fuel, etc., came from voluntary contributions?
Your tax dollars are paying for the local sheriff and the Oregon National Guard to participate. Whatever infrastructure those two groups bring with them are also taxpayer-supported. There are probably other government agencies participating (the FBI) and all are paid by you.
On the other hand, the SAR climbers out there on the mountain are volunteers . They bring their own equipment, and probably took time off from work (with or without vacation time). The government agencies mentioned above do not have the expertise that these SAR climbers possess. For example, the National Guard may supply the helicopters, pilots and spotters, but the SAR volunteers are on the ground and in the snow doing the searching. The C-130s may be thermal imaging but the folks on the ropes locating the snow caves are SAR volunteers.
And at the end of the day, these volunteer climbers will return home, probably having paid for their own food, fuel and shelter as well. They will replenish their own supplies and equipment from their own pockets.
Their volunteer search efforts cost them plenty in time, effort and money. Let’s just home none of them pay with their lives.
I’d be interested in seeing psychological/sociological workups of the folks who choose to volunteer in this manner, and their reasons. You know - the same kind of weighing many of us do when considering charitable contributions of time or money. Do I contribute to those most needy, disadvantaged by factors beyond their control? Do I contribute to a cause I benefit or derive pleasure from? Etc.
I’m not saying they are saints or sinners for their activities. Just interested in why folks make the choices they do.
I take long walks around town because I enjoy it. I also go hiking and backpacking because I enjoy it. These are all outdoor activities and they all have risks associated with them. Let’s say that backpacking is riskier than my walk around town. Given that we acknowledge that the one is riskier than the other, why can’t we compare them? What’s the difference?
On preview I see that Duckster answered your question about SAR teams. When I said “volunteer” I meant that they are doing those jobs because they want to (and it can be difficult, dangerous work), not because they are forced to. I know a few people who do mountain SAR, backcountry firefighting and so on - they do it because they love the work, honestly. There are certainly easier, safer, better paying (or just “paying”) jobs.
DtC, my point in asking about what stuff you do is to find out whether your opinion is an informed one or not, and based on your response it obviously isn’t. You don’t know the individuals in this specific case, you don’t have any firsthand knowledge of the activity they were doing or “high risk” activities in general. And yet you feel free to make judgements about how these guys viewed their lives, how they made their choices and whether this kind of stuff can be done safely or not. It’s fine to say that it’s too risky FOR YOU because you know what you are capable of, but what’s your rational basis for making that decision for other people? The inevitable comparisons to drug use that always seem to arise when talking about this stuff are stupid and you know it - there is no amount of training, experience or safety gear that will make shooting heroin “safe(r)”, for example. The only similarity is that you can die doing either one; if that’s as deep as the analysis of risk goes then we’d better worry about a lot of other stuff - people drop dead playing basketball, too.
Compare was a sloppy word choice.
Equate would have been better - and I think several previous posts attempted to equate all actions that involve any foreseeable probability of risk, regardless of the necessity of such action in order to lead a normal life in our society.
Feel free to exceed those norms - but on your own dime.
I have no problem with paying for rescue, and would donate money to any rescue agency before being asked. I’ve volunteered for S&R and spent time in the woods looking for hikers and carrying them out.
I have a real problem with people deciding what activities are worthy of rescue based on some concept of societal norms. I’d be perfectly happy removing any EMT services for people who roll over their SUVs since I think they are (for the most part) outside the norm of what the public needs.
Mountain climbing is a pretty safe, low cost, enjoyable, and historic activity. The economies of large parts of the US are dependent on people hiking, mountain biking, skiing, mountaineering, etc. In my area of the world people have been coming up to the mountains since the early 1800’s to hike to the summits. People died back then, too.
The people who do the most difficult S&R are the ones who have experience in those kind of conditions. They’re winter mountaineers themselves, who’ve usually been on more severe outings then the rescue. They organized the S&R organizations precisely because they partake in these activities and they want to give back. At times National Guard choppers are used but they use these as training activities as well.
At some point, people can go from risky to foolhardy. In NH, where I hike mostly, there is a law to charge people fines for reckless hiking. I fully support this. But hiking and winter mountaineering IMO deserves the same support infrastructure as driving, fire protection, and 911 coverage. Based on the limits of technology and environment backcountry support will not be a successful as frontcountry support, but I don’t want a group of people deciding what is worthy of support based on “norms”. If you want beancounters deciding what is support and what is not, be prepared for a lot of activities being decided unworthy.
Fair enough; I was trying to go the same way by specifically talking about recreational activities, not ones we do out of necessity.
I’m not quite sure how we should handle the costs associated with problems arising out of recreation…that’s a different debate and doubtless a fascinating one. I’ve been addressing the issue of calling people suicidal or stupid as in the OP - lord knows I’ve seen them in my own interests (“The only way to do a night skydive is drunk and using somebody else’s gear for the first time!” from people who should have known better is one example that sticks in my mind).
And when they do this and it seems/is typically the best course of actions, appearing that way to those involved and any watching along from the sidelines, would definitely view the circumstance’s options differently. We’d question; “Why didn’t they hold off until the weather cleared or conditions improved or help arrived or the morning?” However, it’s easy for us to make that call after the fact, when hindsight is perfect and this is purely an intellectual exercise. But one can guarantee that when the outcome is exactly opposite, we expect a response from the other side of the coin. Which is precisely what was groused about regarding James Kim. Not analogous to volunteering mountain climbing, but the point still stands that opinions are much easier to be had if you’re not in the particular situation and they’re much simpler to change when the outcome is more apparent.
I believe those fellows did the best they could under the circumstances. I don’t think they were any of the negative descriptors that have been offered in this thread. I feel for their loved ones and what they must have gone through once they knew they were in trouble. But mostly I hope that some lessons can be learned from this and folks strive to be better prepared, those in the wings more understanding and compassionate and finally, as much knowledge as possible to be put forth so the same mistakes happening again might be lessened. It would be nice to live in a perfect future where this guaranteed not to happen. We need a prime directive stat!
It’s not really such a judgement call. For those of us who live in wintry climes like Minnesota, it’s pretty much drilled into your head since childhood that you don’t get out of the car. It’s always the wrong call…just like climbing mountains in a storm.
Gosh, gosh Dio, I’m sorry. With all that being everywhere you look lately, I just assumed (me = ass) you knew.
Anyway, here’s a link about the poor CNET worker who lost his life, while recently on vacation, because after X amount of days (a week I think) he struck out walking alone to try to find rescue for his family after they’d been stranded out in the middle of nowhere in the snow. I think that’s a hopefully very brief accurate-enough summary. In the ensuing time that it took to find his wife and kids, the whole world mourned such a courageous man. And I believe that total, that took a while.
Hope that explains a little bit better about where I’m coming from…
One should stay, always. One should go, always. Either way, the depiction of your decisions, after the fact, comes out wrong if you fucked up somehow.
Ok, I did some Googling and read up on the story. Obviously his mistake was leaving the car. If he’d have stayed in the car, he would have lived. That just underlines my point. Statistically, you’re chances of survival go way down when you try to leave the car. Everyone who lives up north knows that.
By the way, I think you may have your chronology of events wrong. according to the stories I’ve just been reading, rescuers found the car (and Kim’s family) first, after Kim’s wife got their attention with an umbrella. Then she told them that Kim had wandered off looking for help. His leaving the car accomplished nothing. If he’d stayed where he was, he’d still be alive.
But Dio, I’ve read more than one account that said the only reason his family was found because his cell phone began to ping from a location however far away from the car that they hadn’t picked up prior. Also, they were starving at that point and it was surmised they weren’t going to last much longer anyway. He (and some? many? others) felt that he had to go.
Of course, then his choice was wrong. And so it goes on and on and on and on… I’m sure the reverse would’ve been said if the rescue workers would’ve found them all dead, knowing that safety/help was as close as the seasonal lodge only 300 (I believe, or it could have been 3 miles, but you get my driftm especially since that was a much shorter distance than he was aiming for or actually ended up traversing) yards away. Just sayin’. My humble opinion and all.
See, even now there are conflicting reports. What to believe, huh? I still feel it’s easier, no matter what the situation, to make the correct call on a course of action than it is to actually be involved. And as such, that means a little perspective from those of us who weren’t there is warranted.
Ya just never know what you can/will do at the time. Sometimes unreliable judgment also plays a part, and as far as I understand, that’s one element that you can’t plan for, or even necessarily anticipate, beforehand. Personally, I’d rather err on the side of giving folks the benefit of the doubt that they did their best under all the circumstances they found themselves in.
But the cell phone ping was from a text message the family had received prior to getting stuck There’s more than one cite for this but [url=]here’s one example:
That’s why the signal gave them a general area but not an exact location from the car. It had nothing to do with Kim’s attempt to get help many days later. Like I said, his leaving the car did nothing for the family but get him killed.
Staying in the car was no guarantee of survival of course, but leaving the car takes that statistical chance down to almost zero. He didn’t save his family, he just died.
Rescue workers would not ever say that people should leave their cars and try to walk even relatively short distances in deep snow. People have died in winter storms literally in their backyards. You can’t see anything in a whiteout and hypothermia can set in pretty quickly.
Staying in the car in a situation like the Kim case might give you a 30% chance of survival (number pulled from ass) but leaving the car takes those odds down to like 1 or 2%. Statistically speaking, it’s always better to stay in the car.
Whether or not the blizzard was expected, a responsible, cautious climber would have recognized and been prepared for the potential. I live in Wisconsin and I don’t go for a day hike or paddle without telling someone where I am going and leaving a plan if there is more than one route possible. This is why we pay for park rangers and other DNR people and why we have friends and outing clubs and why we can write notes for our dashboards. I also never venture out in the winter without this and at least two of these in your choice of colors, full of water. And high-energy food. On the water, a complete change of clothes in a drybag in a watertight chamber goes along, too. On an overnight trip the list gets really long, but includes extra days worth of food, water filter, extra dry warm clothes, really warm shelter like a tent, sleeping pad, and bag rated to lower than the predicted temperature. Now, I don’t mountain-climb, but you can sure as hell bet that if I did, I would be as prepared in that situation as I am in backpacking and paddling situations.
That being said…I don’t think that anyone, no matter how well prepared, could have spent that long up there under those conditions. You can’t carry two weeks worth of food and fuel in a pack already crowded with climbing gear. You can’t plan for a dislocated shoulder requiring evacuation when a blizzard without end pops up.
Which would be a really good reason for me to not climb that mountain in those conditions, but to each his own.
Well it certainly seems there are differing versions about what happened. I’ll see if I can come up with some sites of my own that I’d come across back when the ‘ending’ of the whole tragedy finally broke into the news.
That said, I still stand by my point that the situation itself can warp critical thinking skills. Further, I definitely believe that many possess that 20/20 hindsight ability and I would never trust myself to presume to think otherwise for someone else.
However, the bit I quoted above wasn’t really the specific I was getting on about. Not that rescue workers would condemn someone’s actions for NOT leaving (of course the recommendation would always be for staying from professionals – that’s the only safe course of action they could endorse, otherwise there’d be too many variables to consider or be liable for), I’m talking about arm-chair pundits. As stated, their the ones who offer a contrary opinion no matter what the outcome. The only requisite required is that the person behaved erroneously. I don’t think that attitude is fair, but obviously, YMMV.