You’re his buddy. You want to go back but he insists on summiting. What do you do?
I think you have to stick with your “buddy” but resolving this sort of conflict is what a team building exercise is all about.
On an only tangentially related note:
There’s a lot to be said for Working From Home.
I work from home, and live alone, so I might not be discovered for days.
We’d miss you. What we could do beyond that is still an open question, but you’d definitely be missed 
His buddies summited before him. They could have waited for him before heading down. But as I also said, the brunt of the responsibility is on him to have a plan.
After watching the above Nutty Putty Cave episode, youtube kindly fed me underwater cave diving mishaps. So my advice, avoid the sign-up sheet for that team building exercise.
Alone? Kind of defeats the buddy system.
Two or three of them could have waited for him together.
And they could have not picked up the trail markers.
Buddies should not move away from safety (the parking lot/trailhead) unless both buddies are of a mind to do so. If I were this guy’s buddy and I didn’t feel like heading to the summit, I’d strongly advise him not to go uphill alone - but if he insisted, then I wouldn’t be able to stop him. I’d head downhill, leave the markers, and tell everyone what happened when I caught up with them.
What alone? You wait at the summit until everyone makes it, then you walk down together. It’s a group activity.
If someone in the group is being obstinate and stupid, then fine you can’t help them.
I’m not sure what you’re objecting to TBH.
The normal rule is that the weaker/less ambitious “buddy” wins. Neither of you goes up the summit unless you are both okay with it.
But also, a group should have a leader who helps work out these details. So the three people who really want to summit and have the energy might trade “buddies” with less ambitious climbers, and those three might head up, while the leader makes sure everyone is still with someone.
Exactly. I would say there are 2 rules:
- Each adult has a plan to get up and down – whether they are navigating solo or following a guide.
- Each adult maintains visual contact with the group in front and behind. If you’re in front and the people behind can’t keep up, then you wait periodically.
With these rules there is risk, but it’s manageable. You’re always within 30 minutes or so of the group.
Part of the problem here is that once the group descended, they couldn’t go back up to help. Their only option was to trigger an emergency. And no one wants to be the one to trigger a false alarm, especially in a group setting. That’s probably why they waited until 9pm.
On the flip side, the guy should have stuck with the group or waited at a rendezvous.
That’s why I suck at these sorts of “team” activities. Heaven’s forbid anyone act as a “leader” or exert any authority. Instead, the desired approach is to muddle along, reaching some crappy decisions through “consensus”, where anyone capable or sensible eventually caves to the most obstinate, dumbest, whiniest…
If the dynamic is what I imagine - for whatever reason a group summitted and, as they were descending, last guy says, “For whatever reason, I didn’t go with you when you all went, but I want to go by myself now”, the group (or a leader in the group) shoulda said, “No way. Safety of everyone is paramount, and no individual’s wishes trump the team’s.”
About the only way my scenario makes sense is if the lone guy was the highest ranking guy in the group. Otherwise, I’d expect one of his bosses/superiors to say, “No, Bob. Not on our watch, and not on the company’s dime/insurance.”
I’ve never climbed above 12k, but I recall seeing weather moving in while at the sumit and hustling down to the treeline. My son does a couple of 14s each summer. Pretty fit guy in his mid-30s. The ones he climbs do not require crazy mountaineering skills, but they are significant efforts, requiring some degree of planning. And shit has gone sideways and companions have been idiots while at altitude.
That doesn’t seem to be what happened, though; although just what happened is still unclear.
Somewhat more information here, but still not enough to clear this up:
The insurance workers had met at sunrise last Friday to embark on their trip up Mount Shavano. The mountain is a “fourteener” [link removed] — meaning it’s one of Colorado’s summits that top 14,000 feet. They then divided into smaller groups, with some aiming to reach the summit and others hiking to the mountain’s lower “saddle” before returning.
The lone hiker, who was wearing all black, somehow found himself between these two groups.
The question is, how did he find himself inbetween the two groups? Did he change his mind about which one to be in, and tried to move from one to the other without notifying the one he was joining and making sure they knew he was trying to do so? Did he join the summit group, and then try to keep up with them but fail to do so, while nobody in that group made any attempt to get the group, or part of it, to slow to wait for the straggler? Or did he just somehow get briefly out of sight of whichever group he’d originally joined, and then wound up trying to follow the other? And if so, again, why didn’t the group he’d originally joined (whichever it was) make any attempt to keep him with them?
If nobody in the group understood that what they were doing was dangerous, then it makes sense if nobody was concerned to keep groups together – but if whoever organized this mess didn’t think it mattered that nobody in the group who would be on the mountain understood the possible dangers, that’s horrendous malfeasance. But I suspect that’s what happened. People drown in the Finger Lakes every year because they don’t know there’s considerable difference between the lakes and a swimming pool. I suspect this guy nearly died on a mountain because everybody thought there’s no difference between climbing a fourteener and taking a walk in a downtown park.
Yeah - I guess this last article adds a slightly different element to the unclear picture. As you said, how did he “somehow find himself between” the 2 groups? If he simply fell behind the summit group, did he take a different trail than the one the group marked? Because if not, why didn’t the group see him on their way down? None of the articles have suggested to me that he summitted with the group, but straggled behind them on the way down as they picked up the markers. I’m unsuccessfully trying to come up with some explanation that makes sense given the limited info we have.
I thought an earlier article said something that caused me to believe he began his summit effort after the main group, but I assume the articles are all written vaguely enough that we can’t be certain what happened. I doubt the details will ever come out - unless a lawsuit is filed!
Plenty of blame to go around, but I tend to believe when it comes down to it, I am the person most responsible for my stupid decisions. Good thing he dressed sharply in all black for the activity! 
True dat! It would be interesting to learn about the company and the participants. I mean, if it was a company that made active outdoor gear, and the participants were all young athletes, that is one thing. But if thet were a bunch of desk jockey insurance workers, aged up to in their 50s… Outside of cheesy TV shows, I’ve never heard of team building activities that were so potentially risky. I generally thought ropes courses, trust falls, and drum circles! And it isn’t as tho the Denver area lacks countless challenging hikes FAR safer than any 14 I know of (other than possibly Pikes Peak.)
Per a quote in TL’s post immediately above yours, these were “insurance workers.” So, not a group with outdoor skills in the job description. Though you’d think they’d be better at risk analysis…
Ha! (Discourse)
Speaking as a retired insurance professional… Insurance companies hire lots of different types of employees. Not all of them really deal with risk analysis.
That kid lived but was forgotten and lost for days. Also posted up thread another tragedy about one who died was a deliberate spelunker looking for a cave formation called the birth canal