When I was a swinging single girl, (insert eyeroll here,) I had roommates. One of my roommates was a long-time REI employee. If you’ve never been to REI and you like the outdoors, you might want to pay them a visit, even on the Web. Even many years ago, the specter of those who thought they’d go for a little climb on Mount Rainier in jeans and a t-shirt was rearing its ugly head. After all, they had a cell phone. They were immortal, right?
Despite the fact that my idea of camping is a Ramada Inn with a black-and-white TV, Kristi took me on more than one (easy) outdoor activity. It was fun. She’s a great tour guide, and massively patient with those who are hiking challenged. If I heard Kristi say it once, I heard it a thousand times: Be prepared. Make sure you’re able to handle all eventualities, or don’t go. With the advent of inexpensive GPS and sat phones, people think they can try hiking or climbing in areas they have no business in. If they get in trouble, all they have to do is call 911, right?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2010135181_apusyuppie911.html
Last month two men and their teenage sons tackled one of the world’s most unforgiving summertime hikes: the Grand Canyon’s parched and searing Royal Arch Loop. Along with bedrolls and freeze-dried food, the inexperienced backpackers carried a personal locator beacon – just in case.
In the span of three days, the group pushed the panic button three times, mobilizing helicopters for dangerous, lifesaving rescues inside the steep canyon walls.
What was that emergency? The water they had found to quench their thirst “tasted salty.”
If they had not been toting the device that works like Onstar for hikers, “we would have never attempted this hike,” one of them said after the third rescue crew forced them to board their chopper. It’s a growing problem facing the men and women who risk their lives when they believe others are in danger of losing theirs.
Technology has made calling for help instantaneous even in the most remote places. Because would-be adventurers can send GPS coordinates to rescuers with the touch of a button, some are exploring terrain they do not have the experience, knowledge or endurance to tackle.
Those who insist on doing this don’t seem to understand that they endanger their rescuers as well. (For an extreme account, Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, about an Everest ascent that went horribly awry a few years back, is riveting.) Every time someone ill-prepared insists on going somewhere they don’t have the knowledge, equipment or endurance to handle, someone else gets sent to haul them out. It’s not cheap, and it’s dangerous for all involved.
I believe it’s a matter of time before there is legislation requiring reimbursement for those who alert rescue orgs and are not in immediate danger. After all, in an age of budgets cut to the bone, they don’t have the money to be pulling people off the side of the Grand Canyon, for instance. Of course, this means that I’m required to spend a little more time in our cozy family room, cuddling on the couch with The Dauphin and a great book. It’s best for all involved.
-S
We have something like this already in existence here in Arizona. It’s called the “stupid motorist law” and it’s for those people who ignore the barricades and drive their cars through a flooded roadway or wash. When their car gets swept away in the floodwaters and they need to be rescued, they have to pay – and that may include payment for the use of a helicopter that airlifted them to safety. I know we have rescues for people hiking our “mountains” in Phoenix, but I’m not sure how often it’s due to actual accidents or hikers who came unprepared. Might be something to look into.
I’m sorry, the water tasted “salty”? And they thought that constituted some kind of emergency? Jaysus! I would have slapped them silly and given them a bill for the cost of their stupidity.
Comment by Gari — October 25, 2009 @ 11:47 pm