The American National Park Service is finding more hikers going into the wild armed with routes downloaded to their GPS and counting on their cellphone (that’s mobile to you and me) and SPOT to get them out of trouble. Last autumn one group of hikers in the Grand Canyon hit their SPOT three times to call out rescue helicopters. On one occasion the hikers complained that their water supply tasted salty.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/science/earth/22parks.html?_r=4&scp=1&sq=national%20park%20service&st=cse

The problem isn’t unknown in France. Rescue workers complain (largely in private) that community websites encourage backcountry travelers to take risks without going through the apprenticeship to understand the mountain environment. However this view doesn’t seem to be born out by statistics.

Anyone got any good stories or experiences? One ski buddy of mine called out the rescue chopper this spring after climbing the wrong slope finding he had no safe ski route down from the summit - but as the rescue pilot said, better to pick you up safe and sound than spend a day looking for your body.

Here’s a story about two helicopter rescues on the same ski tour:
http://www.powdermag.com/features/news/plake-and-wallace-chamonix-trip-report/
I don’t think the skiers were stupid.
But it’s an interesting story—Yes let’s have more of those.

Paying for helicopter rescues provides much-needed stimulus to the economy.

There’s lots of talk about people getting bolder and stupider because of seeing videos and reading stuff on forums—but I haven’t seen anything like serious statistics to back it up. Certainly it’s true that people are more likely to bring fancy electronic devices with them when they do bold or stupid things.

But plenty of people did stupid things anyway before those devices existed. And there was no shortage of stories of unnecessary rescues long before cell phones or SPOTs were invented—and of lost hikers long before GPS was operational.

Recall that the obvious interpretation of the Switzerland historical data is that the rate of avalanche burials and deaths per ski-touring person-days has significantly dropped in the last forty years.

Ken

davidof - 23 August 2010 03:32 PM

Anyone got any good stories or experiences?

A couple of tourists needed to be winched out of a gully above Zinal this season, both on snowboards they decided to find their way down directly until they reached the vertical bit. There’s all the obvious errors about following tracks at the top which disappeared and not having any gear to help themselves but what struck me was it was on a Friday. These guys had been in Zinal all week, they’d ridden up on the lift each day and not noticed it going over a cliff face.

Here’s one reported in the Tribune De Geneve today:
http://www.tdg.ch/sauvetage-mont-blanc-gratuit-2010-09-16

A couple “tired” spanish climbers called for help near the Mt Blanc summit. After 15 flights, they were finally found and air lifted. They will be charged the maximum allowable ammount (french law apparently) of EUR 3500 each. The 15 flights obviously cost a lot more than that…

Very interesting case. Do you think the climbers had committed a serious error? They had overestimated their limits perhaps.

What is interesting about this case is that although they were on the French side of the border, near the Gouter refuge they were rescued by the Italians therefore could be charged (according to the local paper the charge gets passed on to your health service - probably like an ambulance ride).