An interesting piece in the Denver Post discusses the dramatic rescue and death of climber David Worthington that was covered live on the 14ers.com web forum.

Worthington had been a prolific contributor to the forum since he joined in 2005. In mid May he suffered severed injuries while descending from Colorado’s Humboldt Peak, one of the legendary 14,000ers (14,000 foot summits). Worthington had to wait 28 hours on the mountain and was in an advanced stage of hypothermia before a rescuer reached him.

Denver reporter Jason Blevins asks whether web forums are encouraging risk taking or making it seem to easy for inexperienced climbers to go into the mountains. It is a subject we have touched upon before in PisteHors.com but the only thing that has changed is the depth and breadth of information that the Internet makes available. It can be argued that climbers Vincendon and Henry who died 50 years ago this winter on Mont-Blanc only attemped the Brenva route as they had information from friends within their climbing club.