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fourteen410
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Joined: 23 May 2008
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| Athena12345 wrote: | | But seriously, if some people like to use their "down time" to read people's opinions, express their own, agree, disagree, explore topics and things that are curious to them, what's the problem? |
| Athena12345 wrote: | | I'm also perplexed by the people who keep dropping in on this thread to police it and tell everyone what they should and should not say, like a parent walking into a room and saying "hush!" |
+1.
It's human nature to speculate. A discussion board is a fitting place to do it.
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Kim Brown
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Joined: 13 Jul 2009
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It's because Tom has asked us time and again to post as if the family were reading our posts.
Because it has happened.
As DadFly said, this family is going through thier darkest hours.
I wonder if this thread shouldn't be locked.
"..living on the east side of the Sierra world be ideal - except for harsher winters and the chance of apocalyptic fires burning the whole area."
Bosterson, NWHiker's marketing expert
"..living on the east side of the Sierra world be ideal - except for harsher winters and the chance of apocalyptic fires burning the whole area."
Bosterson, NWHiker's marketing expert
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Bernardo
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Joined: 08 Feb 2010
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Location: out and about in the world |
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Bernardo
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 Fri Sep 07, 2018 7:01 pm |
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There's plenty of great information in this thread. Reading all this helps me understand what SAR does, and what risks hikers face in the wild.
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fourteen410
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Joined: 23 May 2008
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I don't see the need to quash a civil discussion because someone might be uncomfortable with a different point of view. Sam's loved ones launched a widespread social media campaign to keep her disappearance in the forefront of people's minds. Shutting down conversation about her disappearance seems like an opposite agenda.
It sounds harsh, but if the family doesn't want to hear the discussion...then don't read it.
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Athena12345
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Joined: 23 Aug 2018
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Yep. The boyfriend has put himself front and center in the media and in appeals to the public and must understand the commentary and questions that will come along with that. You take the good and the bad together. His GoFundMe baggie campaign has raised over $46,000 so far.
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Kim Brown
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Joined: 13 Jul 2009
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It's not that civil. And Tom asked us to be thoughtful when posting about these incidents. Talk of accusations and suspicions aren't kind to these people.
Someone from SAR posted a thread a few weeks back about thier training sessions. It did not get many hits and I don't think any responses. It's great there's renewed interest in SAR, but perhaps learning about SAR can be on a separate thread with SAR in the title, for easy reference.
That way, it's in one place and can be referred to over time.
"..living on the east side of the Sierra world be ideal - except for harsher winters and the chance of apocalyptic fires burning the whole area."
Bosterson, NWHiker's marketing expert
"..living on the east side of the Sierra world be ideal - except for harsher winters and the chance of apocalyptic fires burning the whole area."
Bosterson, NWHiker's marketing expert
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Bernardo
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Bernardo
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Fri Sep 07, 2018 7:58 pm |
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It's a tough call. Some people post some dumb stuff, but the gentle debunking responses from real experts are super educational.
As long as the less good comments are offset by the voices of wisdom and experience these threads add value IMV.
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Schroder
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Joined: 26 Oct 2007
Posts: 6722 | TRs | Pics
Location: on the beach |
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Schroder
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Fri Sep 07, 2018 8:06 pm |
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| DadFly wrote: | | Just curious, how many of you have used vacation days to search for someone you have never heard of? How many of you have purchased gear that will not be used for anything but rescuing people you have never heard of (yeah SAR volunteers buy all their own personal gear)? How many of you have spent 36 hours straight in a command vehicle trying to keep track of what has been covered and what should be done next while SAR volunteers come and go back to their day jobs which means your plans constantly have to be changed? |
I have almost 30 years SAR experience in Snohomish County, I was a field operations leader and deputy coroner. There are a few others on this forum that are involved both in Snohomish and King Counties. It sounds like you may have some experience as well.
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Malachai Constant
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Joined: 13 Jan 2002
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Location: Back Again Like A Bad Penny |
It is very strange, water is falling out of the sky in Issaquah, anyone else notice this 
"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
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moonspots
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Joined: 03 Feb 2007
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moonspots
Happy Curmudgeon
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Fri Sep 07, 2018 8:36 pm |
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| Bernardo wrote: | | There's plenty of great information in this thread. Reading all this helps me understand what SAR does, and what risks hikers face in the wild. |
👍
Yup, especially for those of us who only get to "go hiking" about once annually.
"Out, OUT you demons of Stupidity"! - St Dogbert, patron Saint of Technology
"Out, OUT you demons of Stupidity"! - St Dogbert, patron Saint of Technology
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Ringangleclaw
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Joined: 01 Sep 2010
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| Quote: | | Why can't they track a cell phone that has a dead battery? |
Earth to Sam's mom.
And the BF talks like Jesse Pinkerton from Breaking Bad.
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JonnyQuest
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| Malachai Constant wrote: | | It is very strange, water is falling out of the sky in Issaquah, anyone else notice this |
Yes, I'm rejoicing!
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Anne Elk
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Joined: 07 Sep 2018
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Anne Elk
BrontosaurusTheorist
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Sat Sep 08, 2018 12:34 am |
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| slabbyd wrote: | | Typically you don't see a whole lot of selfies in nwhiker Trip reports, which tells you something about the demographics of the people posting here and that a vast majority are not what I guess get grouped into "millennials"...My impression is that this search illustrates a surprisingly wide cultural chasm between millenials and the rest of us...As far as search & rescue operations go, this seems to mirror our social/political culture as well. In general Americans no longer trust institutions. |
| AlpineRose wrote: | | What boggles my mind is how much the boyfriend and family have injected themselves into this story. |
Considering that Snohomish Co. has now called off SAR ops, it's to the family's credit that their social media presence has provided the funding and community support to enable searching to continue in some really tough-to-access terrain, which may yet produce results.
Slabbyd's full post is a good commentary on the cultural/generational divide with respect to interacting with/understanding SAR ops, and is a reminder of (as many in this forum know) a huge shift to the negative in back-country skills, etiquette and preparedness of the increasing numbers venturing out into the wilds these last several decades.
I'd like to share a relevant op-ed piece written over 20 years ago by a SAR volunteer from Montana. When I lost my paper copy of it and couldn't access an archived cc on the web, I wrote to the WSJ and they provided a copy. I'm not seeing in my post window an option to upload a document attachment from my computer files as the forum guide mentions , so I'm reproducing the text below, per "fair use" criteria.
No Easy Fix for the Beartooth Panic
By Tom Vines, The Wall Street Journal 20 March 1997
(Copyright (c) 1997, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
RED LODGE, Mont. -- Our search and rescue team, operating in a tough to reach, boulder-strewn area of Beartooth Wilderness, had passed the first hurdle: locating the body of a maladroit "weekend backpacker" who had stumbled and fallen several hundred feet to his death. Now we puzzled over the tough part of the mission: what to do with the body. We faced an excruciating, perhaps days-long, carryout from the wilderness with a deceased 230-pound male.
Just as we agonized over the tough options, two other weekend packers stumbled out of the trees and provided a solution to our problem. The first man, in his 50s, was incoherent and soon lost consciousness. The other, in his 20s, was stricken with "Beartooth Panic" -- he fled down the Mystic Lake trail, leaving his distressed companion behind. Even though we had to deal with another medical emergency, the older man turned out to be a blessing in disguise; he was a congressional aide, whose influence on Capitol Hill provided us with the free use of a high-altitude helicopter that we had been unable to get before his arrival. The aircraft evacuated the congressional aide, suffering from severe dehydration, and as a bonus removed the body for us.
Such problems are not always as easily resolved in mountain search and rescue, an activity that can be physically and emotionally draining and filled with rapidly changing situations. But now, search and rescue personnel here and all across North America are facing a frustrating and dispiriting challenge -- not from any physical emergency, but from a decaying of our national character.
Traditionally, wilderness has been used by those individuals willing to test the very substance of their body and soul. In the wilderness, humans are still at the mercy of natural forces. If you do not have innate survival skills, combined with the right training, you can be eaten by a bear or die in a storm. These risks were understood and accepted in the past.
But that spirit seems foreign to a new breed of "outdoorsmen" who embrace the appearance but not the substance of adventure. People increasingly appear in wildlands with the latest trendy electronic gadgetry, but without the necessary skills or comprehension of the wilderness. They have GPS (global positioning system) units and cell phones, but don't know how to use essential equipment, such as a compass or maps. And once their comfort zone dissolves, they want only to abuse a highly strained rescue system.
In Washington state, a man called on his cell phone from the backcountry, saying that he was dehydrated and unable to go on. Three rescue teams responded with emergency equipment but found him able to walk out. While he did not carry adequate water, he did have -- besides a cell phone and GPS -- a laptop computer in his pack. In New Hampshire, two hikers phoned for assistance in the White Mountains. They had a GPS but no map, without which GPS plot points are of little value.
The use of cell phones has led to an enormous influx of people into the backcountry who come unprepared and then, faced with the reality of the wilderness, demand help immediately. Their behavior seems to stem from the current thought that someone has the responsibility to come pull you out of any trouble you get into, no matter how foolish or inconsiderate you have been in getting there.
The problem is that except for state and federal parklands, rural areas are served by search and rescue teams, staffed by local volunteers. They are usually coordinated by rural sheriffs, whose meager annual budget can be wrecked by the cost of one helicopter response.
Historically, and by custom, most backcountry problems were true emergencies, involving people who were knowledgeable and prepared. If they called for help, they were truly in distress, the result of bad luck or an unpredictable accident. Rescue teams initially saw cellular telephones as a potential help in response time, predicting medical problems and pinpointing emergency sites.
Now, however, rescue personnel are increasingly bothered by calls from persons with frivolous demands, who often are not in true distress, but are just tired. Or there are those who have gone beyond their abilities because they knew they could instantly call for help. We have seen individuals who, despite warnings about their lack of preparedness, go into the wilderness, become fatigued and sore, then plop down and demand that a helicopter perform a hazardous and expensive flight into the mountains to fetch them.
Here in south central Montana, the situation is exacerbated by the affliction I mentioned, known locally as "Beartooth Panic." This syndrome is found in visitors who enter the Beartooth range and find not the soft mountains of Sierra Club calendars and Disney fantasies, but a stark high plateau, an austere and barren landscape that intensifies fear and isolation. We increasingly find camping gear abandoned, left in haste by its owner, who has fled the wilderness in panic. Those who don't run for the exit dial the Beartooth panic button -- 911.
The trendy sloganeering about "saving the wilderness," may refer only to a superficial, imagined wilderness -- wilderness as a theme park, where if you get too pooped, the shuttle will be around to fetch you. Or if you encounter an angry grizzly, the customer service unit, in matching blazers of forest green, will visit with an apology and rain check.
Some state legislatures, such as those in California and Oregon, are reacting to the abuse of backcountry emergency systems by creating laws to charge for search and rescue. But these new laws have proved difficult to enforce and fees difficult to collect. This is due not only to vagaries in the laws and potential conflict with traditional legal code, but because they fail to address the essential problem. There seems to be an increasing failure in our culture's value system whereby self indulgence is the norm, while self discipline and personal courage are discarded as relics of the past.
Mr. Vines, a writer in Red Lodge, Mont., works with the Carbon County Sheriff's Search and Rescue Team.
"There are yahoos out there. It’s why we can’t have nice things." - Tom Mahood
"There are yahoos out there. It’s why we can’t have nice things." - Tom Mahood
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Vertec
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Joined: 08 Sep 2018
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Vertec
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Sat Sep 08, 2018 7:05 am |
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| DadFly wrote: | | All SAR are volunteers except the Sheriff and pilots. |
Extremely excellent points. These people are performing a tremendous service and deserve our respect and gratitude. I wanted to volunteer and even was approached via a strong recruitment effort, but ran into a minor medical issue that prevents participation.
I like to think of myself as an experienced outdoorsman who has invested in proper gear and formal skills training. On a few occasions I have assisted people in trouble, which surely prevented deployment of SAR. I don't like to think about it much, but I probably saved one life. However, I will NEVER consider my skills/training/experience license to criticize SAR.
I've been up Vesper so I sent a few suggestions to the email address set up to do so. I don't not know if they acted on what I sent, but I have to trust they know what they're doing.
We live in an area of vast, tremendous beauty. But it can literally turn into "hell on earth" EVEN if you did everything 'right'. This is the most important thing people must understand.
Out There, carrying the self-evident truth I am endowed by my Creator with unalienable rights of self-defended Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
Out There, carrying the self-evident truth I am endowed by my Creator with unalienable rights of self-defended Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
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ale_capone
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Joined: 22 Sep 2009
Posts: 720 | TRs | Pics
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| Athena12345 wrote: | | The term "armchair experts" could be applied to anyone who has ever engaged in an academic or intellectual pursuit, really. What if I teach higher-level math? I'm an armchair expert. I don't ever actually go out and apply the math to an engineering problem. Is it ok with you if I still like to do math problems for fun? |
im an arm chair expert on analogies. thats a good one! did you just make that up?
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