Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   JDS (jds@sfba.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Nov-2024 15:47:44 JST JDS

   Get ready for this interesting story from Inyo county Search & Rescue.

   Two people left the Mount Whitney trailhead at 6 pm with 150 pounds of brand new gear and 5 gallons of water. By 3 am they succumbed to exhaustion after making it only 2.7 miles (it’s 3 to their planned camp site, 11 to the summit). They pitched their tent on the trail, woke up to 2 inches of snow and contacted SAR with iPhone satellite for rescue.

   #Hiking?

   • Embed this notice
     Rocketman (slothrop@chaos.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Nov-2024 15:47:43 JST Rocketman

     in reply to

     @jds 150 pounds of gear??!! 😱

   • Embed this notice
     Rocketman (slothrop@chaos.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Nov-2024 16:07:58 JST Rocketman

     in reply to

     @jds PLUS 5 gallons of water? That’s another 20kg?

     I could hardly lift all that, much less go hiking with it.

   • Embed this notice
     JDS (jds@sfba.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Nov-2024 17:49:07 JST JDS

     in reply to

     • Rocketman

     @slothrop it’s mind boggling. I thought it was a joke post and they specifically said “plus 5 gallons of water” 😳

   • Embed this notice
     Rocketman (slothrop@chaos.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Nov-2024 17:49:07 JST Rocketman

     in reply to

     @jds Re-reading your description of the incident, every single point is an extremely basic thing.

     And they got every single point wrong.

   • Embed this notice
     JDS (jds@sfba.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Nov-2024 23:53:29 JST JDS

     in reply to

     • Rocketman

     @slothrop oh to be a fly on the wall listening to the planning conversations.

     The SAR post added a “what went right, what went wrong” note. They commended them for:
     - not splitting up
     - stopping when they were in trouble
     - having a 2 way communication device

     All of which were avoidable, but cute that they looked for something positive in it all.

   • Embed this notice
     Rocketman (slothrop@chaos.social)'s status on Monday, 11-Nov-2024 23:53:29 JST Rocketman

     in reply to

     @jds In my kayak club there´s a few people who do mountain SAR around our neck of the woods. They occasionally have similar stories.

     (Also, a surprising number of people around here just fall off the mountains. Roughly 2-3 a week in summer. Some of them are daft tourists. Others are locals saying "I´ve been hiking here since I could walk, and I don´t care there´s a snowstorm coming")

   • Embed this notice
     Rocketman (slothrop@chaos.social)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Nov-2024 00:40:05 JST Rocketman

     in reply to

     @jds That sounds about right.

     Where I live, it sometimes seems that falling off a mountain is considered a natural cause of death.

   • Embed this notice
     JDS (jds@sfba.social)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Nov-2024 00:40:06 JST JDS

     in reply to

     • Rocketman

     @slothrop for sure this stuff happens a lot more than we imagine. A ranger at the Grand Canyon once told me they get about 5 emergency heli lifts per day during the summer.