https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/california-search-team-rescues-hikers-19894482.php
Bay Area & State
Calif. search team rescues ‘exhausted and ill-prepared’ Mount Whitney hikers
By Sam Mauhay-Moore, Trending News Reporter Nov 7, 2024
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Inyo County’s Search and Rescue team has once again taken to social media to scold a set of hikers who needed assistance after being unable to summit Mount Whitney on Saturday.
The two hikers began their trek on Friday evening with the intent to summit the mountain on Saturday, Inyo SAR posted on Facebook. Equipped with “150lbs of newly-purchased gear plus 5 gallons of water,” the pair made it 2.7 miles before stopping to camp on the trail at about 3 a.m. “They were exhausted, and one subject had two blisters and a bad headache,” Inyo SAR wrote. They later woke up to snowfall, with their shoes full of snow.
The “exhausted and ill-prepared” hikers then called the search and rescue team for assistance, Inyo SAR wrote.
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Inyo SAR listed several things that went amiss before and during the incident, the first being the hikers “attempting Mt. Whitney without prior experience, proper preparation, or essential items such as a map, weather forecast, and bear canister.” Weather forecasts for that weekend predicted up to two feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada, and the U.S. Forest Service warns that fall conditions on the Mount Whitney trail often include hazardous pockets of snow and ice that require hiking with gear like crampons and ice picks. The Forest Service also recommends hikers train extensively before attempting to summit Whitney, as the 22-mile round trip hike is notoriously gnarly and includes over 6,000 feet of elevation gain.
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Did they say 150# of newly-purchased gear plus 5 gallons of water?
For the uninitiated in “survival”, 5 gallons of water is about 40#. Go to your local supermarket and carry FOUR 10 pound sacks of spuds just to the checkout and you’ll get a sense of what that really means.
There’s a reason that USAF survival school, as well as private one, spend a lot of time talking about “weight”. In a survival situation, you are urged to review everything you THINK you need and pare it down to what you must absolutely have. Then take a short hike — in the military that’s FIVE miles — in the USMC that’s 20 or 30 miles — then reassess what you are carrying. That’s why Amazon hawks “extra light weight” stuff of campling.
I’m glad the hikers survived and perhaps their story will educate everyone else.
Once again, I question “Who pays?”. Certainly, it shouldn’t be the Taxpayer. Perhaps, at these “attractive locations”, “rescue insurance” should be sold with big sign as to what an uninsured rescue will cost. Maybe then we will have a lot less “rescues” needed!
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Posted by reinkefj 
Reinke Faces Life 