elkduds
Well-known member
Back of the Bells? Fabulous image, thanks for sharing.
Sunday Pic of the Day
- Thread starter Gerald Martin
- Start date
how sick of assisting/rescuing climbers that lost the route and cliff themselves out are you? given it entail risk for you and your team?
on that same note, i'm sure the custer county guys are sick of hoisting bodies out of the bottom of the needle gully
looks like blue lakes, "backside" of sneffels
GrantK
Well-known member
Really not sick of it at all, helping people who use some common sense of when they are really stuck and call for help is usually a good problem solving exercise, scraping up the ones who don't use common sense and plummet is much less fun, I'd prefer to go out on a silly assist rather than clean up afterwards if it goes bad...there's obviously some really dumb calls but in general even those are enjoyable, I get to explore places no sane person would willingly go...
that's a great perspective. when you read the mountaineering forums you usually see the perspective of other hikers and climbers that constantly call these people out for putting SAR teams in unnecessary jeopardy by overreaching their experience.
the west gully incidents on the needle being the somewhat more recent morbid examples. in that, when you've found yourself off route, before entering terrain that you may not find yourself capable of returning from - and several have died trying to navigate once in - just return to the last on route point and reassess, which is something a lot of hikers and scramblers don't seem to be doing as much on popular colorado peaks. the attempts to bypass the knife on capitol by thinking there is a shortcut to capitol lake being even more sad and preventable and likely are due to people overstepping some experience and preparation for committing and scary routes. the recent diamond wall rescue is another more extreme example, the guys admitted to not being able/having the equipment to self rescue after embarking on a big wall ascent and finding themselves beyond their capability, putting park rangers and SAR teams in jeopardy for something that no climber should have done.
so i was just curious, the community seems to get super pissed at these guys, not sure if the SAR teams get fed up with some of it too. no doubt, assisting a guy/gal back to the route and walking them out is a pretty enjoyable call over high angle extrication of bodies.
think about this stuff a lot, my tolerance for risk has changed a lot in the past few years, and extremely so since that kiddo was born.
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noharleyyet
Well-known member
Bath...check, IPad...check, big baby blues...check, pre bedtime Mom & Dad's bed...check. Life is good.
GrantK
Well-known member
to be fair, I think there is some misunderstanding from the general community about the risk that SAR teams are willing to take, risk mitigation is the first priority, every time, if it isn't deemed "safe enough" we aren't going, or we are going, but with safeguards in place, speaking for our team only one of the quickest ways to get booted from the team is being a cowboy dumbass... sure, bad things could happen but in general I view most SAR missions as about as dangerous as a casual hike with friends, and way less dangerous than a fair amount of the climbing I do on my own time...
I also know that my team is somewhat unusual in that we have far more applicants than slots for membership, we turn down the vast majority of applicants every year and handpick a very few new members, the people that have the skills and are willing to jump through hoops to get on the team really, really want to be doing this, to the point where we often have more people wanting to go on a rescue than are needed... I participate in some state/nationwide resiliency groups for backcountry responders and this is definitely not the norm, a lot of BSAR teams are continually struggling to keep members and recruit enough people, burnout is real, and I'm sure in those cases the continuous stupid missions are a real grind and I would expect those teams to have a much different opinion on "sorta" rescues than I do...
My personal belief is that it's good to be really, really uncomfortable in the mountains every now and again, and be forced to figure it out, I think huge personal growth can come from those times, the trick part is getting to that point without actually putting your life in danger... having really competent SAR available shouldn't be a deciding go/no go factor, or your first option to get out of a sticky situation but it seems to be becoming that...
Little Big Man MT Chris
Well-known member
Another weekend another concert 
Aaron Watson in Billings last night
Aaron Watson in Billings last night
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Straight Arrow
Well-known member
Nameless Range
Well-known member
Last night, so not technically a Sunday picture.
Homemade Chicken Fried Steak from a mountain camp in the north country. Conceived on a Blackstone and sacrificed at the alter of my gullet.
Gravy on everything.
Magnificence.
Homemade Chicken Fried Steak from a mountain camp in the north country. Conceived on a Blackstone and sacrificed at the alter of my gullet.
Gravy on everything.
Magnificence.
Southern Elk
Well-known member
The gravy on the green beans is a nice touch!
It’s least mine doesn’t dig in the thorns. He just pollinates the tomatoes
Nick87
Well-known member
Thought my lab was bleeding around her neck face when I got home....she got into my tomato plants.
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Same. That’s why a lot of trailheads have ramps.
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