[pct-l] Paying for SAR

Wed Oct 9 23:54:42 CDT 2013

It is not just PCT hikers that are rescued in our area. This SAR service
needs to be for everyone. We just had SAR called today by 6 elderly little
ladies who misplaced one of the girls. She wasn't gone an hour before aid
was summoned. That's another story.....but the point is they came.  I let
them know about the financial straits our SAR unit is in. Our interest is
they come when called.

I believe educating the PCT hikers on what they are really going to get
into up here not what they hear from friends that came through on a low
snow year. Rose colored glasses don't work in the wilderness. The weather
may change from 60 to 25 and a 3' dump of snow with in a few days up here.
After looking at 11 yrs of dealing with hikers between Stevens Pass and
Stehekin it is good hiking weather, warm temps, fresh berries to eat up the
trail and the rivers are low if you hit the border by the 15th of Sept.
That's about August 15th or so at Cascade Locks. Some years like this one
and 4 other years I can remember the trail was all but impassible by Sept
25th at Snoqualmie.

The difference in hikers is when the trail had 3' of snow on it everyone
got off and came back later years and finished in good weather. The past
2-3 years hikers are going out in dangerous conditions.

Hiking Options:

What about a SOBO......we had 24 hikers this year that went through here in
July and early August.

We had 100 NOBO by Sept 1st.......some section hikers doing a flip.

Some hike north from the Southern Terminus before Kick Off and then come
back to KO, party for 3 days and get a hitch back to where you stopped.

Some get up to the beginnings of the Sierras and flip north to miss that
snow then head north and finish at the Canadian border......then flip back
down south to finish the Sierras.

There's many different combinations to choose from to get the best shot of
beating the weather.  I haven't seen a PCT law or rule that says you must
hike north to be cool.  HYOH......do a SOBO you see a lot more hikers than
NOBO.

Get your act together and get your butts up here before the snow.....or
deal with a bunch of garbage weather wise.

Andrea Dinsmore
PCT MOM
Stevens Pass, WA.

On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 12:31 PM, Terry <tsparks56 at aol.com> wrote:

> Brick, toe your argument is valid, to. a point.
>
> The problem we are discussing lies in dealing with people who are
> uneducated to the task at hand, under equipped and lack the experience to
> understand what they are doing.
> The biggest problem, within this problem is, there are more and more of
> these people hiking the PCT every year.
> Your statement of "Is it time to get rid of this commie, liberal,  un
> american  (American) free SAR?"
> Brick, you have a right to your point of view and as the un-American (your
> words) that you are, you initiated this this political statement. I now ask
> you to review your county's budget for their SAR cost and figure out what
> it cost for all the "Commies" living in your county needing assistance from
> them. I do have a feeling you will soon realize, if you actually do the
> math, that the money spent rescuing a  very few people, far out weigh the
> money spent on most other socialized programs you expect to have offered to
> you.
>
> Some day, we may not have a choice but to close the "gate" just as they do
> in Maine on the Appalachian trail every year to late, and/or uninformed,
> under equipped and under trained hikers in the late season Northern
> Cascades to save them from themselves.
>
> Terry
>
>
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Oct 9, 2013, at 11:02 AM, Brick Robbins <brick at brickrobbins.com> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 4:21 AM, Ernie Castillo <erniec01 at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> the motorist certainly wouldn't object to calling and paying for a tow
> truck. Why would SAR be any different, especially if a hiker initiated an
> urgent call for help?<
> >
> > Most of the time, the hiker doesn't "initiate the call" and it wasn't
> > until quite recently that people stuck in the wilderness actually
> > could call for their own rescue.
> >
> > Take the case of Rocket Llama,
> http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=436514
> > There was a SAR effort initiated to search for her, but she didn't
> > call for it, and she walked out on her own so she didn't use it.
> >
> > By this libertarian "pay for service" model, who should have payed for
> > this SAR call?
> >
> > I guess if concerned citizens are afraid to call for SAR for fear of
> > incurring large costs, and people die because of that fear, then it
> > will be OK with a sizable minority of the country... they already hold
> > that view for healthcare. Do you think it is time to get rid of this
> > commie, liberal un american free SAR?
> >
> >> PCT Class of 1980 and a heavy trucker whose strategy was to carry
> everything in his heavy backpack he would need to live and survive in the
> wilderness for an extended period of time<
> >
> > I find this .sig to be a bit pretentious. I'm sure you weren't
> > carrying skis/snowshoes and snow gear in your "heavy trucker" kit, or
> > 2 weeks of food for a 100 mile section of trail. I do multi day
> > backcountry ski trips, and my kit for snow travel would be absolutely
> > stupid to carry on a summer PCT hike.
> >
> > This was an unusual "record breaking" storm, and caused havoc all
> > across the country, and the cost SAR effort for the few hikers caught
> > in it pales in comparison to the other disaster recovery efforts it
> > caused.
> >
> http://www.weather.com/news/winter-storm-atlas-kills-thousands-cattle-south-dakota-20131007
> >
> > These hikers that were caught in the storm were not in trouble because
> > of their gear, or lack of it... they had to hunker down and wait out
> > the storm .. FOOD was the issue. No matter how much gear you carry,
> > you can't travel in that much fresh snow until it compacts enough.
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