8 climbers stranded on Goat Wall

SAR does NOT want folks to NOT call for help for fear of having to pay….

thus resulting in a body recovery

 seems logical to me

be safe out there

peace

PS  negligence may result in a payment In certain instances

Allen Sandersonwrote:

This incident is why the US needs to adopt a policy that a rescue is no different than an ambulance ride - you get charged for it. That take responsibility for your actions.

you say that until you get rescued

Zachary Winterswrote:

Sam, huge respect for sharing your mistakes and lessons learned in this public format. It sounds like your experience was extremely similar to what happened last week. Yes, it was on Prime Rib, and in the exact same terrain between pitch 7 and 8. Tricky bit of terrain between pitches there to navigate in the dark. Way to hunker down, shiver bivvy, and safely get yourself out the next day. Out of curiosity, how do you think your outcome would have differed if your phone battery had not died, or if your partner would've had service? Would you have let your friends know what was going on? Would you have given SAR a heads up, or called for a rescue? No judgement either way, just curious what was going through your mind at the time, and what you think you'd do if it were to happen again after reflecting on your past experience? Thanks for engaging, Sam - super interesting.

Zachary, thank you for the kind words and providing context on this incident earlier in the thread.

If we had service, the biggest thing is we would have notified our friends that we were okay and choosing to stay where we were, and my only regret is not using my last bit of battery to send that message. Like I said, I think staying put was the best decision for us at the time, but it really freaked them out having us not come back. They went all over town asking if people had seen us, and did eventually report us missing which necessitated a police response the next day. I don't think we would have notified SAR or called for a rescue, we knew we were safe and would make it out once the sun came up.

I think the thing that really tripped us up was the high first bolt. From what I recall, every other pitch and belay transfer we encountered on goat wall had an obvious low first bolt not much above head height. We never even thought we would have been that close to the bolt line and not seen it because it was high. Thinking back we actually made it to the tree before it was even dark and still didn't find it, we searched for probably 2 hours. I genuinely believe that if the first bolt was lower, we would have found the pitch and not spent the night on the wall. Making the situation much worse was the mess of trails in this area from people other people searching for the bolt line. These, paired with the fact we thought we were nearing the top, led us to explore dangerous off route terrain and end up in that gully.

Looking back on this experience, this was one of those times I said yes to something that was way over my head, I learned a lot, and luckily made it back in one piece. I had very very little multi-pitch experience before this trip, and didn't have the efficiency or skill to do all that climbing in a reasonable amount of time, or to be safe if something had really gone wrong. In theory I knew the very basics and was with an experienced partner, but I didn't have the hours and miles under my belt needed for a day like this. I remember getting to the top of pitch two on prime rib and setting up my ATC though the rope carabiner, not the guide loop, and not noticing until my partner was halfway up the pitch. Or getting confused between the belay stations vs rapel stations and setting up on the wrong ones. I just didn't know enough to be up on that wall, especially trying to do a big link-up day. But sometimes that is just how you learn, and you look back on it later and know you would do it differently now. And yes those routes are "accessible" and "easy" and common first multi-pitches, but I personally would not take a beginner on one now. If something goes wrong you are a long ways from rescue up there.

In the end, we did make it out okay. This has become one of those stories I tell around the campfire, about how I used the rope as a blanket and we cuddled under the stars getting no sleep. But I also know how there were a few moments that were close to being really bad, and those moments don't usually make it into the story. I still get kinda freaked out when I think about watching my partner try to navigate in that gully and how close he was to sliding down into the abyss. And how my inexperience and mistakes on the easy stuff could have been costly. I am not saying we almost died and escaped only by the skin of our teeth, but inexperience is a hard thing to asses in yourself, and I didnt know how under-prepared I really was. I just said yes to an adventure with an experienced partner who was willing to take me and figured I would be okay.

Sam, I commend you on your open and humble analysis of the events. I suspect the vast majority of us here on MP who have been climbing for any length of time have similar stories of getting ourselves into “situations”. (I certainly have a few stories where I could have made much better decisions.) Ideally, as the saying goes, one is able to fill up the bag of experience before the bag of luck runs empty. Thanks for sharing your perspective—by doing so you may very well help out someone else contemplating an adventure that might excessively push their limits. Glad everyone is safe!

Jay Crewwrote:

you say that until you get rescued

I have been part of a rescue ... though I was not the one needing rescued, we both had insurance to pay for it. So yeah I can say that. Got anything else to say spud?

Allen Sandersonwrote:

I have been part of a rescue ... though I was not the one needing rescued, we both had insurance to pay for it. So yeah I can say that. Got anything else to say spud?

Great, another parasitic insurance scheme.

Ackley The Improvedwrote:

Great, another parasitic insurance scheme.

it's a feature, not a bug for those types.

Allen Sandersonwrote:

This incident is why the US needs to adopt a policy that a rescue is no different than an ambulance ride - you get charged for it. That take responsibility for your actions.

Having been the  young Son of a SAR Coordinator for the cascades in the 90's this subject came up many times. Especially after having to leave in the middle of less then Ideal moments I.E kids birthdays, dinner out with the family, ect. The only progress that was established was for situations of pure neglect and abuse of the service, like having a flat tire in the woods. The penalty was presented in the form of a citation/ticket from the local sheriffs office. Just like if you call 911 for a non emergency. It did teach a few lessons but seeing as SAR/ Mountain Rescue is volunteers and the coordinator is the only paid position by the tax payers. It put a lot of bad publicity on the program.  

Instead if putting a fine on said persons Community service to volunteer in the program was recived better by the public and was more pro-active vs re-active. I fully belive this should applied to every county unfortunatly can not say how thing are now as I am not involved anymore.  

Personally if/when my time (to be rescued) comes I'd rather be in the hands of professional, full time, highly trained people then some ad hoc semi random group of volunteers no matter how well intention-ed they are.  And yes pay (hopefully via insurance) for it.  But I know that is not the US model for the most part so I don't need to hear any snark about being welcome to turn down a volunteer rescue.  

Yup that is the European (and other international locations) model.  Why is that the gold standard?  Partly because there is a higher percentage of the general population there that is knowledgeable about, participates in and is sympathetic towards mountain and outdoor recreation.

Chris Mwrote:

Having been the  young Son of a SAR Coordinator for the cascades in the 90's this subject came up many times. Especially after having to leave in the middle of less then Ideal moments I.E kids birthdays, dinner out with the family, ect. The only progress that was established was for situations of pure neglect and abuse of the service, like having a flat tire in the woods. The penalty was presented in the form of a citation/ticket from the local sheriffs office. Just like if you call 911 for a non emergency. It did teach a few lessons but seeing as SAR/ Mountain Rescue is volunteers and the coordinator is the only paid position by the tax payers. It put a lot of bad publicity on the program.  

Instead if putting a fine on said persons Community service to volunteer in the program was recived better by the public and was more pro-active vs re-active. I fully belive this should applied to every county unfortunatly can not say how thing are now as I am not involved anymore.  

Hmm... person who unnecessarily engaged SAR would then be required to volunteer ... in SAR? Not sure how I feel about that one.  I suppose they could be relegated to picking up garbage but that might risk another SAR call!   

Chris Mwrote:

Having been the  young Son of a SAR Coordinator for the cascades in the 90's this subject came up many times. 

Certainly the subject comes up all the time among rescuers. I was stuck inside the ranger hut at Paradise one April for what seems like 18hrs and I swear we circled back to rescuers-for-hire like 6 times.  And every time is has come up in my experience it's been a joke.  We regularly have prior subjects/victims come and share their story in person at monthly meetings.  The whole vibe is one of extreme gratitude.  The public is generally in awe of the service volunteer teams provide (and presumably of the Navy aviators and county LE).  

I have little doubt that establishing a system that results in a bill for rescue services would destroy the joy that I and others feel after a mission knowing the team came together to help someone, solely for the sake of being helpful.  And very quickly there would be no volunteer rescue teams and we will have greatly exacerbated the already imposing shortage of personnel to respond to backstory emergencies.

That last note- about the fact that call-outs have gone up by 10-15% each year for the last decade and the membership of the MRA has climbing much much slower- that is the only valid reason I can come up with for looking for any way to influence who decides they "need" to be rescued.  There have been instances, I would really have to dig, where a mission was initiated for a situation that perhaps could have been a self rescue and shortly after a concurrent, truly life and limb callout was initiated.  Not in the Seattle rescue community but even so it made the rounds at the "water-cooler" at monthly training.  The teams unanimous (ish) response- let's recruit more rescue friends, this shit is bananas!!! Not- lets go on less missions!

The only info I was able to get was "the climber who got raised went up due to non-medical issues".  Possibly panic-attack sort of situation.  It's very hard to take a concious, but uncooperative subject down high angle.  Maybe they opted to go up because the process to get to flat ground would be shorter and less exposed for a subject who was already half way to shock.  It's usually a conversation between the attending medical rescuer on scene, the civilian IC and the Sherrif when there's a big decision point like that.

Then there's this guy: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ak/pr/utah-doctor-pleads-guilty-banned-denali-five-years-and-pay-10000-penalty
10k and a 5 year ban from Denali doesn't seem like enough. How much does a helo rescue cost? Also why not a lifetime ban?

Zachary Winterswrote:

Party of 8, climbing in pairs but all together. Climbed the first 7 pitches in 11 pitches so thought they were done. Couldn't see in the dark that they still had 600ft to climb so started "walking off" into awful off-route terrain. They called 911 and were coached over the phone by SAR to get back to a secure ledge they could shelter in place and wait for rescue. 6 were guided down. 2 wouldn't/couldn't rappel, so 1 was hauled up and 1 was guided up after many hours of warming. Significant snow storm didn't simplify things any.

For those of us who have spent time climbing in the pnw, this pretty much sounds like the usual pnw goat rodeo. By far the biggest concentration of overconfident folks with zero outdoor sense bumbling into epics that i have ever seen.

Federal law already requires for-profit ambulance services to be utilized first if available. That chopper ride could approach 100 grand. But if it required a special MAST helo from the Navy it could be free.

There is no way rural counties could maintain pro SAR. There could be hundreds involved in a ground search in a county with a population of 60,000.. 

I would put the volunteer Tahoe SAR up against any European pro group for local conditions. Seems like every other member was a big wall climber, LEO, ultra marathoner, former Olympian, movie rigger or stunt man.

I could see pros being appropriate in highly technical terrain that had large numbers of rescues which would exhaust volunteers. That number of people could support pros with a large tax base.

Insurance just leaches resources both time and money.

Nice to see Sam and a couple others’ understanding comments.  I’ve been climbing 25 years and at some point I’ve probably done every dumb thing I knew not to do. Each situation was different. Mistakes. However, each of those dumb mistakes made me more vigilant.  Thankfully, none of my mistakes ended in serious injury to anyone.  

Mistakes happen because that’s human. Accidents happen with no fault of the climber.  Let’s support each other gaining the knowledge and experience to survive. 

Insurance companies share information about your risky activities. If one finds out you climb, all companies will be told. No life insurance for you. Or maybe just pay thrice as much. Maybe higher priced med insurance too.