I was there in July and the sign at the trailhead indicated that among many other things, the pass fees contribute towards SAR. What's your point though?

Sunny Buns wrote:There was a thread a few weeks ago after a climber was rescued and some people claimed the pass covered search and rescue and some people claimed it did not. Looks like it does.

Yes- I remember. But the was I read it the sign says the fees contribute towards SAR activities. I didn't interpret it to mean that SAR is covered and you are fully insured.

Regardless, the heli is currently out a waiting for the next frivolous rescue in the Cascades.

There is a difference between the verbiage... "contributes towards" and "covers all SAR Fees".

The Shasta County Sherrif's office is the sole SAR providing entity for that hill. Not the USFS. The CA CHP and CAANG provide the helo support when called upon. Both these resources depend on local and State Tax payers revenues (Emergency Services) for the general funding to complete their SAR responsibilities/tasking. Not the local climbing access permit/pass fees.

BTW: The avg cost of any airborne asset per flt hour ranges from $1400-2800. No way that the "Pass" alone pays for this resource.

A rough count of helo SAR Assist hours this season alone on Shasta is over 29.

Go figure....

I wonder if Obamacare will cover SAR?

hvydrt wrote:I wonder if Obamacare will cover SAR?

Why should it? SAR is already covered through public funds.

Sunny Buns wrote:Quoted from above:

BTW: The avg cost of any airborne asset per flt hour ranges from $1400-2800. No way that the "Pass" alone pays for this resource.

A rough count of helo SAR Assist hours this season alone on Shasta is over 29.

Go figure....

Let's figure:

29 hours x $2k/hour = $58,000

Say each week during the summer 400 climbers pay $20 for a permit. That's $8k/week.

Would take 7.25 weeks to pay for the S&R so far this year.

Easily doable.

Add in another 100-150K for all the other services that need to be assigned over an entire season.

Each call out with all entities costs no less than 10-15k each plus the helo resource if req'd. So, an easy $20K for each incident is not unlikely. I think the number of call outs to date ranging in this cost factor is 12.

Now, add up the numbers and see what you get.... nope. The pass don't even come close to covering the to date costs let alone the entire seasons price tag. Sorry.

Besides, no where on your posted T/H sign does it indicate anywhere that the Pass cost goes towards paying for any SAR OP:

Gotta agree w Chief on this one. I'd imagine that fee money goes into the general budget, not allocated towards SAR or anything else. And there's a lot of other things on that list too.

To the extent that it covers SAR, most likely a portion of the revenue helps to cover ranger salaries, who might be first responders. Unlikely any of it goes towards airlift operations.