My friend Ellen Coleman and Sally Morley were rescued on Register Ridge (Mt Baldy) and are now safe

http://mtsanjacinto.info/viewtopic.php? ... ae2#p46075

Glad this turned out OK, but if I read the underlying post correctly, they called for a rescue when it was only 12:30 and they were only at 8,200'? It seems like, despite the poor conditions they described, they had lots of time to descend. Am I missing something?

Certainly looks like a handful of poor choices were made by your friends Cy. Shouldn't be climbing up in those conditions if they weren't prepared or capable of getting themselves back safely. It isn't as though something unexpected happened like an injury or accident that would warrant a rescue... just poor choices.

No doubt this is one incident that was created by Spot devices... rather than prevented by them. If they hadn't had two of them along with them and ascended knowing they were their backup... maybe they wouldn't have gone up something they couldn't deal with in the first place.

It seems odd. Bob Pickering seemed to ask pretty directly "why not descend?" to which the OP replied that another person already asked that question and then proceeded to give no answer. Perhaps the answer would be something like, "conditions were too sketchy to descend the way we came", but I didn't see that anywhere. It almost seemed like they had in mind the only option was to go over the top and back down the easier way, and barring that a rescue was needed.

There are obviously many many devils advocate type questions that should be asked here but nobody on that buddy-buddy thread is willing to ask or say some of these things. My opinion is they would have turned around or never went without the SPOT equipment and I believe had the turned around they would have easily made it down the way they came.

"Embarrassed but alive"
"Apparently, these conditions are similar to when numerous people died last year. "

What I hear every year people die on this mountain for various reasons (or rather the same one). I thought Mt Hood was the most deadly mountain in the US but perhaps that was before Internet. Nowadays everyone is a mountaineer with SPOT's and cell phones. Go figure.

There was not even a need for the rescue. And what if helicopter did not come or did not see them. That was their only back up plan? Pressing the 911 button? At noon??? And they call it embarrassing? They have no shame and definitely no idea about mountaineering.

In Ellen's defense, she has been known to have a couple pulls o' the flask while out and about; how well would you be able to make decisions if you had had a few belts on the mountain?

What bugs me is that the after-action report (the one she linked in her post) does not match her own narrative; it says she was traveling down a ridge into San Antonio Canyon. The rescue team also says it only took about 20 minutes to find them.

http://www.pe.com/articles/mount-824086 ... rrain.html

http://cms.sbcounty.gov/sheriff/MediaCe ... tonio.aspx

I'm not gonna ask that question, however, because knowing that board, there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth that someone would even question the decision making process of a local semi-legend.

But what I will ask is what the hell are you thinking that you would ascend an icy slope that you do not feel safe descending?

I "chickened out" on Hood last summer literally 20-40' from the top because I was having ice chunks rained down on me in the final crux, and the one thing that kept going through my mind was, if I get up that, which I probably could, how do I get back down?

Or, as I call it, "lived to climb another day, and without needing to get rescued".

bscott wrote:. . .
But what I will ask is what the hell are you thinking that you would ascend an icy slope that you do not feel safe descending?
. . .

And that's the answer!

There are many people who climb mountains but not many of them are mountaineers.

My friend Miguel, who hikes on Baldy quite a bit for training, tells me that 95% of the people hiking on Baldy should not be there, because they don't have the proper gear, don't have any mountain sense and little, if any awareness of what is around them. I understand that most of the people come from places that rarely see snow, so Baldy is like a magnet with reasonable access and snow conditions. Baldy is not a mountain, it is a playground, just like the near-by beaches.

It is nothing new. I remember one February 1986 day when Miguel and I hiked very iced-up slopes directly above San Antonio hut. We had crampons, alpine boots and axes. Half way up the slope we came up on two kids who were hugging a big pine tree on a 1,000 foot ice slope with a huge run off. They were Eagle Scouts from Ontario trying to make Baldy. They had wonderful tennis shoes, tea shirts and shorts over polypro underwear. After we cut steps for them half way down the mountain, one of them mentioned the funny gear the two of us had. They had not a clue...Nothing has changed much.

The only rule of solo climbing;
Never climb up anything you are not 100% certain you can downclimb.

Probably Ellen and Sally are much wiser now. I'm glad they wrote up a report. It is good for them and others.
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And asmrz is so funny and so correct. It is nothing new.

asmrz wrote:My friend Miguel, who hikes on Baldy quite a bit for training, tells me that 95% of the people hiking on Baldy should not be there, because they don't have the proper gear, don't have any mountain sense and little, if any awareness of what is around them.

Sometimes it's worse if they have the gear, but no sense of how to use it properly (case in point?). Nothing like a false sense of confidence to really get you in over your head.

I understand that sometimes the rescue guys have a pretty relaxed views of not so urgent rescues: it provides good training and the like, and they'd rather haul out a live body than a dead one. But I have a hard time ignoring the old axiom that danger invites rescue. People do put themselves at risk to bail out others, even when the conditions don't seem dire.

wallspeck wrote:Probably Ellen and Sally are much wiser now.

CLOSE.

From the linked thread, "I can think of only one mistake, and that was leaving our helmets in the trunk of my car."

bscott wrote:

wallspeck wrote:Probably Ellen and Sally are much wiser now.

CLOSE.

From the linked thread, "I can think of only one mistake, and that was leaving our helmets in the trunk of my car."

Haha... this is a gem

bscott, you made me laugh out loud. Too funny!!