In a nutshell, here are the questions that I'm pondering for a worst case 'what if' scenario. I'll rant some more about them below.

1. What are the legal ramifications for this, both for those left behind, and for the agencies that operate in the area?

2. Could this be done in the lower 48 states if it were contextually appropriate and specified a priori to family or a climbing partner?

3. How about just being left on the mountain until a recovery on foot could be achieved?

4. How could such wishes be adequately recorded such that the wishes are respected by the local authorities?

I would especially be interested on hearing thoughts from those involved with SAR. During the Shasta aftermath I learned a lot about SAR vs. recoveries and what can be said to the family and the press, and somewhat as to certain situations where people who died were left on Mt. Shasta, so I know these questions may be affected by bureaucratic policies as well.

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Just to start things off, I have been thinking about this long before Tom's death, but the events on Mt Shasta have me thinking even more seriously about specifying such wishes about this issue to friends, family, and maybe even in a will of sorts.

For context, before Tom's death I was thinking more hypothetically about this after a friend of a friend disappeared in an avalanche in the Andes two weeks after I met him, and after the two mysterious deaths above 17,000 ft on Denali the same year that I climbed the peak (the man who died on the summit was left buried there). Two years prior, on my first trip to the Alaska Range, to the Ruth Gorge, the organizer of our 3-man expedition made it clear to us that if he were to fall into a crevasse and rescuing him seemed to endanger us, that his wish was that we would leave him, despite him leaving behind a wife and child.

Despite the morbid and seemingly hypothetical nature of this question, and aside from discussing such a decision with family, I feel more than ever that I should be knowledgeable and clear on this issue with myself and loved ones, and to know how reasonable it is. If I were to perish in a more remote region, I would wish to be left/buried on the mountain rather than to have others risk their lives to recover my body, and I'm sure that that decision would be easy to abide by and would require little more than notifying the people that I am climbing with.

I've wondered about such a predicament in the lower 48 states, though. For example, 8 or more people risked their lives and a military helicopter to recover the body of my close friend. Regarding my feelings of initiating a SAR or recovery and the risk it has to rescuers and the cost it has to society, I know that if it had been me up there, I would either have requested to be left there indefinitely, or if I were close enough to the surface to melt out, that I be recovered in later season when such a recovery could be done on foot or in more stable weather for helicopter flights. After hearing all to often about devastating helicopter crashes in an attempt for a SAR - whether it truly needed a helicopter or not - I know that I would hate the idea of one being sent up for recovering me.

They don't have that option, they are Professionals, have a job to perform that they have chosen to do.

That is why they are there doing what they do.

We should all be glad and thankful that those few select folks out there, that choose to operate in this capacity, do so.

I've thought about this for decades. It would be nice to leave bodies where they lie. But there are too many of us now. Best to pull the corpse, cremate it, then scatter the ashes to the land accordingly.

Personally I'd like to donate the body to the food chain. I've eaten so many other beings bodies I feel a bit unfair. I'm not just talkin about cows and chickens but plants and fishes too.

Sorry about your partner. That was a tough day.

After chatting with a Lone Pine-based SAR volunteer who had been searching over a week for the guy that went missing on Johnson/Goode a few years back, I had this very conversation with my mom (also an alpine climber). I asked that if something were to happen to me in the backcountry that she not allow a similar effort to be undertaken and most definitely for not that many days. I understand the Chief's point that the SAR folks are doing their job, but I'm with you and SpiderSavage; I'd prefer to be left there. She, on the other hand, didn't exactly sound accommodating. It's a tough situation and regardless of what you may tell your family/climbing partners you can't guarantee your wishes will be honored under such circumstances.

fossana -

True, but at the very least, if such an outcome could be prevented by properly expressing such wishes, I'm wondering how this could be done rather than leaving it to chance and letting people wonder what you really would like to have had done.

While it is SAR's chosen job to come to our rescue, I'm in the camp of doing everything I can to avoid calling them to such dangerous tasks unless it is appropriate and timely to do so. An unnecessary recovery or unnecessary emphasis given on doing it ASAP rather than waiting for ideal conditions is something I would want to avoid. However, if others override that request, then the moral consequences are on them.

Local, State and Federal Protocols will not allow that a deceased body be left in the Wilderness in the lower 48.

I believe that this also applies to all National Parks as well.

as I recall, the man who died and was buried on the summit of Denali was left there with there being no plans to recover him, but then again, that is a very special case for a recovery in a National Park.

IMO, a lot of it comes down to whether it's a rescue or recovery.

If it's a situation where a climber falls and is killed or SAR otherwise knows the situ is one of recovery, then I think something like an organ donor card or DNR directive makes sense (i.e., don't come collect my body until it's reasonably safe to do so).

OTOH, a missing person search or injured climber rescue scenario is much different, where SAR is going to pull out the stops to try to get to that person, conditions allowing. Even then, SAR can't always make it in time, as we unfortunately saw recently with the climber who fell into the summit crater on St. Helens.

So, like much we find in the mountains, it's complicated. That said, my guess is that there is a good chunk of climbers/mountaineers who share PW's thoughts about not wanting to put other folks' lives in jeopardy unnecessarily.

Rick is right, it is really not a private option, but more of a public policy issue/debate. However, this does lead into one of the more interesting stories of a man's specific choice within our community, Guy Waterman. If you ever get the chance, read Chip Brown's (Laura Waterman) Good Morning Midnight. Euthanasia is near and dear to me heart. I have spent a lot of time studying life and death from an agnostic point of view. This is born of my interest in Philosophy of Religion which I studied extensively in college and why I have so much disdain for anyone who justifies actions against others in the name of religion.

This is only relative to the conversation as it relates to choice, of not only dying, but what to be done with ones remains. Native Americans seemed to have the most rational sense of what a dead human or animal body represented, but such has been lost on our somewhat strange civilization's perspective of the significance of the human corpse.

As long as there's a chance for survival, I think a rescue effort should be made. While the climber might prefer to be left to die, the family might think otherwise. Kind of like suicide, I don't think it's a decision you can make for yourself.

Dougb wrote:there's money to be made on them there corpses. If they were just left, or buried on the spot, a whole industry and it's related revenues would vanish.

C'mon!

In most if not ALL cases, the relatives wishes are that the remains be returned so that they can do the formalities and have their burial gig with the family.

I have been on several BR Ops around the world, and on each one, it was the families deep concern and intent to ensure that their loved one be found and returned ASAP!

Dougb wrote:

The Chief wrote:

Dougb wrote:there's money to be made on them there corpses. If they were just left, or buried on the spot, a whole industry and it's related revenues would vanish.

C'mon!

In most if not ALL cases, the relatives wishes are that the remains be returned so that they can do the formalities and have their burial gig with the family.

I have been on several BR Ops around the world, and on each one, it was the families deep concern and intent to ensure that their loved one be found and returned ASAP!

Hi Chief, sure, the family wants the loved one back, I would too. My point is that you still have to pay into the system in one way or another once you get the body. Burial with a coffin aint cheap. Cremation is less expensive, but still you are paying into the system. Plus the florist, the people who attend put on nice black clothes, gas up the SUV's for the funeral, maybe rent a church, and then usually go out afterwards. That's what I meant when I said there's money to be made on corpses. The {savage} Natives honored the dead without spending a lot of wampum. Us civilized folks have made an industry out of it.

That is a valid point and I aint even gonna touch that aspect of the Capitalistic mindset of Western Man.

Me, I told my Wife to take me up into the High Hills, chop me up and have the Buzzards eat me.

It's free and it feeds that Universe.

The Chief wrote:Me, I told my Wife to take me up into the High Hills, chop me up and have the Buzzards eat me.

It's free and it feeds that Universe.

+ 1

A Tibetan Sky Burial. That's the way climbers should be buried IMO!

The Chief wrote:Me, I told my Wife to take me up into the High Hills, chop me up and have the Buzzards eat me.

It's free and it feeds that Universe.

Nice...
I've told folks to cremate me, scatter half my ashes on the summit of my favorite peak, and throw the other half in the face of my biggest enemy.

But I have no enemies... so maybe just some political leader I dislike at the time...

I personally think it wouldn't hurt to recover bodies at some point or it turns into Everest trash town.