It sounds like Mason though he was taking a shorter route back to return more quickly and that Acerno feels all hikers should head downhill, no matter what. Is it possible that Mason felt he was making the more responsible (less negligent) decision, even though it turned out to be less effective than the alternative? Yes, it is possible, but I don't know. I think we need to know a lot more. For instance, where did that bolded phrase come from? It is not a quote. We know the action of the decision is attributed to Mason, but we do not know what he actually said. And why were the normal helicopters not available? And how much responsibility can we place on him for not knowing about the spring thaw?

This isn't what happened. There are 4 (and 1/2) peaks in the Northern Presidentials. His route was to go up starting at Pinkham Notch, so some route up the side of Tuckerman's Ravine to the summit of Mt. Washington. Then from there along the Gulfside Trail over the range to Jefferson, Adams, and Madison and down a choice of trails out to the road. He hurt his ankle on the ascent of Mt. Washington. When he hurt it, turning around would have been the quickest way down by far. He continued on, and was over on Mt. Jefferson when he decided to take his "short cut". He was taking it because it was getting late, most likely, not because of the ankle which he hurt miles before. If it was his ankle at that point, he could have gone back up to Mt. Washington where he could have been taken down (the way he was after the rescue). At some point after he'd been down in the Gulf, he "built a shelter with rocks" (meaning he was back above treeline). There was an open overnight hut over the ridge on Mt. Adams. He had much better options. Most of them marked on the map he was supposed to be carrying. Two of them with the capability to call off the search. People who hike up there are generally aware when a search is going to result, and they generally try to end it quickly, for exactly this reason. The only really good judgment he exercised was that he knew not to end up above treeline at night exposed to the cold.

The price tag is high and that is really what people are reacting to. But he really didn't exercise good judgment, over and over again. The law is there to discourage bad judgment and reckless behavior. Several people die up there every year, most of the deaths are due to negligence or recklessness. The state wants that to stop, hence the harsh measures.

Who should pay? There should be no rescues unless you sign up first and pay an "insurance" amount. Otherwise, you are on your own --- my ancestors survived in the mountains without the state coming after them. (well, the state did come after them but for other, more liquid, reasons)

So much for a "lie".

Don't know whether you know this, but the only liquid they make in the woods where the kid got lost is maple syrup.

The issue is also one of changing the rules after the action is taken. That has a nice Latin name and is held to be important by constitutional lawyers like the host of this site. Perhaps you can e-mail him and ask about this.

They didn't. New Hampshire changed the rules from "recklessness" to "negligence" as a standard before the kid got lost, and they have charged for unnecessary rescue costs for decades.

As for the user fees model, aren't you now arguing out of both sides of your mouth? Or do you think taxpayer dollars should pay for this rescue?

The "average" rescue is a lot cheaper because it doesn't take three days and is conducted in the summertime.

And one final correction: I don't drive ambulances most of the time.

Sorry again for the misunderstanding, I was apologizing for continuing on a subject you didn't like, which I was doing because I resent someone portraying search and rescue costs as big gummint. I didn't mean to imply you hated big gummint, too.

For the record, you are now arguing that the kid's parents should have been required to buy insurance before the kid set out, and that they shouldn't have rescued the kid on tax dollars, because your ancestors lived in some other mountains someplace. And you are calling us cold? You didn't know what you were talking about when you copied this story from some fellow propagandist. I tried to point you to people who do, I explained to you what happened and how the charges were accrued, and you persist in carrying the same meaningless propaganda forward, and dropping insults at everyone who disagrees with your rigid dogma. You said early on in this that you'd never been up where this kid got lost, you should be able to tell from what I wrote that I probably have. But that's okay, fit the news to the message you wanted to find, and refuse to back down. Just a few more of those and you'll be ready for a career in today's journalism. But thanks for staying on topic.

bystander I think it's a great idea, selling tranched SKIPs (Stupid Kid Insurance Policies). And SKIPs to the nth, where you make bets on kids of various levels of stupidity, then line them up and skim off the most likely to walk off a cliff, and use a Tuckerman's Copula to figure out how to create a martingale marrying cliff hanging with thin ice walking. We can call it the Juvenile Economy, and let Goldmine-Sucks serve as a conduit, in this case called a SKIP rope, or Fonzy Scheme. It's based on the solid economic principle that elevator jumping never decreases in value.