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ondelette

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Sunday, July 19, 2009 02:06 PM

@heru-ur

I like the discussion at a law blog I follow better. Let us see, the fellow is 17 years old and legally a child. He was hit with the largest fine in the history of that foul state New Hampshire for twisting his ankle and then allegedly making a bad decision on the hike after he was injured.

Doesn't sound like your law blog knows how these things go. In particular, that isn't a fine, it's the charge for the search and rescue. It's nothing particularly new, they've been charging people when they had to do needless search and rescue operations in New Hampshire since I was a teenager.

Next up, his ankle was sprained, such as it was, on the way up Mt. Washington. By the time he decided to change course and go down over the Six Husbands, he'd been hiking on that ankle for quite a while. Then he starts to get in trouble as he gets down into the Gulf. It was largely clear hiking up on the ridge, so what does he do? Wastes another more than a day before climbing back up retracing his steps, and in the mean time crossing or nearing fast moving water, meaning he went pretty much down into the Gulf. Then on day 2 or so, he finally goes up. But he doesn't go directly back, he builds himself a rock hut above treeline to stay in. And then he gets found, only 45 minutes from the top of Washington, a place he'd been, well after spraining his ankle, a couple of days before.

He didn't turn back when he sprained his ankle. He didn't beg a ride down from the Observatory people when he got to the top. He didn't turn back when it started getting late crossing the ridge. He didn't turn back when he got to the snow going down the second steepest trail in the area, if he was even still on the trail. He didn't turn back until he got to the brook at the bottom. He's an experienced hiker and an Eagle Scout. He knows better than to leave the trail in the first place. On the way up he passed a sign telling him the conditions ahead are some of the worst in America turn back if you can't do it (it says if the weather is bad, but a sprained ankle would qualify too, the message is about exposure). How many frigging warnings does he need before you say he was negligent? But it's all the big bad gummint's fault, right?

Nope. Not convinced we have a poor widdle kid with a major injury (have you ever walked on a sprained ankle? I bit my lip all the way through trying to kill the pain of doing that on a 3 mile walk on a relatively flat surface. Not much of a sprain he had) who was exercising the best of Eagle Scout judgment and not trying to be an Eagle Hero. I used to have to talk people out of such adventures as part of my job. I did it by threatening not to rescue them. It goes with the terrain.

Exactly the kind of situation in which they assess the costs of the rescue to the hiker as a matter of course in New Hampshire. And Maine. And Vermont. And then task the AMC to writing as brutally direct an accident report as they possibly can, laying out just how stupid the person was, in a subsequent issue of Appalachia. In hopes of keeping people from doing this again and again.

Because the next guy might just fall into one of the streams, and they'll have to toboggan him out in a body bag. Get it? The costs are assessed to the parents.

Sunday, July 19, 2009 11:44 AM

@macgupta

You can apparently watch it online,

http://www.onlinewatchmovies.net/2009/06/new-york-2009-hindi-movie-watch-online.html

Sunday, July 19, 2009 11:25 AM

@leftistgadfly

It is true that the US has more social inequality than China.

Really?

Sunday, July 19, 2009 10:22 AM

@Eucalyptus

Sorry. It's just that a post claiming that NH Fish and Game's charges to a kid who goofed up his hiking trip and cost $25,000 in search and rescue expenses doesn't seem like a good claim of 'big gummint'. Especially since N.H. is one of the anti-big-gummint capitals of the world.

They were very short posts, you could have scrolled past them. Betzee and I were just exchanging a little on Mt. Washington (not a mountain in Washington). Sorry to offend you so gravely.

Sunday, July 19, 2009 08:58 AM

@Betzee

Yeah, they named the summit building for Mr. Adams. I didn't know he started Loon Mountain. No, no gondola on Mt. Washington, that's across the notch on Wildcat. There is a train, though.

Sunday, July 19, 2009 08:22 AM

@LondonLad

I warned you about trying to ridicule me with that statement (hypothesis precedes observation). Oh, well.

For the record, one of the two of us has hiked on Mt. Washington in the spring snow, and knows, from the descriptions, where the guy was when he left the trail, and a few other things. Probably don't want to go there.

Sunday, July 19, 2009 07:27 AM

@bcraig1

Some reporters on current times have done well. Natalya Estemirova and Anna Politkovskaya come to mind.

What, exactly, is your definition of 'done well'?

Sunday, July 19, 2009 06:57 AM

@heru-ur

Better discussion, both pro and con, about the kid on Mt. Washington.

http://www.mountwashington.org/forums/showthread.php?t=5168

BTW, when reading, MWO is Mount Washington Observatory (on the top of the mountain), and the one guy, Brian Clark, works there (and therefore largely lives there).

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