Outside Magazine to Newsmedia: What Is The Cost of Rescuing Your Head From Your Ass?

Back in December, we defended the search and rescue efforts for the climbers lost on Mt. Hood. We were also baffled by the intensity of the national media focused on the effort--people have died on Mt. Hood and Rainier in the past without hardly a sneeze from most national news outlets--but figured it was the fact that it trailed the Kim rescue so closely.

But Outside magazine some more insightful thoughts on the matter about the whole frenzy in an article in the most recent issue by senior editor Dennis Lewon. (They don't have the article online but you can listen to the surprisingly boring podcast (sorry Dennis) here.) Lewon calmly and quietly slapped the shit out of every newspaper and TV reporter that was screaming about the crazy risks these climbers took and the staggering costs of these types of rescues. "Thousands of your tax dollars" they all hollered in unison. Aside from the fact that the cost values thrown about for these rescues are misleading at best (more on this to come), Outside goes on to do a little actual research themselves, instead of swallowing press releases and AP reports whole.

And guess what they found? The state of Oregon rescues mountaineers about as often as they rescue mushroom pickers. In 2005, 3.4 percent of Oregon S&R rescue missions were for climbers, and 3.0 percent were for fungi foragers. We figure that the Washington data can't be that far off from Oregon, and while our state isn't as obsessive about it's data tallying as our friends to the south, Washington state S&R coordinator Chris Long confirmed our suspicions. "Far more of our rescues involve hunters and ATV/snowmobile riders."

So, the obvious question is, if more people need rescuing because they flipped their damned snowmobile or they got shot in the face by Dick Cheney, why are the climbers getting the short end of the stick? People like to casually throw around how dangerous climbing is, but based on these data, at least in the northwest they aren't the problem. For those of you complaining about those "crazy" climbers wasting your tax dollars, you're barking up the wrong mountains.

Photo of ass-shaped mushroom from Flickr user Michael Heilemann