AvidClimbHer

Well let's see... I'll just pick one out of your post: why do we allow 16 year olds to control 4000 lbs of steel moving at 65mph? The way to compare this to the climbers stuck at Mt. Hood is to say it in this way: A smart person wouldn't allow their 16 year old to go drag racing for the thrill of it when the roads were glare ice sheets, blindfolded. That's how I see that these climbers decided to climb the most difficult side of the mountain in the middle of winter, knowing that the weather can change (and probably will) in a second. From what I can tell, the one dude most likely broke his arm in a fall because they decided it would be fun to climb ice cliffs. Now that alone is fine and dandy, people do things for the thrill of it all the time and come out perfectly fine. But the fact that they decided to climb to the summit of the mountain on these ice cliffs, in the middle of winter, is what did them in. Keep in mind, I am not a climber, I've never climbed a mountain, but this is the view from the outside looking in. I'm open to being corrected.