Another Rainier Rescue

[nolanr]

Right on Mike and Rick. The second guessing does get a little tiresome around here. You know, probably everybody that's ever got pinned down by weather or had an accident of whatever figured "it will never happen to me." Until it did. So the rest of us can keep pretending "it will never happen to us." But it might someday.

[jtljohnson]

Mike G. Thanks for your post. Hindsight being what it is you are correct, it is easy to make hindsight armchair criticisms and it is not appropriate. To simplify my post however, the NOAA websites exact words were "This is a vigorous frontal system for June" If I were making the decision myself, I would wait for a more stable system as we did a week before on our ascent of Liberty Ridge. I waited weeks for the right weather forecast to go for it. I am a pilot as well as a climber and watch the weather everyday. Frontal weather may not be able to be exactly forecasted especially west of the crest but you can sure bet it will be pretty active around fronts and upper level lows, like there were during the period we are talking about. I can't make choices for other climbers and I don't have the right to criticize anyone for their decisions made probably with best information that they had available. It just seems in climbing as in flying that a lot of rescuers/ searchers time, energy, safety and money, (including may own) and by the way I am a search pilot for Civil Air Patrol, is due to flying or climbing in forecasted frontal weather. (Again I realize that forecasts are not perfect, but obvious frontal weather is a good reason to stay home) I am sorry if I have offended anyone, and am certainly impressed with the Southern couple's ability to handle the situation they were in