by Gadgetgeek » Thu 25 Apr, 2019 3:50 pm
I think that overall, the threat of charging may lead people to delay contacting help, or attempting more hazardous self-rescues that then make the situation worse. I agree that there does need to be some sort of method to make the situation better, but I'm not sure quite what that is. Potentially there is room for a larger number and more diverse walking clubs that can allow people to get out while giving them some of that training that many of us either learned formally, or the hard way. I think especially of the wilderness instagram crowd who often don't show or recognize what it takes to get to certain areas. So you have one person do a stunt, lots of planning, thought, and preparation. Its then followed by a copycat who thinks, well, they made it look easy, so it must be. We know that a simple thing like yesterdays weather can turn an easy walk into a deadly ordeal, but if you've never had to consider that before, it's not exactly intuitive.
What might be a more beneficial system may be more of a club/insurance sort of system where people are encouraged to be a dues paying member of a group, and those groups do more than just host walks, but also assist in park maintenance, landowner relations to access private lands, and those resources can also be then directed towards paying for rescues. Where I live there is a lot of national park area that is easy to access, but that often means its very overcrowded, and that does lead people who want to get further from the crowds to get into more dangerous locations. If there was a way to access more private lands, that might help somewhat.