Darwin Award Runner-up.. North Rim hiker

[annabanana]

TV keeps running a story about a woman "with professional outdoor experience" who leaves her stuck car and hikes 30 some-odd miles in the wrong direction. They're treating it like her intention to 'save her family' makes her somehow heroic and the recipient of a "Christmas Miracle"

Her husband eventually walked the other direction, got bars on his phone and called for help. They then had to go out hunting for this idiot.

I guess they couldn't find any more credible miracle.


GET OUT THERE AND FIND ME A MIRACLE GODDAM IT!

[TexasProgresive]

1. She survived so no eligible for the Darwin Award.

[annabanana]

4. that's why she's just a runner-up

duh

[TexasProgresive]

5. To be a runner-up one must be eligible. duh!

[braddy]

3. She survived, and has already reproduced.

[trotsky]

6. I'm glad she's OK but geez.

Go for a drive to see the canyon in winter, and the road is closed. Veer off onto snow-covered service roads and get stuck. Wander away from your vehicle. Just a series of really bad decisions.

[annabanana]

7. exactly my thought. . .n/t

[janx]

9. I found a link to the teevee "news" story.

OMG. Really bad.

[annabanana]

10. I KNOW, right?..

It's like they have it on a loop. . .

[yuiyoshida]

8. Great Caesars Ghost!

[lunasun]

11. they were looking for a way to get around a closed road using a Google map

The main highway was closed- what did they thinking small roads would be?
Driscoll said the main highway in the Canyon’s north rim, State Route 67, was closed due to the snow in the area, which is about 8,000 feet above sea level. The family, he said, was looking for an alternate road and found Forest Road 22 — one of the few available alternate routes.

“Google Maps shows there’s a way — but it’s impassable,” he said, adding. “This is a problem we’ve had numerous times.”

Yet even the route they took had large amounts of snow
Forest road sort of a hint there...

[Retrograde]

12. What is "Professional outdoor experience"?

Was she a guide of some sort? A hike leader? A camp supervisor? A ditch digger? Whatever the experience it apparently didn't include looking at an actual map before setting off into the near wilderness. Even the AAA maps of Arizona state that the North Rim is closed in winter.

Where were these people from?

[HAB911]

13. I wonder if the family supports

communistic E9-1-1 service?

[Xolodno]

14. geez...

This brought up memories...

Some things I've heard from Rangers.

Mariposa Grove: They should put a McDonalds up here.

Yellowstone; What time do they let the animals out?



Personally witnessed:

A father and young daughter getting within three feet of a Bison...then run when the Bison gets aggressive.

Someone walking down a trail in heels.

Coming back from a round trip 12 mile hike that starts at 7k feet and goes up another 2.5k ....oh and we started before 8 am with over 100 oz of water and returned late afternoon with much of it gone. We see a family just starting with a couple of small water bottles with no gear and think six miles one way is no big deal. They got pissed when we told them there was no way they would make and if they continued we would notify the rangers.

On a six mile hike and have to use my first aid kit on someone who didn't bring a first aid kit...oh and I noticed they had inadequate amount of water. Guess they thought the water in the river would be perfectly fine without a purifier.

People feeding the squirrels with no realization of what that will do.

[Retrograde]

15. That last one is one of my pet peeves

Squirrels are not cute little Disney critters - they're rodents, and out here in the West they and their kin can be carrying all sorts of interesting diseases. People entering Yosemite are warned not to contact rodents because many of the carry the Hanta virus - and Yersinia pestis (aka bubonic plague) is common in the Southwest. The best you can hope for from those fluffy-tailed tree rats is fleas.

Just because a place is called a park doesn't mean it's all tame and safe. People are killed in the US National Parks every year because they ignore warning signs or think they know better than the people whose jobs it is to keep them safe.

(I've seen high heels and flip-flops on trails. I often hike in sneakers but that's deliberate - if the terrain is too tough for my shoes it's going to be too hard on my aged knees and I had better not do that route.)

[Xolodno]

17. Yeah that one infuriates me too.

As its not just possibly harmful to you, but hurts the squirrel as well. They become dependent on human food and hand outs.

Had to chase one off at Nevada Falls because he sat right next to me thinking I would give him something. In Zions in front of multiple signs to NOT feed the squirrels and was punishable by fines....people were feeding them.

Want to feed animals? Start a farm.

Just remembered another one. On the trail near Breckenridge, the snow still covered several portions of the trail. At one point it look liked it was completely covered, so we decided to stop. But noticed some footprints going through it. Turns out the trail actually turned right and was clear sailing to the falls, so we continued on. About half hour we arrived at the destination along with several others that knew about the turn...The FAMILY that hiked through the snow arrived. They asked how everyone else arrived given the trail was completely covered and didn't see any other tracks. That's when I told them, that wasn't the trail. Still don't think they realized just how dangerous that was.

[tblue37]

18. Rangers call them "tourons"-- i.e., tourists + morons.

The Newsweek article where I read about tourons many years ago included a story about one father who put honey on his 3-year-old daughter's face to get a picture of a bear "kissing" her!

[malaise]

16. I saw that and did wonder why M$Greedia ran with the wrong story

From her hospital bed she declared that she's quite the survivalist.