Exploits, Now Not So Daring – NYTimes.com.
Op-Ed piece in today’s NYT touches on some of the issues I’ve discussed here about rescues for adventurers. This piece focuses on climbing, but I have always felt that climbing and boating were akin.
…the dictum of adventure that had been true for centuries, but that may no longer hold: if you get into trouble, you have to get yourself out.
In the last 10 or 15 years, all of that has changed — for the worse, in my view. Thanks to satellite phones, radios, helicopters, GPS’s and other technology, extreme adventurers not only can often be rescued from otherwise fatal situations, but they sometimes count on such a rescue as an emergency escape option.
While the story doesn’t speak to the issue of funding for rescues, the issue of people’s willingness to take a risk based on their faith that they can get rescued is very germane.
