Peter Garrison, who writes many of the "Aftermath" columns in Flying, once talked about the "armchair quarterback" aspect of what he was doing; it's a lot easier to spot the mistakes someone else made when you're sitting in your living room, than to avoid making those mistakes when you're surrounded by clouds and ice is building up on your wings; nevertheless, he said, it's an exercise that any good pilot should do, because the time to recognize the mistakes is before you make them.

From what I've read, an awful lot of what the press labels "Miraculous Survival Stories" are just some unprepared dimwit who did everything wrong and managed to pull through anyway. (There was a story some years ago about a famous athlete - baseball player, I think - who got lost snowmobiling with his buds and "survived" by eating snow. The papers made it out like this was a brilliant survival technique and most lesser mortals would never have survived this ordeal; I hope I don't have to point out that eating snow is about as stupid as sneaking up on a grizzly bear, and just about as fatal.)

Like Chris (and Mors Kochanski) I never cease to marvel at the paradox, that the more you know about this stuff, the less likely you are to need it.

Still, I may have been premature in suggesting he made obvious mistakes and I don't think one should entirely discount this guy's abilities. Yes, it's risky to go climbing on one's lonesome, but some people like the solitude and are prepared to accept the added risk. He took three days worth of water for a one day hike, so he wasn't totally unprepared. None of the newspapers said anything about whether he had a PLB, but I suppose it's possible that he simply couldn't get a signal out (he was in a narrow canyon, apparently).