Am I missing something? What did these people do to warrant the vitriol?

Drive on snowy roads in snow country?

Trust authorities to tell them if it wasn't safe? Exactly as society teaches them to do?

They got stuck Thursday night. The road wasn't closed until 1:30am Friday, and they were getting them out Friday day.

What am I missing?

I think you're missing a heavy dose of sarcasm, at least in the case of my earlier posts.

Some people on this forum have a habit of immediately blaming the victims whenever a news report tells of someone getting lost or injured while out and about. In every case that I've read anyway, before any or at least many of the facts behind the event are publicized. See the debacle of a thread concerning the folks attempting to climb Mt. Hood for some great examples of posting without knowing what the hell has actually happened.

There are also a lot of people, none of whom are actually involved in search and rescue, who also use every opportunity to state that the victims of any mishaps should be billed for the cost of their rescue. None of those folks has ever, to my knowledge anyway, ever explained why fire and police services shouldn't also be billed for. Ironic since the majority of search and rescue efforts are provided by volunteers anyway who do it for their own reasons and the costs passed along to the taxpayer completely pales in comparison to things like police and fire services.

Some of us I think, are getting a wee bit tired of reading armchair analyses by people without the knowledge or the facts to have an informed opinion.

The comments made about the victims of the Mt. Hood event went beyond the pale even for this forum, in my opinion. It's been breathtaking to see what people write about things that they know virtually nothing about.

Thanks for reminding me that irony and sarcasm can be a tough thing to do well on a web forum.