The history books are also full of people who took unnescessary risks and did something great. Its an unnescessary risk to quit your job and start your own business. A lot of people quit and go back to working for someone, some end up building empires. Same goes for the people who rediscovered the Americas or explored them. Same goes for a lot of people. I assume if you're here you aren't your average man in the grey flannel suit.

One of these guys is dead, and someone could die rescuing the other two. Far be it for me, who lacks all the facts, say the man was under prepared or overly risky. The rescuers aren't the same as firemen dying in an arson fire. They are pitting their knowledge and skill against the mountain same as the climbers who they are trying to rescue. They waited for the weather to clear before venturing up.

"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to..." (Hamlet)