Even with their other mistakes, $5 worth of gear would have almost certaintly saved these womens lives:

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595073455,00.html

Deseret Morning News, Sunday, June 27, 2004

Remains found in Uintas

Bones may be of mother, daughter who disappeared
By Jennifer Dobner and Geoffrey Fattah
Deseret Morning News

A multi-jurisdiction search and rescue training operation turned up a crude shelter, clothing and bone fragments on Saturday that may be the remains of two women who went missing in the Uinta National Forest last September.
The find was made about 11:30 a.m. in the middle fork of Weber Canyon, according to a press release from the Summit County Sheriff's Office. The area is about 2.5 miles northwest of the Crystal Lake trail head where Carole Wetherton, 58, of Panacea, Fla., and her daughter Kim Beverly, 39, of Tucker, Ga., disappeared, Summit County Sheriff's Capt. Alan Siddoway said.
The shelter was about a half mile from any recognizable trail in very steep, rocky and timbered terrain, Siddoway added. It is at least one mile from the area where rescue workers focused their search for the women last fall, he said.
Wetherton and Beverly are the only known people to go missing in that area of the Uintas, Siddoway said, but sheriff's officials would not say if they believe the remains found are those of the women.
"The sheriff's office does not want to speculate that we are dealing with Ms. Wetherton and Ms. Beverly until we are able to get some forensic backup," he said.
Bone fragments found amid the shelter are being examined by the Utah State Medical Examiner's Office to determine if they are of human or animal origin, Siddoway said. That information and a possible positive identification should be available within a few days, he said.
Siddoway said had personally not spoken with Wetherton's husband, Jim Wetherton, on Saturday but would not deny that others from the sheriff's office had been in contact with the woman's family.
The crudely built shelter discovered by rescue teams of both people and dogs was constructed of pine boughs placed in a natural rock shelter. Inside were clothing and other personal items, including a set of car keys.
Last fall, a sport utility vehicle rented by Wetherton and Beverly was found parked at the Crystal Lake trail head parking lot. Maps found inside seemed to indicate the two had planned a day hike in the area.
Relatives of the mother-daughter pair contacted authorities after the two failed to make Sept. 14, 2003, flights home.
In the months following, search and rescue officials scoured the area for any sign of the pair. A forest ranger who saw the women near the trail head on Sept. 8 told the pair that they would need heavier clothing in case the weather turned. Officials believe the two left the area and returned later to start their hike. That afternoon, rain fell and temperatures dropped below freezing. The following night, snow fell.
As hope of finding the two alive dwindled, family members, including Wetherton's husband, traveled to the Uintas to continue searching for any sign of his wife and stepdaughter. Jim Wetherton, according to authorities, vowed to keep searching until the winter's new snow.
Initially, Summit County Sheriff Dave Edmunds had said foul play was ruled out and that it was assumed the two had gotten lost and succumbed to hypothermia.
Those participating in Saturday's exercise included search and rescue teams from Summit, Davis and Weber counties, the Bountiful Jeep posse, Rocky Mountain Rescue Dogs, American Search Dogs and the Department of Public Safety Aero Bureau.

Yeah, it is sad, but you know - this sort of thing happens all the time. Laurence Gonzales says that there are an average of 10 tourists a year who go missing in Hawaii - they either wander off into the rainforest for a day hike and never come back, or they go swimming where they shouldn't and get swept out to sea by the rip tide.

As someone once said - "If you can't be a good example, you'll just have to be a horrible warning."

Growing up in a CA. beach town I came to the conclusion that there are a whole bunch of people in the water that have no business in the water. The same can be said for the outdoors.
It's like the guy that was "lost" and got cold at night, so he burned his T-shirt to stay warm. Of course he didn't have another shirt or jacket.

I listened to the web-version of Laurence Gonzales's 2-hour interview with nutcase radio that was posted here a little while ago. I really felt kind of sorry for the guy, having to listen to some loser describe his attempt to climb a 100-foot cliff in the dark wearing fishing waders, and pretend it was a riveting story of survival.

I think what so many of these "tragic stories" have in common is that the people involved - whether they survive or not - simply refuse to accept that there's a problem until it's far too late for them to do something about it.

A co-worker of mine lost his teenage son last winter - the boy decided he was going to walk home from a friend's, in temperatures of 30 below, wearing blue jeans and a windbreaker. After all, it was "only a 15-minute walk".

The media compounds the problem, IMO, by treating wilderness survival as either rocket science or fringe lunacy. (Depends on whether we're talking about somebody who actually survived getting lost, or somebody who tries to be prepared for it. The former is regarded as a near-miracle - regardless of how many or how few stupid mistakes the "survivor" made; the latter is regarded as suspicious, perhaps even criminal, behaviour.)

I guess what most of us forget from time to time is that when we are "out there" - be it a county park, an ocean beach, a quiet lake - we are on someone else's turf, and Mother Nature can try very damned hard to kill you if you do not give her the respect she demands.
One of the most powerful examples of the truth of that statement that I have ever seen was at Grand Canyon National Park, in one of the most heavily-travelled areas. It was a photo of a pair of glasses, a lens chipped, an ear piece bent. That was all they ever found of the tourist who went for a short off-trail hike, in what is admittedly one of the most over-developed national parks in the U.S. He just vanished ...

They have figured out what probably happened. Very sobering reading:

http://166.70.44.66/2004/Jul/07092004/utah/182134.asp

I have a theory that any time there's a fork in the road or trail, human beings are susceptible to what I call "the fish trap". This is the second case I've read of where people took a wrong turn on the return journey because they failed to notice on their way in that there's another path coming in from the right or left behind them.

Because they didn't make any "turns" on the way in, they mistakenly assume that they won't have to make any turns on the way out. Thus, when they come to a fork in the road (which they don't remember coming in) the natural tendency is to just continue straight ahead.

When you think about it, it's very similar to the way native americans (and probably others all around the world) used to, and probably still do, catch fish. (In fact, lobster pots operate on the same principle.)

Yeah! A Very Good Observation and Possibility! When Oone Comes to Think about it! [color:"black"] [/color] [email]aardwolfe[/email]

I feel for the families of these two women. At least they know now, instead of being left to wonder for years and years.
And I know it's little consolation to those left behind, but I hope they take some consolation in knowing that hypothermia is an easier way out than some of the methods Mother Nature can choose to do you in by.