+1 on Dagny's comments on page 8. Although on the flip side of that, here, unless we pay annual fire dues to our responding fire department, there is a charge for responding to a fire. Same with ambulance. Not sure if this is SOP all around the country or not. No charge for police services though.

In response to James, perhaps "luck" is the wrong word, but what else would you call a string of unfortunate and unforeseeable events. Unfortunate event number one: "Preiss said the photos also appeared to show that one of the planned routes was too dangerous and that they were forced to try a different route." Unfortunate event number two: whatever event that occurred to force Luke Gullberg to head back down the mountain alone. Unfortunate event number three: Gullberg's apparent fall on Reed Glacier (from article in lazy Joe's post on page 1) while presumably going for help. Other events, such as no note on Gullberg's person, no visible marking of the location of the other two climber's shelter, going on a climb mere days before a severe weather front was anticipated, any lack of necessary survival gear, etc can all be attributed to lack of preparation and poor decision making but IMO the first three - bad luck. Call it by whatever you will, it is what it is.

In response to the other pete about beacons, it is difficult to say from the article what Rollins meant by his comment since we are not sure exactly what he was referring to (i.e. Gullberg or the other two hikers) or when the comment was made. The last update to the article was late (7:44pm) on Monday evening but the article also mentions "A storm is expected to move in Monday evening ..." so who knows what was said when. At this point it is all conjecture.

Another +1 to nursemike.

Another important lesson learned - bad weather will hamper S&R so don't go on an excursion mere days before bad weather is predicted.