Climber Who Left Partner Cited for Disorderly Conduct
By Rocky Thompson on September 30th, 2011
A climber in Grand Teton National Park walked out of a couloir with the duos only climbing rope and left his friend to be rescued. To be fair, his partner had activated his SPOT beacon and a rescue helicopter had hovered over them while his partner indicated he required rescue before the guy left. What happened was the two were stranded, the one called for help while the other insisted he didn’t need it, and then once the one who didn’t need help saw the helicopter, he got out of there and hiked back. Then when he arrived home the park police issued him a ticket for disorderly conduct. The park said they issued him the ticket because he left before the rescue occurred and he took their only rope. It’s a very odd situation, and it’s easy to see both sides of the issue. But I will say that I’m glad the park police have one catch-all “disorderly conduct” ticket they can be issued to guys whether they’ve abandoned climbing partners or peed in the middle of the street.
Tags: Climbing
First off, I think it is absolutely retarded that someone got a ticket for this. Good thing our society has moved past wildlife “management” to managing people’s questionable climbing decisions.
This is a bit of a conundrum… While I would have a hard time leaving my partner, if it was a toss up between a fairly straight forward retreat (which seems doubtful if it includes the Valhalla Traverse) and paying for an unneeded rescue, I would likely bail.
This just confirms my belief that Spot tranmistters need to include a requirment to buy a fairly hefty bond or put up a big chunk of money in escrow for future “needs”. This might reduced the reports of people calling in a helicopter to bring water or help hikers with sore feet.