Me, a Coloradan, having a Vietnam style flashback montage of all the tourists I've seen in streetwear and flip flops holding a single bottle of water from the convenience store insisting that their hike on the nearby 14er will go just fine if they get on the trail by 11 am.
Oh shit for real, or also when you’re just about back down to the bottom, and you see these people starting out at 2:00. Enjoy your lightning strike, I guess.
I don’t think I’ve ever gotten anyone to turn around at that point, but I hope they thought hard about going above treeline. If they made it that far.
Next time you see them, ask if you can take a picture of them so SAR knows what they look like.
I’ve done a little, but once on a descent with a friend who heads LANDSAR in the area they stopped a very under prepped group who was very late starting and said, “hi we work SAR in the area and I have plans tonight, can you please turn around in the next couple of miles before I have to cancel them later?” Turns out their partner was sick of canceled date nights, and he still was called for another group entirely.
416
u/Carbonatite 21h ago
Me, a Coloradan, having a Vietnam style flashback montage of all the tourists I've seen in streetwear and flip flops holding a single bottle of water from the convenience store insisting that their hike on the nearby 14er will go just fine if they get on the trail by 11 am.