Who's Dumber? Snowmobilers or Mountaineers?

Perspective On A Dog, 3 Saved Climbers, and 6 Deadly Avalanches

By Dan Richardson, 2-22-07

You’ve heard about Velvet, right? The super amazing wonderdog who saved, blah, blah, three climbers on Mt. Hood, blah, blah?

No, those aren’t typos, just a sort of a writing yawn. Oh, the plight of three (more) Portland-area climbers! Oh, they suffered a hard night on ol’ Hood!

(Or, as some are calling it, Mount Doom.)

It’s great that they all made it down alive, and that there’s a dog in the story to give everyone warm feelings.  But the event is hardly worth the national press coverage that it’s attracted. (Along with the usual chorus of “What are those fool people doing on a mountain when it’s snowing?” and “We should charge ‘em for the cost of the rescue.”)

Here’s a bit of perspective: While these folks were being safely extracted from a rather routine mountaineering accident (but there’s a dog! A cute dog!), six Westerners died in avalanches.

Snowmobilers, most of them, and one out-of-bounds skier. And there’s no national TV coverage; no fuss about whether they were wearing locators; no calls for legislation.

No professional talking head is tsk-tsking the victims for causing the avalanches with their noisy machines; there’s no demand for slednecks to stay home and stop causing trouble; there’s no chorus of disapproval from drooling TV boobs.

So let’s keep the mountaineering accidents in some perspective, shall we?

And keep the dogs at home. They don’t deserve to be put in the same treacherous conditions their owners stumble into.

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