Bad luck Steve getting your down jacket wet. I keep mine compressed in a dry bag but I can understand you not expecting moisture. Here in New Zealand the police in combination with the Rescue Coordination Center are responsible for Search and Rescue. Searching is often not necessary as most parties carry a Personal Locator Beacon (apparently we have the highest PLB to population ratio in the world). Volunteers like myself get called in when helicopters cannot fly and for extended ground searching. Importantly in NZ there is also no charge for rescue or hospitalisations. As Steve said, timely call-outs are considered preferable to situations becoming more complex and costly. Quoting from the March 2023 Backcountry magazine: “Most SAR time is spent searching for despondent and dementia patients. In these situations, it is not possible to invoice someone who has not asked for help and may not want to be found.” Ashley, I’ve only recently found your podcast/YT and have been enjoying it in a macabre sort of way. Learning from other’s mistakes is better than making ones own so keep up the good work!
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience from New Zealand! Solid tip on keeping your down jacket in a dry bag/compression sac! Also, thank you so much for listening to my podcast! I hope to visit New Zealand one day!!
Good question. Climbing gear was checked and fine. My clothes were a little old, but nothing broken or wrong. The leaking water bottle was just a case of bad luck when screwing the top on. Maybe we could have noticed the emergency blanket being old before going indeed. It's one of those things that lives at the bottom of my pack without too much attention... If it had been in a better state we'd still have had a cold night though. Having bivigear would have made a real difference, but we had decided not to take that. A decision that you can challenge with hindsight...but isn't that the case for all decisions?
Bad luck Steve getting your down jacket wet. I keep mine compressed in a dry bag but I can understand you not expecting moisture.
Here in New Zealand the police in combination with the Rescue Coordination Center are responsible for Search and Rescue. Searching is often not necessary as most parties carry a Personal Locator Beacon (apparently we have the highest PLB to population ratio in the world).
Volunteers like myself get called in when helicopters cannot fly and for extended ground searching.
Importantly in NZ there is also no charge for rescue or hospitalisations. As Steve said, timely call-outs are considered preferable to situations becoming more complex and costly.
Quoting from the March 2023 Backcountry magazine: “Most SAR time is spent searching for despondent and dementia patients. In these situations, it is not possible to invoice someone who has not asked for help and may not want to be found.”
Ashley, I’ve only recently found your podcast/YT and have been enjoying it in a macabre sort of way. Learning from other’s mistakes is better than making ones own so keep up the good work!
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience from New Zealand! Solid tip on keeping your down jacket in a dry bag/compression sac! Also, thank you so much for listening to my podcast! I hope to visit New Zealand one day!!
The moral of the story, of course, is to buy the product. Rocky Talkys.
WHY NOT CHECK YOUR GEAR BEFORE GOING INTO THE MOUNTAINS?
Good question. Climbing gear was checked and fine. My clothes were a little old, but nothing broken or wrong. The leaking water bottle was just a case of bad luck when screwing the top on. Maybe we could have noticed the emergency blanket being old before going indeed. It's one of those things that lives at the bottom of my pack without too much attention... If it had been in a better state we'd still have had a cold night though. Having bivigear would have made a real difference, but we had decided not to take that. A decision that you can challenge with hindsight...but isn't that the case for all decisions?
Often in retrospect tiny small details and decisions prove to have large consequences but that’s always in hindsight chamonix is my dream destination