[cathartes]

It's a really sad story.

But for me, the upside to this story is knowing that it is still fully possible to disappear in these places, which makes me all the more convinced these lands are worth protecting. For many, the subconscious draw of truly wild places is often that how they stand in sure counterpoint to the modality our society has adopted (i.e., so many people go the wilderness to "get away" or keep their mind off things.) Not every square inch of this world needs to be made friendly to humans, though, but I don't think everyone wants to fully accept that even if they normally pay lip service to conservation principles and the important of our national parks and wildlife refuges. So excuse me if I come across as callous, but if people don't bring their phones or come in the least prepared for their "walk in the woods," I'm not sure I quite see a problem that society needs to bend over backwards to solve.

[jessaustin]

Particularly not when "society" is a sparsely populated county with a low-six-figures budget for the entire sheriff's department. The dude died when he landed at the base of the cliff and his body was found a year later by a hobbyist. That means everything the county spent looking for him was completely wasted. I wonder if the family, entitled as they seemed in their grief, used any of the money they raised from donors to reimburse the county's expenses? I wonder, as well, if the hobbyist actually received the advertised $50k reward? He seems like someone who knows what's going on, so I wouldn't be surprised to find that he had split the reward with the county.

I fell while downclimbing a cliff off-trail in remote federal lands in Colorado, but landed mostly on my backpack. That fall, the night I spent finding the trail again, and walking out the next morning are some of my best memories. This wasn't a tragic death.