Reader comments
Crowded Labor Day wilderness plagued with rescues

It's time to start applying a test to those who venture into the back country. Unfit, unprepared individuals should start to cover the cost of their rescues.

Why are people going too far in wilderness area? Or not carrying proper equipment? Why risk being lost or stuck? Is it a feeling of invincibility that these people have?

If u want to grow old, dont play in the road--pinkfloyd.

Five or 10 miles from a town? That doesn't sound like Wilderness that I know of.

Maybe the search & rescue people were "stretched thin" but do they need 10 or so Sheriffs County police standing around talking (in Big Cottonwood) on my dime (tax dollars)? They weren't up the mountain helping & they weren't directing traffic. Just standing around . . . hmmm.

To anonymous above. I was there watching the event in big Cottonwood Canyon. Where did you see 10 Sheriffs deputies "standing around"? I never saw more than 2-3 deputies there and they were busy doing crowd control and blocking traffic so the helicopter could land on the roadway at least 6 times that I saw. I thought was interesting to watch these men and women work. Oh yeah, one last thing, the search and rescue members, they are all VOLUNTEERS and are not on your dime.

To Paul: measure the distance yourself; maps are available online at your fingertips. Plenty of state parks in "wilderness" areas are ten or even fewer miles from the city.

It would be nice if everyone involved in rescue were buisy all the time but the reality is, if everyone were busy all the time there would be no personnel available to run odd errands as needed. Having been involved in alot rescue work in the past I speak from experience. Many of the Deputies standing around have jobs as part of the rescue, but often are only involved for a short time and then will stand around till needed again. This allows the volunteer rescuers, who are the experts in what they do, to do there jobs and not do things like hold traffic for the helicopter or run and get equipment from someones car. Or even keeping track of who is were. The latter person may look like they are just standing around but will monitor the radio and keep track of what teams are out and where and sho is on each team. So it may look like many are standing around but each person has a job or they are released to go back to there normal assignment. Think about that next time before making unquaulified comments.

As someone who was actually there on the Broads Fork rescue and whose group of 3 actually brought the injured female down to a level where LifeFlight could pick her up, let me clear up some of the facts. The first of 4 Search & Rescue volunteers arrived on scene when we were 5 minutes from the chosen LZ. I had called Police upon 1st seeing heli from Broads Fork Twins to say we were in area if help was needed. My offer was declined about 2.5 hours before S&R actually showed on scene. The victim is/was an MD and was able to diagnose her injuries. As article stated, a large rock (80-90 lbs fell over onto her ankle in the upper scree area of the Broads Fork Twin saddle). The orig injury was accidental, not likely preventable. The rock lacerated her leg to reveal her tendon. The injured gal's party of 5 was ill-prepared without hiking poles, first aid, tape and other means for self-extraction, all of which our group s. Without LifeFlight extraction would have taken 8-12 hours. Took us 2.5 hours to hike down from extraction to TH.