Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

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>In almost every case, there's something that someone could point to that the victim did wrong

In fact, with many accidents, it's often a matter of compounding mistakes. (The victim didn't have a lot of experience, went out in worsening weather, lost the trail, and didn't have the gear to survive overnight.)

On the other hand, it's easy to identify "mistakes" in retrospect. Someone got caught in an avalanche so they "clearly" shouldn't have been somewhere that they could get caught in an avalanche--even if the danger was just moderate and the danger in that particular area is often moderate.

Which also speaks to your statistics comment of course. There are various levels of danger to many activities and you can reasonably reduce your chances of something going wrong but not eliminate them.

And, also of course, many people who don't participate in many of those activities see them as unreasonably dangerous. And, depending upon their political views, may think rescuing mountain climbers or even winter hikers as a waste of societal resources.

> In fact, with many accidents, it's often a matter of compounding mistakes.

Yep! One of my favorite elements to many backcountry accidents is what mountaineers call "summit fever". It's a prevalent bug in human psychology. It gets people into trouble in the wilderness all the time, and it has a close cousin in tech circles, the "sunk cost fallacy".

I was on a day hike up a mountain several years back with a group of friends and acquaintances. Some of the folks had really been wanting to get to the top of this particular mountain -- it's known for its views. It was late spring, and we had beautiful weather until we got maybe 3-4 miles in, closing in on the top. At that point there was thick snow still on the ground, it started to get foggy, and (I can't remember exactly why) the trail became harder to recognize.

We were equipped for a quick afternoon hike, nothing more -- some of us I think just had t-shirts and shorts -- and some of us started to get nervous. Others really wanted to keep going to the top, especially since we knew we were close (though not how close).

We did end up turning around and heading down after just a few hundred feet of walking in the snow. I wonder about our decision from time to time -- were we smart or overly cautious? Would it have been fine or a disaster? I guess there's no easy answer -- you can't know what would have happened.

It was the right call because even if you were overly cautious, you can always go back again.

Not necessarily. You could die and never get the chance, or whatever. There's certainly a cost that you're assuming by not going forward. Not saying it's super high, but it's non-zero.

Most people have a blind spot in poker. They think they won simply because they took the pot, when in reality they lost because the pot odds were too low to give them a positive expected value. The problem extends to analyzing hands after the fact. It's too easy to see the final outcome, and say, oh, I knew I should have folded, when the reality might be, no calling was the right thing to do given the information you had at the time. Playing a lot of poker taught me to ignore the feeling that I played wrong simply because I lost the pot, and instead analyze what happened, and whether or not I missed some key piece of information, or misinterpreted some behavior.

I would say, based on the information you had at the time. You made the smart play. Don't second guess based on possibly being closer than you realized, you were far enough that you couldn't see the end, that means (and most people don't realize this) that without any other information, you had even odds that you were at no more than the half way point (in terms of either time or distance). Maybe you can look back, and can say, "oh, I knew x at the time, I just forgot to take that into account, and it would have been enough to change the risk/reward equation. But any other analysis is dangerous to dwell on.

Interesting perspective, thanks.

You do the right thing. Nature can be cruel and merciless. And hypothermia is not just for winter.

There are countless histories in the Alps and the Pyrenees of weekend hikers that go up in t-shirts and shorts, and then suddenly the weather change... One of the members of the team fall with hypothermia and an heli need to be dispatched. Taking out resources for other rescues and putting the life of the rescuers at risk.

There are discussions in some European countries if the rescued people shall pay in case of fragrant unpreparedness, because it has begun to be quite common.

You said it's famous for its views, but I bet the view sucks when it's so foggy you can't see the trail.

Absolutely true :) I'm sure this had some effect in convincing the eager ones to turn around.

Saw this outsode the wilderness plenty of times as well. Hiking back down from half dome. At 5pm, miles from the summit groups in flip flops and a small water bottle, clearly exhausted and not sure what they were in for, asking if the were close. Nope, turn around folks and enjoy your walk.

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