In reality, most of the rescue services provided to climbers comes from volunteer mountain rescue groups, military units that do not charge for their services or from specialized climbing rangers who are partially funded by climber fees. Thus, the perception that climbing rescues present a significant cost for taxpayers is not accurate.
I in no way advocate charging for rescues of any kind. My only quibble is the possibly increasing use of gadgets to call for help which may be leading to an increase in unnecessary responses by the agency. But, I'm not happy with the above statement -- seems more than a bit disingenuous. A National Guard helicopter does, in fact, cost a lot of taxpayer money whether they "charge" the SAR account or not (I think it's usually figured in most cost accounting, just not payed by the agency). Only a very few parks charge a climbing fee and I doubt they come anywhere near paying for more than 1 seasonal ranger position -- certainly not a SAR effort.
But a really interesting article. Somewhere around here I have a costs by park of SARs. Both Yosemite and Sequoia are near the top in costs, though Sequoia Kings is, I think, only in the top 10 for number of incidents. Since it's so remote, I think there's a higher proportion of helicopter medivacs, which would raise the cost quite a bit.
g.
