Bee wrote:
> Say, 500 people a day go up Half Dome, but "only" 8 a year die & 20 are rescued -- are those "good" numbers based on the ratio of hikers to incidents? (My answer is that the decision to cut the numbers/install permits was to cut down on the deaths/rescues, period.)
Those numbers are hugely out of proportion to the actual numbers of people who have died on the cables of Half Dome. Before the quotas, there were way more than 500 on a busy day. And the number of accidents and rescues on the summit or the cables is far fewer in a given year.
And that is part of the problem... Why do people put such exaggerated numbers out there when they feel the quotas should be reduced???
Regarding watching helicopters in a rescue mission: It is unfortunate that people do such things. Maybe if there weren't such restrictive quotas, people wouldn't be so inclined to take on bigger risks.
Jonishiker's words answer this for me: "...nobody can make people stop being well..Stupid at times. And it steams me when people act like it would all be solved if just one more law was passed to restrict all access to all peaks or climbs."
It steams me too!
The same people could be advocating for tighter quotas on Mt Whitney because we all know -- people die here. Saying they should remove the Half Dome cables is a step away from saying they should blast those cliffs at trail crest to return them to their natural state.
Ken wrote:
> I think you fall prey to the American concept of "I want what I want, period."
I have not, and am not, advocating a free-for-all. Reasonable quotas are part of the solution. But there are other things that can be done to alleviate the crowding and safety issues on the Half Dome cables. I am really angry that so many people seem to think that lower quotas is the only solution.
> You appear to look at capacity in terms of how many people can physically fit into a space, but I hope you see that it is more involved.
That's sure twisting what I am saying. Your Mirror Lake camping example doesn't fit well with the quota problem on Half Dome. It is reasonable to stop people camping at Mirror Lake on the Mt Whitney Trail. But that situation is not comparable to the reasons they are citing to close Half Dome access to so many.
There ARE ways to spread the numbers of people accessing Half Dome out over any given day, achieving both reduced crowding on the cables AND allowing a lot more people to go. But it seems most just want to lock it down.
