It is very sad, and it scares me to death. I suppose if I wasn't such a city girl, it wouldn't.

Well even for me, who has gotten stuck on snowy backroads, and has climbed my share of mountains here. It makes me want to stay on main roads and be within sight of civilization at all times.

But then you survive Queens, TPS. . .a whole nother kind of fortitude!

I never commented in the Mefi thread, because it was such a train wreck. I did want to say, though, that my dad was an avid mountain climber in my youth. In California, he regularly climbed Mt. Shasta (14,179 ft) and Lassen Peak (10,462 ft), as well as other tall rocks. Yes, he did this in the winter. Yes, he had two small children at the time. Neither he nor any of his hiking/climbing buddies ever had any problems, or ever failed to report in on time, despite the lack of cell phones, GPS beacons, etc. On one hand, he may have been incredibly lucky, but on the other I think these occurences are pretty rare. Experienced climbers know their limits, check the weather often, and on top of that know the routes; however, the elements often can't be accounted for.

It's a sad story, but it won't keep people from doing what they love to do.

A few years ago I and one of my friends thought about climbing Mount Whitney. It's an extremely popular climb. But people do die on it: 1, 2.

Directly northeast of Downtown Los Angeles are the San Gabriel Mountains; deaths happen there too. They are so close to the city that some climbers get airlifted to hospitals in suburbs like Glendale, which is next to Burbank, where the NBC Studios are. And there are warning signs on the Grand Canyon: 1, 2. It's not just Oregon.

Like muddgirl said, people need to prepare, but even with preparation things may happen.

Mt. Hood is something like 2nd most climbed mountain in the world.

As dangerous as it is, there's probably other people climbing Hood right now.

And it's not just Mt. Hood. There's probably a few hundred or few thousand folks hiking Pacific Crest Trail as we speak. There's people that are that hard core. Maybe they already did it a few times in the summer, and they want to try it in winter. Whatever.

While it'll still kill you if you zig instead of zagging, the wilderness isn't what it used to be. There used to be a day when going back for the body even on "smaller" peaks like Hood or Shasta was just impossible, dangerous and pointless. There's still dozens of corpses on Everest and other popular mountains.