On Thursday, November 15, 2018 at 1:45:43 PM UTC-8, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-11-15 12:25, jbeattie wrote:
On Thursday, November 15, 2018 at 12:06:53 PM UTC-8, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-11-15 11:26, Duane wrote:
On 15/11/2018 11:14 AM, Joerg wrote:

[...]

The other reason for carrying excess is other riders and most
of all hikers who mis-planned. Or who didn't plan at all.


That's just ridiculous.


I think so too but there is a surprising number of people who walk
off into the wilderness with one lone 500ml bottle of water. We
found a totally dehydrated young guy off the trail in Yosemite who
was mumbling to please let him die. Or course we didn't but it took
a lot of water and later all our candy bars to get him onto his
feet and assist him down towards the valley until we could get
ranger help.

I think you're a dope magnet. I've spent (on a cumulative basis)
months in Yosemite high country and never encountered someone
mumbling to please let him/her die. My wife was a back-country guard
for the US Forest Service in the Olympic National Forest, and I'm
sure she had a lower dope count than you -- and she spent days at a
time wandering through the forest looking for dopes. Plus, I always
drank out of rivers in Yosemite once above the valley floor. If I
were out of water, I wouldn't worry too much about parasites. There
are pills for that.


He had taken the straight route up the "stairs" towards half dome. No
accessible creeks where he was. That by far wasn't the only case. For
example, there was a Chinese tourist stumbling up the Bright Angel Trail
at the Grand Canyon. Her smallish bottles were empty and she behaved
weirdly. Aside from giving her water it looked like we had to get her
help, fast. Luckily there is a ranger at Bright Angel Point which wasn't
very far from there.

Yes, I've heard the crazy Chinese tourist story. As I recall, the rangers would not let people down the Bright Angel trail unless they had the required amount of water. Are they no longer checking?

And are you talking about the cables up the back of Half Dome? If you're talking about the stairs up the Mist Trail, they put you right at Vernal Falls and a few steps from a drinking fountain. And then you go to Nevada Falls, a great drinking spot -- at least historically. Maybe its AFU now, but I used to drink there -- and I almost lost a hard salami over the falls one year while hiking up to Half Dome to spend the night on top. We'd go up there for the harvest moon and howl.

-- Jay Beattie.