I don’t know quite what to think about this. I can’t claim to be an expert but to me it does sound as if they panicked, and ended up either trying to save face or convinced themselves that they were in more trouble than they were to rationalise all the attention they were getting. Considering the importance of communication with how this all unfolded, it does also seem as if the radio operator did a lot to help fan the flames. I suppose it’s in the past now, but hopefully something constructive can be learned from it all.

What I’m sure of is that the journalism around this was awful, which is unfortunately common around here. It was particularly bad from The Press and from the journalist (Dan Silkstone). The journalist labelled one of the guys as an “experienced outdoorsman”, and the only rationale I’ve been able to find for this label is that he won a $70,000 car from a competition in a reality TV show! (In other words, “you saw him running around outdoors on TV so obviously he knows what he’s talking about”.) I don’t know them personally and I’m sure it’s possible that any or all of them could deserve such a title, even if it didn’t show on this occasion, but I’m not convinced there’s a correlation between outdoor experience and reality television and it seemed irresponsible of The Press to label them this way. (It just puts more pressure on *them*, among other things.)

Reality TV aside, I don’t think there’s even much of a correlation between time spent in the back-country and common sense. There will always be people who have to learn things the hard way, and there are. There are also very careful people who just get into trouble, or make a bad decision from time to time, because people make mistakes.

I’ve had the pleasure of going out with several people whose wealth of experience and judgement I’d happily trust my life to (and I have), even though they’re not well known outside small circles, if they’re even known at all. They’ve earned my respect by demonstrating that they don’t make a habit of doing stupid things, or asking other people to do stupid things or things beyond their limits.