High Sierra Topix

A leader, one or many, can only lead, not hold everyone's hand !
Was the teenager able to read?
Callous maybe but this sounds like Darwin in action to me.

maverick wrote:A group leader is responsible for the safety and well being of its members, especially teenagers or younger kids.
...
It is not the parents responsibility to teach water safety, but they should inquire
about the experience of the group leaders who will be taking their children into
a potentially dangerous environment.

hmm. there are things wrong in these statements. Agree that the group leader is responsible, but we don't know if there was a waiver. there usually is.

Parents are responsible for safety!!! right from birth. It's almost a sin in my book that kids aren't taught to swim. I was in the Y' pool at 3. maybe earlier; memory starts to fade.

Also, at 19, he made his choice. he's an adult. guess he could swim (for a bit).

russ

Think he was wishing the same thing on the way over? I never view these as tragic accidents either. Sad that he didn't use common sense.

Rlown wrote:
hmm. there are things wrong in these statements.

Let me clarify because I see it was not written clear enough.
Yes, parents are responsible for safety Russ, what I was referring to was the
waters in the wild, many folks have never had a chance to experience a
big and powerful river such as the Merced during the run off much less
understand the dangers associated with them and therefore teach/warn
their kids about it. And yes, a 19 year old is old enough to reason, but as you
well know not all 19 year olds are the same, maturity wise.

so it's the parks fault?

I don't want to put blame on anyone, other than the party involved. There's nothing to prove, no one to blame. Dead. Gone. Done.

It was a personal choice.

I'll stop now... maybe. no waiver to sign.

.done.

Even the stupid young do not make a conscious choice to be swept over a waterfall. The young man made a choice to step into and swim in a body of water that did not look dangerous to him. The general public, city kids in particular, are generally oblivious of the dangers of big water. Unless you have experience swimming in powerful rivers, you may not realize there are powerful undercurrents that you do not see on the top. Add to that the cold, which can suck the energy from a swimmer. If you are a leader of a youth group and the youth do not obey your commands, you should not be a leader of a youth group. It seems to me that the leader either was not aware of the danger or was aware and did not exert leadership. I suspect the group may have been a loosy-goosy "lets go see Yosemite" with church "leaders" trained in theological leadership, not wilderness leadership or safety. When you choose to be the leader of a group, you ARE responsible for the groups safety.

I do not think there are many of us who backpack, who have not, some time in the past, made an impulsive bad decision, got ourselves into a pickle and were lucky and managed to escape death. If there really was a "Darwin Award" perhaps I should have received it considering all the stupid things I did in my youth.

most of us need the darwin award.


but at the same time we're alive. hence darwin.

I'm sorry but the first lesson in life is "don't bet your life on it". The 19 year old bet his he was smarter than the people who posted the signs. The first time I went to Kings Canyon Park, the river was running high and a kid drown the week before. I still remember my Dad was going to tie me to a tree just short of the water so I could fish. I was 11 or 12 and I still remember it. Accidents happen all the time but when you're warned it's on you.

Is is really possible for one to visit Yosemite, from any country, region or cultural/economic environment, and not be aware of its well earned reputation for beauty & life threatening danger? To say it another way, are not Yosemite's magnificent cliffs & stunning waterfalls its very raison d'être?

I grew up in the Bay area, and my dad made a point of taking our family to Yosemite every spring for a few days a week or so before Memorial day. I seem to recall that everyone on the various trails was certainly cognizant that they were literally flirting with death when the creeks, rivers (Merced) & falls were going full blast. A slip here, a fall there, and that's all she wrote. The effect was, we stood well back on the trail.

Fast forward a few decades, and I took my new, city born & bred wife to the Valley. We went up the Nevada trail, and even though she had never been there before, or had any backcountry experience, she had the same reaction: one mistake, and you're done.

Does a person need to be taught to fear spiders & snakes, or be on the alert in the dark? Some things are simply engrained in our psyche as our reward for having ancestors make the "right" decisions millenia/eons ago.