by Perry » Sun Sep 10, 2006 5:35 pm
The Skyline rescues are a small percentage of the overall number of incidents. I have taken a little criticism for putting up the web page, but in my estimation, I think if anything it may have helped. In 2003 there were a lot of rescues on Skyline between the various agencies. I don't know the exact number, but it was a lot, then there was the death in January 2004 on the ice, then I put up the web page and publicized it. After all, it was obvious that Skyline was getting a bunch of publicity anyways, so I figured why not give new hikers some useful info. (Before, I had put it up temporarily, asked for some input from a few people, and decided to take it down.) In my estimation, I think there was a decrease in Skyline incidents in 2004. In 2005, it did seem like it increased again, but probably not to the level of 2003. This year, 2006, it does seem like there has been a number of Skyline incidents, probably similar to 2003 through September (now). Here's an important point: the total number of rescues everywhere on the entire mountain is very high this year, and obviously my skyline page is not causing that. It becomes an interesting issue of correlation v. causation which is important in statistics. Media sensationalism and business/political influences like to ignore this issue and exploit people's tendencies towards thinking by association. A lot of people in the mountain climbing community wonder why Mt. San Jacinto has so many incidents. After all, it's not Rainier, and most of the incidents are with hikers and campers. My hypothesis is that it's because it's located in Southern California and has easy access via tramway. A mountain like this in Colorado would be different because more people there are familiar with the outdoors and cold winters. Why it's increased this year, I don't know, but maybe somebody else has some thoughts on that.