tram station leaving people to die

[Cy Kaicener]

One of the stranded hikers wrote this message. I dont know if this was mentioned before

1/23/2012
I am one of th 17 hikers stranded overnight at the top this past Saturday. When we got to the tram to go back down at around 4:30pm on Saturday, we were told by the ranger that the tram was closed and that we have to spend the night on the mountain. We were only prepared to do a one day hike, so we were not prepared properly to spend a nigh on the cold mountain (I believe the temperature was 20F). The ranger did not allow us to spend the night in his heated station. Instead, we were left with a shack, which we had to clear out, and create a makeshift door out of plywood. There was no insulation in the shack, so the temperature was as cold as the outside. The ranger provided some blankets, but was not enough to go around. Those who had blankets seem to be warm, but those who were freezing opted to build a fire outside when the winds died down to survive the cold.

The reason why I am giving 1 star is because it seems like the tram people didnt care about us at all. We went to the tram station to see if we can get inside, but was faced with a sign "TRAM CLOSED GO SEE RANGER AT RANGER STATION" handwritten in block letters from what seemed like from a 7 year old. The tram station was completely locked. The least the tram people could of done was to leave a person at the tram station to let us in and spend the night there. My friends and I paid the full $23 for the round trip, and we didn't even get a refund for the trip down the next day.

Some hikers half jokingly said that we should have just thrown a rock through the window of the tram station and say that the wind broke the window, and spend the night in the tram station, but none of us wanted to stoop to that level. We are civillized people, and would like to be treated the same.
Was this review …?
Useful (2) Funny (2) Cool (2) Add owner comment Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review

[cynthia23]

I personally think that part of what motivated the tram station and ranger to act as they did (making the hikers spend the night in a shed, as opposed to letting them use the ranger station or tram station) is that there is a kind of unwritten or unspoken rule to never allow overnight sheltering in the buildings, no matter what--so that day hikers don't start thinking "Oh well, I wouldn't actually die if I miss the last tram down--I could always shelter in the tram station. Guess I'll keep hiking on up, even though it's already 8. p.m ..." I suppose the thinking is that if management make an exception one time, then they'll have to make an exception all the times. They are using a negative incentive (fear of dying of hypothermia) to motivate people to plan their day hikes correctly. I get their point of view. Given that they have a large clientele of sometimes very foolish, arrogant, and entitled tourists, they have to draw a line in the sand--or snow-- or they could quickly end up running an alpine Motel 6 up there.

It seems like if there was ever any time to allow an exception to the rule, Saturday night was it, but OTOH, this event accomplished what the rule is intended to do: every person who read the story in the Desert Sun said to him/herself, OMG, remind me to never, ever miss the tram down. And to read the weather report.

However, it does make you wonder how far the tram/rangers would go to make missing a tram a really, really unpleasant event. What if the temperature was another ten or twenty degrees lower? Would the ranger really have allowed people to go into true hypothermia, just to enforce the public lesson? Yes, people shouldn't have planned a mountaintop hike on that day, but the tram also shouldn't have let them up in the first place. They knew it was going to be bad, so why did they take their money and let people up there? Given that, the hikers shouldn't have been penalized for something they couldn't control, i.e. an early closure. I sympathize with the rangers/tram personnel because customer service jobs aren't fun, but I also hope they have some sense of when a situation has become life-threatening and its time to bend the rules. I'm hoping the ranger was monitoring the temps and would have let people in if it became life-threatening. If not--that's really wrong. As it is, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lawsuit of some kind. At least one of those seventeen hikers is bound to be a lawyer.

[Ed]

While I tend to be critical of unprepared or reckless hikers, I think some people are letting off PSAT rather lightly. It is not simply a business, it derives its value from rugged, scenic publicly-owned land. Despite this, its policy is clearly to maximize revenues from tickets, food, drink and knicknacks by encouraging as many people as possible to take the tram, and then dumping them out in a wilderness for which many are unprepared.

PSAT had the weather forecast, they knew they might shut the tram down, yet they took the hikers up and collected the round-trip ticket price, then locked them out when they shut the tram down early. Not very classy.

[scottmac]

Associated Press has picked this up.

Here in the San Jose Mercury News ...

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_19807616

[TramWeatherCenter]

Desert Sun just wants a juicy story, that is all. As I said before if It was not for the warning I gave many more would have been stranded. All measures were taken that morning and the day leading up to it, including me answering my email inbox and telling people NOT to go. I won't be responsible for saying GO and someone dies.

I do the tram jurisdiction and NWS does the ranger station and Mt. San Jacinto jurisdiction. Ranger Station should have got their information from me and maybe they would have done something. NWS having 70 mph winds in the forecast is not good enough.

But ... The ranger station will never listen to anyone else but NWS because they are government agencies. Anyhow, my two cents ... PSAT did nothing wrong and I think because the hikers were in the ranger's territory it lies there.

I mean I cannot buy a ticket on a bus to Las Vegas and blame the bus if I got mugged in the city can I? I mean the bus DID take me there so it has to be their fault? No ... The problem lies with the ranger station and the hikers themselves for not checking and rechecking information. The problem does not lie with transportation up the mountain.

I could understand if the cable snapped when 100 mph winds were happening and people died from it ... that's on the tramway jurisdiction but I for one do not think PSAT is to blame or did anything wrong. It could have been worse ...

Desert Sun also could be to blame. You know why? They reported the WRONG FORECAST a day before, when I clearly had 100 mph winds. So should we also blame Desert Sun for not reporting the actual official forecast for up there?

That is all I'm saying ...

[halhiker]

Associated Press has picked this up.

Here in the San Jose Mercury News ...

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_19807616

Here we go!!

[TramWeatherCenter]

You know what I have another thing to say. Would the group rather go down in 100 mph winds and possibly have the cable break and they all fall and die, or spend a night up there and wait it out ... IDK about you but I'd rather not brave 100+ mph wind gusts when riding on a suspended car down a mountain side.

[halhiker]

I personally think that part of what motivated the tram station and ranger to act as they did (making the hikers spend the night in a shed, as opposed to letting them use the ranger station or tram station) is that there is a kind of unwritten or unspoken rule to never allow overnight sheltering in the buildings, no matter what--so that day hikers don't start thinking "Oh well, I wouldn't actually die if I miss the last tram down--I could always shelter in the tram station. Guess I'll keep hiking on up, even though it's already 8. p.m ..." I suppose the thinking is that if management make an exception one time, then they'll have to make an exception all the times. They are using a negative incentive (fear of dying of hypothermia) to motivate people to plan their day hikes correctly. I get their point of view. Given that they have a large clientele of sometimes very foolish, arrogant, and entitled tourists, they have to draw a line in the sand--or snow-- or they could quickly end up running an alpine Motel 6 up there.

It seems like if there was ever any time to allow an exception to the rule, Saturday night was it, but OTOH, this event accomplished what the rule is intended to do: every person who read the story in the Desert Sun said to him/herself, OMG, remind me to never, ever miss the tram down. And to read the weather report.

However, it does make you wonder how far the tram/rangers would go to make missing a tram a really, really unpleasant event. What if the temperature was another ten or twenty degrees lower? Would the ranger really have allowed people to go into true hypothermia, just to enforce the public lesson? Yes, people shouldn't have planned a mountaintop hike on that day, but the tram also shouldn't have let them up in the first place. They knew it was going to be bad, so why did they take their money and let people up there? Given that, the hikers shouldn't have been penalized for something they couldn't control, i.e. an early closure. I sympathize with the rangers/tram personnel because customer service jobs aren't fun, but I also hope they have some sense of when a situation has become life-threatening and its time to bend the rules. I'm hoping the ranger was monitoring the temps and would have let people in if it became life-threatening. If not--that's really wrong. As it is, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lawsuit of some kind. At least one of those seventeen hikers is bound to be a lawyer.

As someone who's spent the night in the Tram station, I think they should have definitely made an exception due to the extreme conditions. It's not like a normal group of hikers showing up late for the Tram, as I have done before, they were well ahead of the normal departure time.

Whoever made the decision showed extremely poor judgement and I wouldn't be surprised if someone is fired over this. Can't wait to read the inevitable LA Times story on this. If there's no such thing as bad publicity, I guess the Tram should be happy because they're probably going to be on the news for a while.

[Ed]

Regarding a comment above by TramWeatherCenter: People in the group made it quite clear that they did not dispute the right and judgement of PSAT in shutting down the tram. It was locking them out when the tram was shut down early to which they objected.

[cynthia23]

Don't get me wrong, I think PSAT and the rangers showed poor judgement in the lock-out as well. I'm just trying to figure out what the motivation/thinking was and trying to see it from their end. Curious to know how some of the 'old hands' explain this incident? What do you think motivated this (unwise)decision?