
Last week, search and rescue (SAR) teams were dispatched on multiple occasions to find or assist hikers who had gotten lost in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona. The fact that the hikers needed help wasn’t unusual (since it happens fairly often), but that so many did, in so short a period of time, raised eyebrows in the local outdoors community. After all, for one female hiker rescued on Wednesday, this wasn’t her first time requiring the service of SAR — It was her second time in three months. The recent events there, then, has helped to fuel a continuing debate that has grown across the country over the last ten years: Who should pay the cost of a wilderness rescue? The use of a helicopter, for example, for even a few hours can cost a local government thousands of dollars. Still, it doesn’t seem that the general public generally minds […]
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