Recently, a few mountain climbers went missing on Mt. Hood. They were not wearing locator beacons which generally help find missing hikers in the event of a storm/avalanche/etc. These beacons are issued by the local recreation authority in the area (in this case: Timberline Lodge). They are fairly cheap to rent and don't weight much (a pound or two at the most).
A sort of debate has risen because law makers are looking to make it a requirement that hikers wear these beacons when they go snow hiking/mountain climbing. From what I gather, many of the hikers are ademently opposed to these beacons. The only argument I've heard in support of this is that it's their choice and that these locator beacons are for amatuers with no skills and that wearing these beacons would make them look incompetent.
The recent search for these hikers a cost significant amount of taxpayer money, and could possibly have been minimized or avoided by having these beacons.
John, I'm sure you've heard about this, what are your thoughts. Anyone else have thoughts?
Part of me wants to say that no, they should not be forced to do so. It should be their chioce.
Then the other part of me says they should because, when they go missing, it's our (your) tax dollars that are paying for the SAR crew to go out and find them.
Honestly I'm torn. This world has become too pussified to say "if you don't rent one, fuck you, you're SOL" so you can't really go that route.