A few random notes on recent outdoors stories:

First, my speculation about the search "effort" in the James Kim case appears to have been correct, in that not only did they fail to take advantage of the knowledge of locals, other aspects were handled incompetently. ("A FAMILY'S TRAGEDY: Fumbles, missteps hindered search; Father hiked 16 miles in effort to save family"; link).

Second, many media sources further compounded their negligence in this matter by noting that he left on his fateful hike without a hat. To my knowledge, none of those media sources have shown any common sense by noting that he had and should have availed himself of a huge resource: his car. There may have been sheets of plastic in the car doors and elsewhere, there are foam cushions in the seats, and it no doubt had a good amount of carpeting. While he couldn't tear the entire car apart, he could at least have taken a floor mat or similar or a swatch of carpet from the trunk.

Now, regarding the case of the climbers who couldn't get off Mt. Hood. The most nagging issue with the media in that case is many sources continually refering to them as "hikers" (example). While one can certainly hike in wintertime and in the snow, what they were doing was in no way "hiking" but was in fact "climbing".

One also wonders why this story became such a cable and regular TV staple. Were Fox and CNN crews already in Oregon twiddling their thumbs? Was the media hoping to keep riding the "hikers lost in the wilderness" wave? Why are media sources with multi-million dollar budgets unable to see the benefit in offering actual valid, useful information rather than constantly and exclusively offering only the Nancy Grace side of things?