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Posted by bheiser1 on August 31, 2007 at 3:40:50 pm EDT
In reply to NOLS director killed by rock trundled by hiker posted by Bill S on August 16, 2007 at 11:30:34 am EDT

Bill S said this:

Quote:

I strongly disagree that tossing or rolling things
over a cliff or down a mountainside is "innocent fun",

Personally, I wouldn't call it "innocent fun" either. I'd call it "ignorant". And I honestly don't mean this in a demeaning way. I just mean that sometimes people do things because they just don't know any better.

I know not to do such things because my family went camping when I was a kid, and I was taught explicitly not to do things like that. As I think about it, I can almost hear my parents yelling at me for trying (when I was a little kid).

So, to many of us, as adults (probably most, if not all, readers of this forum) it just wouldn't make sense to throw something off a cliff. We've been educated on proper behavior in that environment.

However, ... I can imagine someone coming from a different background (e.g. someone who never made it outside city limits as a kid), where it just might not occur to them that someone might actually be climbing up the cliff below them. To such a person, throwing the rock over the cliff, to see where it landed, how it smashed into pieces, etc, might be "fun".

We tend to think of things through our own lense. We sometimes just "assume" everyone has the same values, knowledge, viewpoint, or understanding that we do ... and that's just not always the case. Unfortunately, in this case, the consequences were tragic.

As I read the original thread on this, and now this recent spurt of activity, what's going through my mind is just how easy it is for one mistake (which may even seem trivial at the time) to have an irreversible and profound impact not only on others, but on the rest of your own life. I've even thought about this thread while on hikes recently, and it's really reminded me to "tread carefully" (like when I was scrambling up to the summit of Mt Linn last weekend).

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