TrojanHorse

As long as there's beer involved at some point, I'm in.

Say, what is this magic LA county beer?

diphthong

TrojanHorse-not to totally derail the op's thread but is was golden chaos by bootlegger's brewery in fullerton. it's a belgian-styled golden ale. had it at the library bar d-town la 6th & hope.
i guess fullerton is actually oc-no? close enough for government work. now back to your regularly scheduled programming...

Gallo

I do not argue really but more like exchange views. A good discussion is like a good beer there are many sides to it. I could write a number of pages about the lack of preparation our fellow rider made and do not disagree that bad choices were made. I am not suggesting that my bad decisions or actions are necessarily the responsibility of the government either. That being said very rarely does SAR deploy for people that make good decisions. I do not have all the information nor claim to have all the answers but when a private party with no training can make it to the individual Just a little after SAR even deploys raises some questions. None of these questions will bring Pancho back. But is important we ask them imho

We are on for beer though. I am just getting my form in view and have not got it within reach. Vista is a bit of a stretch there and back and I rarely drive my bike anywhere within a 60 mile round trip. Maybe we could compromise and find a middle ground for beer. I am sure we can find middle ground for conversation

TrojanHorse

Not only is fullerton in OC, it's damn close to my house! Well, a 13 mile bike ride to downtown, totally doable.

Thanks!

iamtim

And anything Bootleggers is just awesome.

camelopardalis

Denigrating a discussion about a tragic incident into a quest for good beer is not cool, methinks.

lindyfd

Very sad and my heart goes out to all impacted by this tragedy.


I feel compelled to try and give a different perspective of the rescuer. I am a volunteer firefighter/EMT. When we have a call, decisions have to made quickly and with limited information and these decisions often have life or death consequences. As a rescuer, I have to factor in people involved, risk to my crew, available resources such as manpower and equipment, weather, risk to others, etc. and I am expected to make this call immediately on the spot.

We are trained to keep ourselves safe first. There is absolutely risk involved but we need to be part of a solution, not a new problem. If I send a team into a house fire I have to know that they will come back out. Don't want to add four new victims to worry about.

I realize that SAR is not the same as a burning building but the same principals apply. Having not been there I don't know why they made the decisions they did. Maybe the available team was less experienced. Maybe the sheriff received bad or incomplete information. I don't know but I have to believe they chose what they thought was the best (at the time) course of action. Like someone said, hindsight is 20/20 and it is easy to condemn a poor decision. If the poor decision was made out of negligence then shame on the officer in charge and that person should get their due punishment. On the other hand, if the OIC had a valid reason for not starting the search until morning then it is a tragedy for all concerned. Including the SAR teams. I am sure that everyone involved (speaking from my own experiences) feels the loss.

Not trying to start any flame wars about emergency services, just trying to give some insight.


I truly hope the family finds peace in such terrible circumstances.

hamster

+1

bikeme

Just to let you guys know if you didn't already…the funeral for Andres was held Saturday afternoon (the 8th) and included a large showing of mtb'rs that rode from the church to the cemetery as a show of support for the family. Unfortunately, I couldn't attend it as I was with my own family. May his family find comfort knowing that his passing brought the local mtb crowd closer together (we/they and friends raised almost $12,000 for the family so far) and that we'll look out for one another better now. If you'd like to help out, here is a link https://www.gofundme.com/andres-marin

diphthong

unfortunately, at the loss of a precious life interconnected with family and friends, this serves as a warning to all of us. whether it is descending too fast, going out in less than ideal weather,
pushing past our proofed physical capabilities, not being hydrated/fueled enough, being underequipped, et al...many of us take (calculated) risks. a vast majority of the time, we get away with
it. i suspect that many of us have at least one moment or variation of "wow...that was stupid" during a ride. i had two i can remember in 2013. i'm shooting for zero this year.

and bikeme, that's a heartwarming showing. thanks for the link.

diphthong

something i haven't seen mentioned in this thread is how available resources were prioritized during this storm. i'm assuming that the agency (agencies) responsible for
a potential rescue had many events to juggle at that particular time. between car crashes, mudslides, downed power lines, swift water rescues, flooding and possibly other
backcountry rescue situations, this was likely not the only focus at the time. by the time it got passed/prioritized to the search & rescue branch, it was probably too late.
something to consider next time when heading out during less than ideal situations...

CbadRider

I agree with taking the beer quest to another thread. Let's keep this one on topic, please.

Pamestique 

So did anyone ever figure out where Mr. Marin's body was located? Clearly it was not on Skyline as that is where he started out and it would have been very easy for him just to ride down to safety and again remember, he started on Skyline at 7am and called his wife at 5:30 pm... it does not take 10 hrs to climb skyline... I've heard he was closer to Santiago Peak, which would be 20 - 30 miles into the ride and placing him on Main Divide. Still lots of options for him to find a way down so I am curious as to exactly what happened. I still think he fell and sustained a head injury and may have been out for some time... but if anyone has actual confirmation of what happed, I would like to know. I rode this last SUnday and his death was the talk of all mountain bikers I met... hopefully Mr. Marin's death will serve as a warning to us all to be prepared, not take the elements out there lightly.

camelopardalis

I find Nikon Rep's comments go to the heart of this matter. Somebody who's very familiar with the trail. If he feels that he can call up friends to do the search, why would trained rescue personnel not be willing to go?

calamarichris

+2. I couldn't agree more.