Apparently these guys were not as "experienced" as originally thought. They wore clothing not sufficient for the task, their supplies were sparse, they took along no emergency supplies, such as emergency beacons, stove, or GPS equipment, and may not have had but one cell phone between them. I know I will earn the ire of some of you big-hearted folks, but as the Guy on "Handle on the law" said last week, "Life is hard. And it's a lot harder when you're stupid".
Climbing mountains is hazardous. I know, in my youth I did enough of it to use up an excess of adrenaline. Spelunking, too. In retrospect, boy was I stupid! But I was also in my late teens and early twenties. These guys were middle age, and by the time I was their age, I had given up ascending sheer faced cliffs, preferring to involve myself in safer endeavors, such as watching pet fish swim around.
Loss of life is always tragic, even more so to relatives than on those lost. But risky endeavors always carry risk. They knew, or should have known the risks and have been prepared to deal with them. In this case they were not, and it cost them and worse their families, not to mention the $2,800 an hour it cost to fly one of those Chinook helicopters.
