HOrrible ordeal for them. The one who lived and the one who died.
You wouldn’t go trekking in Taiwan’s high mountains without knowing your way, why would anyone go trekking in 8500 foot plus elevations without a guide and a proper plan of communication and rescue?
Better have a guide, a well thought out plan, proper way to communicate (radio? , sat phone?) and having someone else know your route and when to call for rescue?
Don’t just wander around in the mountains. Obviously.
the girl died 3 days before being found which is pretty terrible. yea this seemed pretty stupid. i don’t even mess around with the mountains here. i feel like i am going to get eaten alive by bugs if i stray from the path.
Couple of gongho idiot rookies. They went off-piste and then didn’t have the skills to get themselves back on the trails.
Yeah they had no business being there by themselves.
that’s the saddest part of this story…
Tragic, but not surprising really. Lots of people that age think they’re invincible. It’s pretty amazing that the guy survived though. He definitely gets points for toughness.
Not necessarily. It seems that they got lost and decided to follow a river downhill. And then they got to a cliff…
This reminds me of something that happened to me some time ago, in the not so high hills around Wanli. We entered an old trail (that was already out of use), and got lost when going back to the bike. Thanks God I was using an APP so I noticed that we missed the way back, but I tried to make a shortcut to the trail… and although it looked straight forward on the map, we had all sort of issues… 
It was a bad experience!
Wow…my sympathy goes out to this poor dude, but you don’t mess around there…
I spent 2 weeks trekking at high altitude in Nepal years ago with my father (who has climbed there several times). We visited Sherpa friends along the way and heard some horrific stories. At high altitude, the lack of oxygen messes with your mind if you don’t acclimatize properly. While I was there, I saw two unconscious trekkers being carried down to lower elevations by Sherpas. Three more people also dropped dead in that area because they didn’t acclimatize and didn’t have guides to monitor them or carry them to safety. If you haven’t been there before, you need a guide.
My sympathies to all involved in this tragedy…
I heard they essentially got rimrocked (stuck on a ledge or overhang between lower and upper cliff faces, with no path out), which is a death sentence.
Seems the trail they were following is planned to take about 6 hours. But it was snowy, and they slipped…
Still, at those altitudes, any extra measures taken would be a must rather than a choice. A guide, communication. At least they had provisions for two weeks.
My father often goes on these climbs. And he says his group always has a guide with them. And that many people don’t make it, it’s not as easy as people believe when they start. He was behind the group when he climbed the Fiji mountain when the Japanese group in front of them had 2 people fall from the summit. It was a huge deal and all over the news. He said it was pretty scary watching 2 people ahead of you fall to their deaths. And it’s crazy windy the higher you get and your legs are really wobbly. It’s not for everyone, even experienced climbers take precautions like mentioned above. I don’t know what they were thinking.
Just for the record, I don´t think that 2,500 meters is that high, especially talking about Nepal, the fuckin’ ceiling of the World!
At that altitude they were not dealing with the problems that seems we have in mind in this discussion. But yeah, if they had had a guide with them, probably they would be doing perfectly fine now.
I was in Nepal at almost 4,000 meters (Muktinath or higher I think) and I met a guy from my country, who had paid a lot of money to a local guide for making the “Annapurnas trek”. At that time I thought “no way I’m paying for a local guide for this!”. I think that a neighbour had also recommended me that trek and IIRC it didn’t sound like very pro. But yeah, people get lost all the time, and you can fuck up big time like these two guys.
I’m sorry for them.
What shocks me more is that it is Taiwanese youths making that trek. I have come across a lot of people in Taiwan but none that have any interest in that type of risk taking. And to have a girl go too?
It’s pretty popular for young Taiwanese people. A lot of people go climbing. There’s mountains everywhere in Taiwan it’s free to climb.
I must be just coming across home bodies like myself.
I lost a dear friend to a climb in Nepal. He had some experience, and traveled with a rather large group, and each had a sherpa. Alas, on an icy ridge, he and his guide slipped and fell down a crevasse. Bodies have never been found. A true heartbreak for the family.
I thought I read the 18 year old girl fell to her death? The guy may have climb down to where she was?
Yeah here it is:
More news:
quite a few taiwanese youths take up hiking. which is why you would think they should have known better. its not like taiwan isn’t mostly mountainous or anything like that.
Sad to hear, 18 was quite a young age.
I wouldn’t go into victim blaming for this one. Yes they took a foolhardy risk but who hasn’t. Both of them almost made it. Tough break.