Last year, 16-year-old Elisa Santry died in the canyonlands of Utah, while on a hike with Outward Bound. The day's hike was to be only seven miles, on a well marked jeep track, but Elisa somehow became separated from the other five teenagers. She wandered up a side trail in 110 degree temperatures, carrying a 40 pound backpack. She died of heat exhaustion before she could be found.
She died, dehydrated, just a half mile from the Colorado River, where the hike was to have ended
Elisa was a gifted student from Boston. She was hiking in the 16th day of a 22-day program. She had to beg her parents to permit her to join the program. In the sort of writing made famous by Jon Krakauer, Christopher Ketcham reconstructs her final hours in this month's National Geographic Adventure magazine.
Her parents have sued Outward Bound for negligent supervision.
Ketcham's article brings to mind a couple of disturbing, and related, trends. The first is the growing tendency of American parents to be overly protective, and overly litigious if that protection fails. It's hard to criticize this tendency in the tragic context of a daughter's death, but the same impulse can be seen in the way so many parents keep their kids busy, and "off the streets," in supervised activities during every waking hour, and in their active direction of their children's educations, even to the point of writing and submitting their college applications for them. A recent article interviewed a number of parents who had even sold their homes and moved to college towns, to join with their son or daughter "in the college experience."
This refusal to permit adolescents to make mistakes, and to take responsibility for the consequences of mistakes, strikes, as Ketcham points out, at the core objective of Outward Bound, which is to teach young people the self-confidence and the skills to handle themselves on their own, ultimately without supervision, under even the most extreme circumstances. As Ketcham observes in his article:
The second disturbing trend, and the one that really occurred to me in reading Ketcham's article, although less explicitly stated, is the planet's increasing inability to provide opportunities for persons of any age to accept and embrace existential challenges. Less than a hundred years ago, in 1911-12, Robert Scott led an English expedition to the South Pole, a tragic venture that ended in the slow death of all of his party. He left behind the famous final entry in his journal:
Expeditions to Mount Everest are supported by a battery of technological tools, and wealthy climbers pay exorbitant amounts to drag themselves up fixed lines that have been installed for their use and convenience by Sherpas. Deaths still occur, under the extreme conditions of elevation and weather, but they are deaths observed and discussed by the entire world -- virtually as they are occurring -- over the internet. No one these days dies on Everest, leaving behind only a journal to be discovered and read months or years later.
Most people, of course, have no interest in challenges like the one Scott faced. But even travelers with a taste for adventure, for discovering the unknown and for losing themselves in unexplored places and civilizations, have fewer opportunities than ever today. Maps a hundred years ago had many blank spaces on them, especially maps of Asia and South America. And the map of Africa was virtually a total blank, once you looked inland from the coastal regions. Even road maps of the American West showed dirt roads turning to tracks, and tracks trailing off into the desert. Not so long ago, a kid could stare at a California highway map and dream of exploring and discovering hidden civilizations, lost cities, secret canyons, bizarre fauna. Shangri La in the Mojave! As the early American ecologist, Aldo Leopold, remarked, prophetically:
More and more destinations begin taking on the atmosphere of Disneyland or Las Vegas. Why spend money to go to Istanbul, where everyone speaks Turkish, when you can see the same sights with good food and English speaking hosts at AsiaMinorLand, or at the MGM Istanbul Hotel, Nevada? Especially once Istanbul itself, the real Istanbul, begins cleaning itself up and learning English, with chic bars that serve Bud Lite?
The would-be adventurer can still be an observant traveler. He will still find much -- very much -- that to him is new and amazing and enlightening. Travel itself helps anyone know himself better, and this has always been one of the real reasons for traveling. But there are few spaces left on the planet where the traveler can be an "explorer," in the classical sense of making discoveries that widen man's knowledge of new peoples and places.
This planet has been explored to the hilt. As Paul Fussell writes, "We are all tourists now."
Ah.... But someday. When we can travel to Mars.....!!!!
She died, dehydrated, just a half mile from the Colorado River, where the hike was to have ended
Elisa was a gifted student from Boston. She was hiking in the 16th day of a 22-day program. She had to beg her parents to permit her to join the program. In the sort of writing made famous by Jon Krakauer, Christopher Ketcham reconstructs her final hours in this month's National Geographic Adventure magazine.
Her parents have sued Outward Bound for negligent supervision.
Ketcham's article brings to mind a couple of disturbing, and related, trends. The first is the growing tendency of American parents to be overly protective, and overly litigious if that protection fails. It's hard to criticize this tendency in the tragic context of a daughter's death, but the same impulse can be seen in the way so many parents keep their kids busy, and "off the streets," in supervised activities during every waking hour, and in their active direction of their children's educations, even to the point of writing and submitting their college applications for them. A recent article interviewed a number of parents who had even sold their homes and moved to college towns, to join with their son or daughter "in the college experience."
This refusal to permit adolescents to make mistakes, and to take responsibility for the consequences of mistakes, strikes, as Ketcham points out, at the core objective of Outward Bound, which is to teach young people the self-confidence and the skills to handle themselves on their own, ultimately without supervision, under even the most extreme circumstances. As Ketcham observes in his article:
A 1991 study found that the radius around the home where parents allowed nine-year-olds to wander had shrunk to one-ninth of what it had been in 1970. Fear of risk -- and of litigation -- drives suburban homeowners to abide by "covenants" that prohibit basketball in streets, marbles-play on sidewalks, and fort-building in nearby woods. In California, Girl Scouts are often restricted from climbing trees at camp. The notion that accidents happen -- especially fatal ones -- is simply at odds with what most parents today are willing to accept.Now cities have even removed swings, jungle gyms and teeter-totters from playgrounds, out of fear of risk -- risk both of injury to the kids, and of liability for themselves. Parents in other countries think we're insane.
The second disturbing trend, and the one that really occurred to me in reading Ketcham's article, although less explicitly stated, is the planet's increasing inability to provide opportunities for persons of any age to accept and embrace existential challenges. Less than a hundred years ago, in 1911-12, Robert Scott led an English expedition to the South Pole, a tragic venture that ended in the slow death of all of his party. He left behind the famous final entry in his journal:
Had we lived I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale...We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker of course and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more. For God's sake, look after our people.He was hailed around the world as the finest example of British adventurer. Today, he would be considered a fool, and his family would sue somebody, anybody, for not saving his life or preventing him from leaving home. But more to the point, there simply are not many ways left by which a person can test himself against the unknown, where the penalty for failure may be death. We have too many cushions to fall back on -- GPS devices, helicopter rescues, satellite voice and email communications.
Expeditions to Mount Everest are supported by a battery of technological tools, and wealthy climbers pay exorbitant amounts to drag themselves up fixed lines that have been installed for their use and convenience by Sherpas. Deaths still occur, under the extreme conditions of elevation and weather, but they are deaths observed and discussed by the entire world -- virtually as they are occurring -- over the internet. No one these days dies on Everest, leaving behind only a journal to be discovered and read months or years later.
Most people, of course, have no interest in challenges like the one Scott faced. But even travelers with a taste for adventure, for discovering the unknown and for losing themselves in unexplored places and civilizations, have fewer opportunities than ever today. Maps a hundred years ago had many blank spaces on them, especially maps of Asia and South America. And the map of Africa was virtually a total blank, once you looked inland from the coastal regions. Even road maps of the American West showed dirt roads turning to tracks, and tracks trailing off into the desert. Not so long ago, a kid could stare at a California highway map and dream of exploring and discovering hidden civilizations, lost cities, secret canyons, bizarre fauna. Shangri La in the Mojave! As the early American ecologist, Aldo Leopold, remarked, prophetically:
I would hate to be young again without wild country to be young in, for what avails 40 freedoms without a blank space on the map?Today, the young person looking for a blank space on the map to explore finds little hope of secret mysteries. His bookstore will sell him a Lonely Planet guidebook with detailed information for virtually every village and hamlet in every country in the world. "Adventure travel," as sold by travel companies, may sometimes be actually adventuresome -- as in Tracy Johnston's Shooting the Boh -- but is more likely to be a carefully scripted trip with every detail planned in advance.
More and more destinations begin taking on the atmosphere of Disneyland or Las Vegas. Why spend money to go to Istanbul, where everyone speaks Turkish, when you can see the same sights with good food and English speaking hosts at AsiaMinorLand, or at the MGM Istanbul Hotel, Nevada? Especially once Istanbul itself, the real Istanbul, begins cleaning itself up and learning English, with chic bars that serve Bud Lite?
The would-be adventurer can still be an observant traveler. He will still find much -- very much -- that to him is new and amazing and enlightening. Travel itself helps anyone know himself better, and this has always been one of the real reasons for traveling. But there are few spaces left on the planet where the traveler can be an "explorer," in the classical sense of making discoveries that widen man's knowledge of new peoples and places.
This planet has been explored to the hilt. As Paul Fussell writes, "We are all tourists now."
Ah.... But someday. When we can travel to Mars.....!!!!
4 comments:
I've been to the Canyonlands of Utah. They're only a couple hundred miles from where I live. There are some truly spectacular views there, and I used to imagine hiking down into all the canyons so far below. It's a shame that a company that gives young people the opportunity to do such things can be sued when something goes wrong.
I think the dreams of exploration that most children have had in the past 50 years or so have focused on space. I always found that intriguing, but I thought it would be so much cooler to explore some unknown place on Earth. It's really a shame that we don't live on a much bigger planet... Like one the size of Jupiter but solid. There would still be unknown lands, and young people could still have that dream of making them known.
I couldn't have said it better!!
To me, one of the appeals of Tolkien's LOTR is the fact that its world seems so huge. It's supposed to be just pre-historic Europe, for the most part, I guess, but a horse was the fastest means of travel, just as it was for thousands of years in real life. When most people, or most hobbits for that matter, never go much farther from home than the next village, a journey of 100 miles is something you'd brag about for the rest of your life.
And I like your Jupiter idea, too.
I've visited Canyonlands once, also. Just by car, taking a long spur road into a place where you could look into the canyon. Fantastic scenery.
"It's a shame that a company...can be sued when something goes wrong".
Something goes wrong?
Elisa was an unsupervised, inexperienced teen hiking alone in 110 degree heat.
Why was she unsupervised?
On a 7 mile hike?
On a supervised program?
Having eaten only two crackers that morning?
With no one noticing her missing until the end of the day?
Where were her instructors?
A company that "gives young people the opportunity to do such things" ought to do it responsibly and teach young people how to do "such things" safely.
Though an instructor with a sane mind would not have permitted a teenager carrying half her weight on her backpack to hike on 110 degree heat, let alone to do so by herself, without accounting for where she was on the trail...until several hours after she died.
I was fortunate to have known Elisa, for too brief a time, unfortunately.
To you, Elisa is just "some kid on the news". To me, she was a fantastic person the world will be much poorer without.
Your comments...could be a bit more careful.
Tolkien and hobbits and Jupiter indeed!
A$$%*les.
Elisa -- Thanks for your comment, from a special point of view as someone who actually knew the girl.
If you knew the young woman, then obviously you see the tragedy from a different and more personal perspective. I was using the article about her, really, just as a point of departure to discuss some more general thoughts.
Zach, whose comment you criticized, is just 16 himself, and was obviously, like me, expressing a thought on Americans' increasingly frequent resort on litigation -- not making any judgment on the specific facts of the Utah case.
I completely understand and respect your position, except for the sarcastic final sentence about Tolkien, hobbits and Jupiter. We were well on to another topic by that time, and if we chose to speak more whimsically, maybe, than you prefer, that's really our own business. We were making a point that I think is valid.
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