Earlier this week, three young men with little climbing experience set out to summit Mt. Shasta, a 14,179-foot peak in California.
Their planned eight-hour ascent ultimately turned into a search-and-rescue operation and drew national attention for one reason: The men used artificial intelligence to help plan their climb.
“We relied too much on AI rather than our own critical thinking,” the men reportedly said, according to a detailed account of the failed summit posted on Facebook by the U.S. Forest Service – Shasta-Trinity National Forest.
Still, AI itself didn’t doom their trip, National Forest Service lead climbing ranger Nick Meyers told Mashable.
Instead, the hikers’ plans were like “Swiss cheese,” riddled with holes. That meant challenges compounded along the way until their situation escalated into an emergency. Their reliance on AI, YouTube videos, and the mobile mapping app AllTrails to plan and complete their climb turned their journey into a disaster.
Meyers, who is also the director of the Mt. Shasta Avalanche Center, said AI-related incidents on Mt. Shasta have “started to become a thing” this year as visitors have received incorrect information from AI. However, this is the first incident to involve 911 and a rescue, he noted.
“I think AI can be a great tool,” Meyers told Mashable. “But I think when you’re talking about entering into a risky environment, especially with nature, talk to a real person, or at least just fact-check the information you might get from AI.”
How the hikers’ summit plans fell apart
Meyers said AI correctly told the men that the summit should take eight hours. Per AI’s guidance, they took enough food and water for that duration. It’s unclear if AI suggested bringing additional supplies in case of an emergency.
Meanwhile, AI also recommended they eat simple carbs instead of fats because those “take too long to digest.” Mountaineers, meanwhile, know fats can sustain long climbs that burn thousands of calories. Still, Meyers conceded, at least they had food.
What the men didn’t account for was their own pace. Their ascent took double the anticipated time: 16 hours.
At two different points on their ascent, the group paused to consider turning back but decided to keep going despite “not feeling great.”
Meyers said that their “mountain sense was just sort of lacking.”
Navigation failures add up
The hikers also relied on AllTrails to navigate, but the phone battery died by the time they summited at 7 p.m. Their backup battery charger didn’t work on the phone with the mapping app, which meant they mostly had to navigate by sight on their descent.
“If I knew I was at the top of a 14,000-foot peak, and I was going to be descending in the dark, you better believe I want to be keeping an eye on my battery so that I can use my map,” Meyers said. “That was poor decision making.”
Meyers noted that some hikers on Mt. Shasta make questionable choices when affected by exhaustion and altitude.
Rescuing the hikers
By 8 p.m. the hikers called 911 for directions. Soon after, at 11,500 feet, one of the hikers fell and injured his knee. Though he had a headlamp, he wanted to conserve its battery and relied on the light from his friends’ headlamps.
At midnight, the group stopped to camp but had no food, water, warm clothes, or an emergency shelter.
Forest Service climbing rangers reached the group the next morning, at 9:30 a.m. Meyers wasn’t in that party as he was coordinating a potential helicopter rescue from elsewhere.
In the end, the helicopter couldn’t reach the hikers because of strong winds. The hikers, along with the climbing rangers, finally reached basecamp at 3 p.m. Siskiyou Search and Rescue members helped the group reach their trailhead, a trip that took an additional three hours.
Meyers said the Forest Service tries to use “the minimum means necessary” to get people off the mountain: “It’s a tremendous amount of effort and resources to respond to a rescue.”
‘Breaking the unwritten rules’ of climbing
Chris Carr, co-owner of Shasta Mountain Guides, said he’s been “shocked and surprised” by how many hikers he’s recently observed on Mt. Shasta making poor decisions and “breaking the unwritten rules” of climbing. That included people climbing without proper equipment and proceeding to the summit late in the afternoon, guaranteeing a descent in the dark.
He urges prospective climbers to know the “ten essentials” of mountaineering.
“Without a doubt, we are definitely seeing more people less prepared for this activity,” Carr told Mashable.
He said perhaps more climbers have developed false confidence. Technology, he added, contributes to that because the “supercomputers in our pocket” can create a false sense of security.
Carr said if people consult AI to plan a trip like summiting Mt. Shasta, they should use it to identify the best resources for more information.
For Mt. Shasta, as an example, that could include calling a local outfitter or contacting the National Forest Service. Climbing rangers will talk to climbers about their trip. The National Forest Service website provides comprehensive information on what to know about climbing Mt. Shasta.
“It’s good to feel the power of Mother Nature because it puts you in your place very quickly,” Carr said. “I think many of us are removed from that and think that technology and equipment and all these advantages of modern age can get us through, where really we become very small, very vulnerable, very quickly.”
Source: https://mashable.com/tech/hikers-used-ai-needed-to-be-rescued-mt-shasta
