Searcher dies while seeking missing California hiker

[rlown]

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The search for a missing Mount Baldy hiker has been suspended after a searcher died Saturday, authorities said.

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Sreenivas "Sree" Mokkapati, 52, vanished on Dec. 8 after becoming separated from a group of hikers. Friends and relatives said the Irvine man was an experienced hiker who had climbed the mountain several times but was only prepared for a day hike.

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/searc ... ar-AAK9hOq

[CAMERONM]

This has been an ongoing saga and a big mess. In this first LA Times article they discuss how the rescue teams for Sree kept getting diverted because of other SAR calls that floated in at the same time. Baldy is familiar to many and so may not seem so dangerous. When I went up last December after a big snow I saw what looked to be a Sierra Club group going straight up a steep incline, single file, with no axes. Seemed ill-advised to me.

https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... sing-hiker

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[rayfound]

Ughh, the cruel reminder of the risks that S.A.R. Operations involve, and why it is important that they be concluded when reasonable hope is gone.

[Lumbergh21]

Ughh, the cruel reminder of the risks that S.A.R. Operations involve, and why it is important that they be concluded when reasonable hope is gone.

And, why hikers need to take care so as not to unnecessarily put SAR personel at risk. Listening to a hiking podcast, The Trail Show, (ok, fine, a silly beer podcast) they read part of a news story about an SAR rescue of a PCTer in Washington, who said she was heading right back out because she knew she wasn't the type of person to come back later if she didn't finish the trail now. This was in late October or early November...In Washington...AFTER SHE HAD BEEN RESCUED ONCE, ALREADY. As the article linked here points out, she wasn't just being careless with her own life, but also with the people who make up SAR. SMH