Solitario in Winter

[okiehiker]

Almost everyone here is.  I ran a camp in Colorado for 11 years.  For several years I led more Sierra Club National Outings than anyone else in the country.  I ran them more cheaply than anyone else in the club.  In 1995 I was able to purchase a general liability policy in the amount of $1,000,000 for my operation for just over $2,000 for the season.  I doubt that I could touch my old coverage for $10,000 in today's environment.  Few companies write for out-fitters and those that do have mostly fairly major clients.  

No one I know (I am sure there are many out there... I just have not worked with them... and desert sports might be such an outfitter ... I do not know) would send a group into the field without an assistant leader.  It is simply too hazardous.  The odds of going through a season in this business without an injury are essentially ZERO.  Then you either leave people to evacuate their own injured and stay with the group, leave the group and attend to the injured or abort the trip.  These are all very bad ideas.  

I hate our CYA-driven society, but it is the one in which we live.  

Putting together my own happy-little-BIBE-based-small-group-hiking-only-one-staff business model, I come up with a need to lead 35 groups a year to pay myself $15,000 a year less than I am making now.  That means I have to get a group to sign up every single week from September 15 to May 15 every year.  That assumes no accidents, no refunds, no margin for error.  It is a business which is wonderful in its opportunity to meet people and expose them to new and exciting things.  It is the world's greatest work environment, keeping you healthy and (presumably) doing something you love.

It is a tough-as-hell way to make living however.

[STARLITDARKNESS3]

You are all just shills for the backpacking guide industry!! 
I should have know better! 

Just kidding.  I've probably lost this argument, so I will just slink away now.  But rest assured, I will be back to argue some other pointless issue.  You have been warned.

If you want to argue some pointless issue, pm xseption.         just kidding.

[SHANEA]

You are all just shills for the backpacking guide industry!! 
I should have know better! 

Just kidding.  I've probably lost this argument, so I will just slink away now.  But rest assured, I will be back to argue some other pointless issue.  You have been warned.

If you want to argue some pointless issue, pm xseption.         just kidding.

I've been waiting to use this...

 

 

[okiehiker]

I am not advocating paying $600 to take a backpacking trip, though even the Sierra Club charges as much now...

http://www.sierraclub.org/outings/national/brochure/08455A.asp

note the Chisos natural history trip offered by a non-profit with a volunteer guide is $745!  (just over $100/day)  Commerical trips are going to run you more ($125 to $200/day) as one might expect.  

Costs are real and people deserve to make a living.  The last thing you want is some squirrely (sp?) untrained guide taking your life in his/her hands, especially if you are inexperienced.  There are plenty of hotels in New York that would take your $745 for one night!  (There might even be place at Lajitas that would do the same!)

[xseption]

If you want to argue some pointless issue, pm xseption.         just kidding.

You had better be!

hah!

I do not argue pointless issues. I always have a point!

~ edd

[SHANEA]

(There might even be place at Lajitas that would do the same!)

It's still up and running, at least the website is...

 

[toejam]

I've paid $805 to be guided to the top of Mt. Rainier to fulfill a life-long dream. I'll prolly spend around $5000 to see the Solitario, that money going mostly into a well-used 4x4 so I can drive myself in there.

The $600 seems high if you do a lot of minimalist backpacking like I do and Ay Chi prolly does. But it doesn't seem nearly as outrageous as the price of a ride back to your car when floating the Rio Grande.

This is one of the most fun deteriorating threads I've seen on this site.

[Ay Chihuahua!]

Well...I've slinked back.  Okiehiker,  I follow you on some of your points.  The insurance portion of overhead has me a little perplexed.  Why does a guide really need a million dollars of coverage?  Is that what the courts or ins. cos. have come up with for the average cost of a life?  It seems like you could incorporate yourself, lower your coverage, and in the process, make yourself less of a plaintiff's target.  Just hypothesizing here...I don't know, but a million dollar insurance policy is worth going after from a trial lawyer's point of view...100K, not so much.

To further hypothesize, what if you ditched the extra guide and just got yourself a satelite phone?  Seems to me that one guide well versed in keeping a hurt person stable could use a sat. ph. to call in the calvary, if something really bad happened.  Just think'n out loud here.

I'm curious, because I have thought about starting a similar type of service.  Not so much a guide service, but similar. 

[Undertaker]

My 2 cents of the $600 deal, cheap, travelling to and from Houston area and your fuel alone is HIGH  Actually fees are cheap I have paid more on lots of occasions. Not everyone is experienced in camping, backpacking and survival. I believe in an open park to everyone, that said, what is more natural than someone becoming lost dying and reverting to the dust from whence they came. With regards to Gov cost, how about the fee to visit Johnson Space Center, all paid for by your tax dollars. If you like free Gov health care cradle to grave, remember our POST OFFICE  Since most folks I ever looked for during my time with Pima County SAR, almost none had filed a hike plan or notified anyone were they were going and when they were due back. SAR cost considerable money even when via volunteer search teams. Myself and most of you guys/gals go to the wilderness to get away from civilization, (never had a gun fired at me in any national park, have been robbed twice in civilization), when in the wild you need to protect yourself be prepared, any injury no matter how small in the BiBi area and you are hours away from any Hospital. It is a risk you take when in the wild. Let the folks spend their money how they want, you guys are starting to sound like Big Brother. Ok off my soapbox. Back to fun.

[fesser nohair]

Update!  I've enjoyed the give and take, and generated one more participant.  Three down, one to go.  We need one more to make up the four person minimum (maximum eight).  Surely there's one more person out there who wants to a guided tour of the Solatario in early February!  Go ahead, make my day.

Fesser