Business Opportunity

Anyone ever think of starting an answering service or website where climbers/hikers could register in advance of their adventure? Upon safe completion, they could close out the adventure as safely completed. If their completion deadline was missed by a specific hour or date, then calls to preregistered friends would go out. If not successfully found then the appropriate search party would be dispatched.

Fees could be annual for the priviledge of registering your outing. An additional fee would apply against your credit card for each entry - menial in amount. If you fail to close out your adventure and friends had to be contacted to confirm your safety, then you would be assessed a penality. If a search party was dispatched, then you pay for that service.

At any rate, that's a rough sketch.

Jim

Good idea.
I know that private pilots do this and when their flight plan is not closed out, similar things happen like you suggested.
I think the main thing would be, having someone to man the site or service and more importantly, would the numbers work, both for the business to make enough and for the climbers to keep their dues minimal.
I know this seems obvious, but you'd have to do the numbers first in order to sell it.
Maybe this could be done in association with TCI?!
Charlie.

Karina and I do this when we go on certain excursions. A trip into the wilderness is often preceded with a phone call to the local authorities with all the necessary info.

This seems like a service that would already be provided by maybe the american alpine club. They provide trip rescue insurance, too.

love
nick

I always provide my wife with a itenerary of my climbs, especially when soloing. I include a map that I print, and GPS coordinates of the general area that I plan to be in. I give her traveling directions that I plan to follow too.

I say make friends here, and report to each other.

Climb Safe!
Icabod

Nick,

Did I miss a posting? Who's Karina? More on a serious note, what do you mean by contact authorities? Local police/rangers?

Icabod,

I like your proposal to make friends here and use them as contact points.

How many people are making physical contact (phone= physical contact) before venturing out? I'm not. I do leave notes and people generally know my climb areas.

Regards,
JimK

Keep FIT - Fun in Trees

Charlieb,

I agree that perhaps this could be an adjunct service provided by a TCI, New Tribe or Nick Climbing Inc.

Regards,

JimK

Keep FIT - Fun in Trees

This is a great idea. If you need someone to partner with to build it, let me know, we can do this pretty economically. I am a 12 year veteran of web development and open source software would enable us to do this pretty easily....