Experience: I hunt for missing hikers in remote mountains
A search and rescue volunteer shares his experiences hunting for missing hikers in Taiwan's remote mountains. The narrative highlights the physical and emotional toll of the work, including the difficult reality of finding survivors versus deceased individuals.
Why it matters
This personal account sheds light on the specialized and dangerous nature of mountain rescue operations in rugged terrain.
‘There’s the initial shock, and then the immediate pivot to logistics’: Petr Novotny in Puli, Taiwan. ‘There’s the initial shock, and then the immediate pivot to logistics’: Petr Novotny in Puli, Taiwan. Experience Walking Experience: I hunt for missing hikers in remote mountains Since I started doing search and rescue five years ago, I have found seven survivors. Sadly, the number I find dead is higher
Prefer the Guardian on Google I n 2012, I was a student and had arrived in Taiwan from the Czech Republic. I soon discovered something that interested me far more than my studies: the mountains of Taiwan. I would leave the campus to explore untouched trails near Taipei. I was obsessed with old maps, often looking for routes that had vanished from modern ones, and hiking paths that no one had taken for decades.
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