Who should pay when high-risk climbing adventures go bad?(The Seattle Times)

SEATTLE _ With four stranded Mount Rainier climbers safe and sound in the lowlands, National Park Service and Army Reserve officials put down their hiking gear and flight suits and flipped on the calculators Thursday, tallying up the thousands of dollars it cost to bring the men home.

But that's all part of the price of doing business as a national park, they say.

"Parks are wild, unpredictable places," said Carol Anthony, a Park Service spokeswoman in Washington, D.C. "It's not like taking a walk though the zoo. So we don't hesitate to do what needs to be done."

When the giant, twin-bladed Army Reserve Chinook helicopter touched down Wednesday evening and uninjured climbers Dylan Scofield-Simonds, James Fishburn, Alton Willoughby and Mike Schiller stepped out, it ended days of worry. The experienced mountaineers had radioed for help Monday after a small avalanche swept away their gear.

"We're OK, but we definitely needed help getting off the mountain," a sunburned Scofield-Simonds, 24, said from his Seattle home Thursday. "I think we made the right decision to call for help. I think we would have gotten in a lot more trouble if we hadn't."

But the rescue also renewed the perennial question of who should pay the tab when high-risk recreational adventures go bad.

Mount Rainier National Park Deputy Superintendent Dave Uberuaga estimated it cost the park $7,000 to $10,000 in overtime and hardship pay for the rescue team and to rent helicopters.