Recently, a Whistler tourist illegally climbed the Peak 2 Peak Gondola tower to create content for his YouTube channel.
Early on July 19, Toronto climber Chase TO climbed up a Blackcomb Mountain gondola tower, as Pique Newsmagazine reported.
Somewhat ironically, some commenters online scolded the media for sharing the story.
This misses the point entirely.
Folks aren’t doing these uber risky things to make the local newspaper. If you make any paper for something like this, there is context and an outline of consequences baked into the story.
They are doing these things to be social media famous. They can post directly to their page or channel without context and an outline of possible consequences.
Other — likely young — people see the “cool” sanitized images and, like everything on social media, achieving them seems easier and less fraught than reality.
A scroll through Instagram and Tik Tok shows this is happening a lot in Squamish, too.
A new B” cites a 200% increase over the last five years of trespassing incidents at its dams, reservoirs, and recreation sites.
It also notes that 90% of British Columbians over 15 years old have a smartphone.
Before the 2000s, with the popularization of cellphone cameras and social media, the thrill of getting attention for climbing something forbidden was mitigated by the fact you had to lug a camera and then email the shots to everyone you knew.
Today, you can collect likes and shares before you climb down.
Nearly half of respondents to a BC Hydro survey said they’ve seen someone doing something risky to get a shot for social media.
The most dangerous things done for the “perfect shot” include: getting too close to a wild animal (17%); standing on the edge of a cliff (16%), knowingly disobeying signage (12%), and taking a selfie from a dangerous height (9%).
Serious thrills, of course, could come from, say, training to paraglide or BASE jump, but patience, time and a focus on safety is required for those.
Thus, sadly, it will likely take multiple social media-related deaths in the corridor to create a massive enough backlash to impact these attention-seekers.
Perhaps, though, we — as the “Hardwired for Adventure” community and Explore BC province — could do more to redirect them?
What if there were more built-in picture options created by local artists that would be inspiring to share on social media?
These need not be lame picture-frames placed at viewpoints but could be imaginative and carry some thrill; a that more risk-inclined youth would find fun to climb, but that wouldn’t be deadly should things go amiss. Or a ladder to nowhere that would get people high enough for a fun photo of Howe Sound.
It is common and tempting to call these risk-takers “idiots,” but that is not solutions-based and does nothing to curb the problem.
So, let’s get creative.
