AI chatbots are steering hikers into dangerous backcountry situations
A High Country News/Wired investigation ties stranded, lost and rescued hikers to trip plans built with Gemini and Claude.
What to know
- Multiple search-and-rescue incidents — a stranded Mount Shasta group, a Crown Mountain ledge rescue, misleading AI-generated maps — have involved hikers using Gemini or Claude for trip planning.
- AI use for backcountry trip planning is climbing fast: Grand Teton visitors reporting AI use for travel info went from 0% to 26% in a year.
- It remains unproven whether AI is actually driving more rescues: Wyoming's 2026 SAR call volume is down from 2025, and Northern California's Mount Shasta office is having an average year.
- Search-and-rescue veterans frame chatbots as the latest in a line of tools — after social media and smartphone maps — that have given people new ways to get into trouble outdoors.
“Over the last two decades, there’s been a phenomenal push in the media to get more people outdoors, and consequently we have more people outdoors and recreating.”
Jim Moss, Recreation attorney and search-and-rescue volunteer · Wired/High Country News ↗ · Oct 31
Nick Meyers US Forest Service program manager, Mount Shasta Wilderness Climbing and Avalanche CenterChip Jenkins Superintendent, Grand Teton National ParkJim Moss Recreation attorney and search-and-rescue volunteerGoogle (Gemini) AI chatbot makerAnthropic (Claude) AI chatbot maker
How it unfolded 2 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlesposts
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Mother Jones republishes report, story spreads across social platforms
Mother Jones carried the High Country News piece via the Climate Desk collaboration the same day, and the story circulated widely on Bluesky and Mastodon through November 3, with Wired's Bluesky post drawing roughly 195 reposts/likes and 20 comments.
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Mother Jones: Using AI to Plan Backcountry Trips Is Getting People Into Big Trouble (Nov. 1, 2026) “I think they kind of turned their brains off.” https://www. motherjones.com/environment/20 26/11/ai-hikers-wilderness-outdoors-bad-information-preparedness-search-rescue/ # SearchAndRescue # hiking # AI
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Wired/High Country News report on AI-linked hiking mishaps
The investigation documents additional cases — a camper who ignored a 'No Camping' sign because AI told her she could, a hiker with a map showing features on the wrong side of a mountain — and cites Grand Teton data showing AI-trip-planning use among visitors rising from zero to 26 percent over a year.
“It went from zero to 26 percent. And I’m guessing that curve is not going to flatten.”
— Chip Jenkins, Grand Teton National Park Superintendent -
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Outsourcing planning to AI can lead people to surrender their own critical thinking, which can have potentially deadly results in places like the backcountry.
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background
Teen hiker is rescued from a Crown Mountain ledge after using Claude — A helicopter crew rescued a 16-year-old from a ledge on the Widowmaker Arete on British Columbia's Crown Mountain; news coverage focused on his use of Anthropic's Claude chatbot to plan the trip, though he said he had also used Google Maps and AllTrails.
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Three hikers get stranded overnight on Mount Shasta after using Gemini — Three 20-year-olds underprepared for the climb summited Mount Shasta at 7:30 pm instead of turning back, then got lost descending in the dark after planning the trip partly with Google's Gemini chatbot; one injured his knee and the group called for rescue.
Also covered reported alongside — the timeline has no entry for these yet
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first by Mastodon, 6d ago · also Mother Jones
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first by Mastodon, 10d ago · also Wired