Tom,

Thanks for your comments. After rereading the article & my comments I have to agree some of your criticism of me is deserved. I apologize for calling these young men names and for allowing my choice of words to paint the world with to wide a brush, but I also think my initial suspicion was correct in that brash, unthoughtful, uncalculated, irresponsible risk taking led to the death of these two 21 year olds.

Here's another story about these guys in previous risk taking.
Adventurers of the Year

Here's some quotes:
"Never mind that they had no serious funding, very little time to plan, and no sailing or dogsledding experience. Never mind that they would almost die (twice, it turned out)...Prudence wasn't necessarily their main concern. They just wanted to throw themselves out there."

"They'd planned to travel on the flat coastal sea ice, but it was so thin they had to climb over rocky headlands instead. That meant glaciers and crevasses. They didn't have good maps or local knowledge or even the right equipment for this. They just skied behind their sleds on the downhills, hoping for the best."

"Gauntlett came very close to dying...His family, Hooper's family, and their trip supporters all recommended stopping, so Hooper presented this to Gauntlett in the hospital in Upernavik..."Rob told me to piss off, we were definitely carrying on." "So they set sail only a few days later, June 2, on the Ice Maiden for a month of dodging icebergs and very little sleep. They had almost no experience at sea, but that was in the spirit of the trip."

I read both articles and I don't get that they've brought anything to any sport other than recklessness. They are advertised as lacking in knowledge, experience and equipment.
I read about their disregard for the opinions of others that they are clearly beholding to for support.
I read about the lack of appropriate gravitas given to the advice of those that do have experience & knowledge of the areas/conditions they were in.
It all adds up to make me suspect that they are largely responsible for their own deaths by not being ready to be where they were.

Please join me in prayer for my two boys:
"Dear God, Please don't let my sons go to the North Pole without knowledge of how to survive in those conditions nor without the necessary stuff to do it. Please don't let my sons rappel off cliffs without first learning how to rappel or deep sea dive without learning to snorkel first. And, Lord, please forgive my smart aleckyness, because you know, Lord, that I love adventure and that my intent is good. But, Dear Lord, let my boys have appropriate common sense, develop their skills first and not kill themselves at 21 years of age. Because, Lord, I don't think it's enough to just show up in extreme environments with nuthin' but attitude, so please help me to teach my boys not to do that. And don't let TomD delete my backpacking.net account. Amen"