I know of people who have died doing what they love. However they were well prepared, well equiped and experts in their fields. They had many years doing it not just s few trips. They were qualified in the activity (although there isn't really a qualification in survival is there). They made the right decisions but still died.
I don't know if this guy made the right or the wrong decisions so can't comment with the same definitive viewpoint that some on here have (on either side of the fence). All I know is there is a family without one of their own.
If I was pushed to have a view I would say that a snow storm is not a good place to be in Ontario (i'm guessing only based on family stories of winter on the USA side of the border up there). That could be considered a bad decision. Also, practising survival is one thing actually doing it for real when you don't have to is another. By this I mean you do need to give yourself a degree of safety in risky activities. Survival is just that, it is survival in hard conditions usually when circumstances beyond your control have put you into those conditions. Anything other than that is just practising the techniques of survival. This is what he must have been doing on his other trips and what he wanted to do on this trip. What happened to him must have been true survival. Unfortunately he didn't manage it. That happens, but he is not an idiot but someone who had something go wrong on him. Whether that was his bad decision or worse conditions than he expected. Dead is dead so I wouldn't want to be in his boots.
