Hikers were rescued from Mount Shasta after Gemini planned the climb

Three college students let Google Gemini plan their mountain climb, and the plan worked right up until the rescue.

What the sheriff’s office reported

The three novice climbers from Roseville, California asked Gemini for the route up 4,322-meter Mount Shasta, the food to pack and the water to carry. According to the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office, the AI recommended simple carbohydrates instead of fats and far less food and water than the group needed.

They camped at 8,400 feet, left for the summit at 3 a.m. with daypacks, and topped out at 7 p.m., seven hours past the recommended noon turnaround. The descent came in the dark. Their phone died, the backup power bank failed, and the group spent the night lost in Mud Creek Canyon. Rangers found them the next morning, exhausted, hungry and thirsty. The sheriff’s office called relying on AI for trip planning “a critical misstep.”

The failure mode

A chatbot hands out a summit plan with the same confidence it applies to a dinner recipe, and it does not know the climbers’ fitness, the mountain’s conditions, or when to order a turnaround. Gemini did not steer anyone off a cliff. It quietly under-packed their bags, and nobody checked its output against a guidebook.