Hey frediver,
I can answer your post as I was in the group that called 911. The decision was made after a bit of discussion and after just having watched the young kid nearly slip over the edge of Lone Pine Creek as he hurtled across. We knew the creek at that time was unpassable. I was part of a group with four others - backpacking. We had all our gear though being soaked, my core was still dry due to my good rain coat and we talked about just hiking back up to find a place we could shelter for the night. The problem came with the 10+ other people stuck there around us, all of whom (if memory serves) were day hikers. At most, we had room to stuff 4 extra people in our tents, and two of our group had emergency space blankets. We could have kept people warm for a while but probably not all night. Especially since many of the day hikers were visibly shaking as shaking hard, and not prepared with the rain gear that the day required. We knew we were within a mile of the Portal, and were simply wanting to let someone know that there was a large group stranded. Our hope was that someone could come up the trail (which if I remember Lone Pine is the first main water crossing) so it shouldn't have been too bad a time. With a rope that we could secure to get across the creek, or that (as it did turn out) there was an alternate route down.
The kid who barely made it down, did make it to the Portal and that was what alerted them and what sent Miles racing up the mountain. I think all in all it was the right thing to do. Had we had the portal number or forest rangers or something we would have called that knowing they might have a better handle on the situation already, but we didn't.
-K
