I thought the same thing after me and my wife saw the movie. I assume they just never thought there would be a delay in the extraction. Anyway, I don't think the goat headers would have had a hard time climbing up the mountain. That's what they do often, so really don't think that was the issue...
Ronny,
I hear you, my church gives around the same percentage to missions as your church does. We are a very small church, but strongly believe in giving to missions. We just finished a mission trip to Mexico where our people helped build a church and witnessed to the locals at the same time...