Hiker lost
Posted by Sunset1hiker@reddit | preppers | View on Reddit | 46 comments
This happened very close to where I live. It is incredibly frustrating to see these types of incidents happen as there is absolutely no excuse to not have some sort of map or mapping app.
https://ktar.com/arizona-news/arizona-hiker-alive-yavapai-county/5850149/
If you search news for lost hiker, this appears to happen on a regular basis somewhere in the United States with a lot of the lost hikers, being a fatal event.
The search lasted several days and involved many search and rescue volunteers who are giving up their time, gas money and vehicle wear and tear.
Smartphones, even older models, will have the ability to do tracking, even if they don't have maps for the area that you're in. If you have tracks of where are you were, you should be able to find your way back out.
There is no damned excuse for this happening to anyone in this age of technology. There are many mapping apps that are absolutely free. Some have the capability to download mapps.So they don't need to be connected to the internet to work.
This app is free, has downloadable maps. It is more of a road app but just have quite a few trails on it. it does tracking which will help prevent getting lost when hiking.
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Tasty_Impress3016@reddit
You have no idea.
I live in Colorado near the mountains. People seem to think that everything is Disney-ish and they are safe no matter what they do. No map, no water, often in fuckin sandals I swear. They pull someone off a peek a couple times a week. I remember one older guy that used his phone to call for rescue, couldn't summit, couldn't get down. Three times in a single month.
They seem to have grown up in an environment where they will be protected no matter how stupid they are. I remember having a rare flood and trying to warn college kids that no, it was not a great opportunity for tubing. Only two died so I suppose chalk that one as a win?
It's an adventure, I'm a risk taker. I know there are no consequences.
Flat-Pumpkin-6052@reddit
I feel like Americans are uniquely sheltered from real danger and difficulty, barring occasional incidents like Katrina or Joplin in 2011.
dittybopper_05H@reddit
This isn’t unique to Americans.
My brother is a ranger at Yellowstone. Foreigners tend to have no respect for how dangerous wildlife can be because they have zero dangerous wildlife at home.
Not only that but language issues can make it hard to explain to warn many of them of the potential danger. You can warn someone from NYC or LA in English and they’ll almost certainly understand. Someone from Guanzhou likely won’t.
To them, a bison is just a funny looking cow. Bears are cute. Wolves are just dogs. Elk and moose are just big deer.
They also don’t understand how easily things like exposure can kill you.
Tasty_Impress3016@reddit
Oh, I didn't even get into that bit. Yes you are correct. The tourists of various ethnicities doing imbecilic things would be amusing if it weren't so alarming. I go to Rocky Mountain National Park quite often. If I had a nickel for every tourist I have seen trying to get a selfie with an elk I could just buy the park.
Now I will throw one little bone to these people. I try to understand. If you can afford international travel to vacation in the US you are most likely well off and most likely life in an urban environment. Their biggest life threats are the landlord turning off the heat, or the elevator being out. The only time they might fear death is when they see a gun. I kinda sorta get it, but ignorance often carries its own cruel correction.
dittybopper_05H@reddit
I would have said "nationalities" instead of "ethnicities". Though some cultures obviously have a more serious issue with this, setting aside communication difficulties.
And it's not like I grew up in a place where we had tons of dangerous animals. About the only ones to be concerned about are black bears, and when I was a kid the fun thing to do on a Saturday night was to drive to the town dump and watch the bears pick through the garbage.
Miss_L_Worldwide@reddit
Oh my God what complete horse shit. America bad! America bad! Never mind that European countries have literal 24/7 paid expert Mountain rescue teams paid for by the government to go rescue people in need of help. Never mind they are some of the busiest rescue teams in the entire world. Never mind that people go lost and missing all over the planet. My god, what a stupid take on this.
monty845@reddit
Same thing happens in Europe. Lots of woefully unprepared people trying to climb their major mountains.
Any_Needleworker_273@reddit
I live near the White Mountains of NH, and we have rescues dang near every single weekend. 6 last week and a fatality. People grossly underestimate the weather up here in our "little mountains" but people die every single year due to ignorance, negligence, poor planning, inexperience, etc.
Many-Health-1673@reddit
A map and a compass should be part of anyone's kit when in an unfamiliar area.
gramma-space-marine@reddit
And a whistle and a garbage bag! My best friend’s dad was SAR and we never hike without them! They can save your life 🙏🏻
Quick_Mel@reddit
I get the whistle, but could you tell me more about the garbage bag?
gramma-space-marine@reddit
You poke a hole that just fits your face and it holds in the heat and keeps the moisture off of you. It can also be used to carry water and waved around to attract attention from rescuers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/selfreliance/s/J6mZgd1ZbX
GenieShiba@reddit
Can also be stuffed with pine needles, etc to create a sleeping pad in cold environments (lawn clipping size black bag)
melympia@reddit
I want to know that, too.
Capstonelock@reddit
I'm a pre-gps era botanist. We used to go out on our own all day with nothing but a topo map and compass. The first week, we'd shadow someone who would teach us how to take a sighting, read a map and count our paces. I can still map vegetation accurately using those tools.
Nowadays most people have none of those skills and can't even tell which direction is north from the sun. You can't say to travel south on a road because they have no idea which way that is.
All modern hikers should carry a personal locator beacon such as a SPOT tracker or EPIRB.
YankeeDog2525@reddit
A map and compass are about worthless if you don’t know how to use them. And most don’t,have a clue.
mediocre_remnants@reddit
They don't help if you don't know how to use them. There was a woman who got lost on the Appalachian Trail a while back, she went off-trail and they found her body several years later. She was within half a mile of a logging road that would take her to civilization. She had a map and compass in her belongings. She ended up pitching her tent in a very dense section of forest which is why nobody found her when searching from air. There was a clearing not far away.
A map and a compass won't do shit if you don't know how to use them and have no other survival skills.
cmcanadv@reddit
As well as knowing how to use them. People tend to have difficulties using a GPS let alone a map and compass. It's a skill that needs to be honed regularily.
nakedonmygoat@reddit
There are a lot of low-tech/no-tech things you can do as well, like having a compass and trail maps, for starters. Here are some others:
spaisoflaif@reddit
shoe imprints, marking trails... not sure this is really practical.
i think the key here is to bring an offline map and compass, which is what you should be your primary tool for navigating.
then as a secondary, you have your phone fully charged in a waterproof pouch, set in battery save mode and preferably even turned off. On your phone you save a waypoint of where you parked your car, and then you download the segment you plan to walk in as a offline map in google maps.
This acheives three things
- you have a primary which does not require battery or technology
- the gps on the phone and the google maps offline offers you a fallback if you genuinely get lost, to check where you are on the map.
- you have a way of possibly calling for help if you have a medical emergency (of course depending on coverage)
Then you have to just accept that as you dont have coverage everywhere, you might have to sit down and wait for rescue if you break a leg, this means you need equipment to shelter in place for days, maybe not lavishly, but at least enough to stay alive in the conditions at hand.
uski@reddit
+1 for the last point. Years ago as a teenager I was camping in a national park. Blistering hot during the day... Well I didn't expect the night to be so cold! My sleeping bag was not rated for cold enough. That $1 mylar blanket saved the day
Miss_L_Worldwide@reddit
Dude, no. Follow leave no Trace principles which include not building little arrows or Rock piles.
Gadgetman_1@reddit
If you plan to hike back the way you came, occasionally TURN AROUND and take a bl**dy picture. Or at least memorize the landmarks. (They tend to look different from the other side... )
I have a tape around my water bottle at about the halfway mark. If I reach that line, I turn back even if the goal is 50 meters away. (I mostly do 1 - 2 hour hikes up mountains here in Norway, so the return is usually downhill, and yeah, in the lower areas there's usually a stream or two... I also keep an extra bottle in my car, for rehudration when I get down)
For longer hikes, then yeah, 1/3 it is.
nobadrabbits@reddit
He's old enough to know better. Was this his first backpacking trip?
I'm only a couple of years younger than him, and I did my first of numerous solo backpacking trips in 1973. I always used topo maps and a compass to navigate, and I never got lost, despite doing a fair amount of cross-country travel.
Unless it's a very commonly used trail (and maybe even then) a hiker should always carry and know how to use a paper topo map and a compass. Relying on technology will only get you so far.
Flat-Pumpkin-6052@reddit
What do you suggest for someone who doesn't use a smart phone?
cmcanadv@reddit
Garmin is the main company that makes stand alone GPS units. The older units (eg GPSMaps64) are fairly inexpensive and you can generate and load maps onto them.
Newer units like the 67i are far, far better on battery and I use one and they just released a newer one as well.
Pretty small screen compared to modern phones which can make using them a bit more difficult.
monty845@reddit
But make sure you get the right type of persona locator beacon. The true emergency beacons don't require a subscription, but there are products that do. (And typically allow non-emergency communications, so they aren't necessarily bad, just know if you want a subscription)
PaddingCompression@reddit
The issue with random PLBs is they don't have two-way communication.
So many people accidentally activate them that sometimes they get deprioritized.
Whereas if you have a Garmin device or a newer cellphone with SoS capability, you can communicate your emergency and the severity to get it taken seriously.
Sadly, people have died due to this issue since a random PLB activation will not bring out the cavalry all the time due to all the false alarms.
grislyfind@reddit
Paper topographic map and a "vintage" handheld GPS that just records waypoints and identifies latitude and longitude. I found my way off a mountain in the dark with that.
You can install topographic maps on a Garmin car GPS, or there's offline navigation apps for tablets.
mcapello@reddit
I would say learn to read the landscape. The tricks are going to be different for each climate, but to give an example, where I live (Appalachia), you are basically guaranteed to hit a road pretty quickly if you simply follow the watersheds. Just follow the water.
Granted, this will not work if you're injured or if you're in an area that's so remote that even heading in the right direction will exhaust your energy and supplies.
No_Summer_8717@reddit
I live out west, its not about getting "lost" as the main event. I have to explain to my east coast relatives all the time and don't believe me. It's about the heat. (Dry heat) 110°F heat. You sweat, but it evaporates so fast you can't tell how much. They get dehydrated because they're not used to drinking that much water. Then they get disoriented and wander off trail looking for a "shortcut" to get back. To hike out west you need lots of sunscreen and ALOT of water and to start your hike earlier and it needs to be over before noon. We get tourists dropping dead on under 5 mile hikes because they do it in summer in Phoenix at 115° and they start at noon. Look up camelback mountain deaths in Phoenix.
PaddingCompression@reddit
The disorientation and altered mental status are one of the key harbingers of the transition from heat exhaustion to heat stroke.
People should be aware - if you have a satellite communicator (Garmin, phone, etc) and start to feel *confused* or *loopy* from the heat, that is a life threatening medical condition that justifies a helicopter rescue, as it has gotten so bad your brain is in the beginning levels of shutting down. And your brain is one of the *last* organs your body will let slow down.
Slut_for_Bacon@reddit
Quite frankly, if you can't do the bare minimum to prevent yourself from getting lost, you aren't capable of being in the woods by yourself.
mapped_apples@reddit
It’s crazy to me as a hiker how even a little prep can go a long way. Have an app on your phone to track your progress - AllTrails is free. Print a map of the area and figure out your route - CalTopo is free and you can often find maps online to print for free. Figure out a schedule and let somebody know where and when you’ll go - it literally takes just a text. I usually send my wife my coordinates where I’ll park my car even if I’m only going to a 430 acre site. Establish a check in schedule - my wife gets a printed out itinerary including times I’ll text her to check in that has a number for the county sheriff if I miss more than 5 check-in’s in a row - and that’s just for my normal, three day trips on established trails. Like, it’s not fucking hard to do this stuff and planning is half the fun of big trips.
American_Greed@reddit
I went hiking in a popular spot near St Helen's and I still brought a paper map.
tlbs101@reddit
My cousin wrote an app that just uses GPS and the phone — no WiFi, no Cell coverage, no Bluetooth necessary. IIRC it is called Waypoint. You set your starting point at the trailhead and it will always tell you how to get back to the starting point. It doesn’t even have to be running while you are hiking (to save battery).
Miss_L_Worldwide@reddit
It's just not that simple. You lose signal. You get cliffed out. Weather sets in. Your battery dies. Lots of things can happen out there and if search and rescue volunteers had a big problem going out then they wouldn't go. The reason they do it is that they enjoy it and want to give back and want to save a life and dedicate their time, energy, and expertise so That Others May live.
Miss_L_Worldwide@reddit
This isn't worth getting that worked up over. Even the most prepared and knowledgeable of Outdoors people sometimes need to be rescued. I did Wilderness search and rescue for a long time and experienced Outdoors people were some of our most common customers. It's easier to get lost than you think.
PredictorX1@reddit
How many people die while becoming lost on a hike in an average year in the United States?
cmcanadv@reddit
13 people per day in the US apparently.
https://survivaldispatch.com/statistics-of-getting-lost-and-found/
PredictorX1@reddit
According to the source you line, that's how many people "were lost in the woods and required assistance", not the number who died.
Rude-Fox-3801@reddit
I feel like victim blaming isn't the best approach to educating people on how to be more safe. I get where you're coming from, but it's not just the people who get lost that are affected, it's also the families and friends which deserves a certain level of respect when addressing ways to be more prepared.
People die very frequently from getting lost on hikes and to be honest, relying on tech isn't the smartest decision, even if you have ten backup battery packs and have planned everything out to a T, things can still go wrong.
I personally think that approaching these kinds of topics should be a lot kinder, rather than assuming fault in all lost hikers.
Iartdaily@reddit
Spouse and I (briefly) got lost in JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK. We were just out for an “exploratory” hike. This was in nokia cell phone days(little reception if any in a national park).
We never notified anyone where we were going. We had on shorts tank tops, and a bottle of water each. We were walking along a path that had tiny markers every so often to keep you on the path. Somehow, we stepped off the path for about 15 minutes, I was terrorized out of my mind. suddenly, everything looked the same, all the little Joshua trees, all the red rocks. We could not find the little arrow markers anywhere. We saw a bank of trees and started heading towards them. All I could think about was how cold it got at night and how no one knew where we were and no one was going to be looking for us because we are on vacation for a week. when we walked through the embankment, there was our car. We basically walked in a large circle, which was the plan but somehow because the park maintains its natural layout, the paths are easy to lose track of, and that is exactly what happened. These days, of course cell phone service is much more available, maps are available on your phone, and of course you should prepare with more water, a hat and let somebody know where you’re going and when you should be back. A lesson learned.
MerelyMortalModeling@reddit
In several cases the hikers were lost because they depended on their cellphone.
If you are hiking you need to 1 tell people when and where you are going, 2 tell people when and where you are expecting to return and 3 maybe ask them to make sure you did in fact return.
Those are the non negotiable safety baselines and following a pair of freak near fatal happenings I insist everyone does this in my family even when going to large parks.
If you are doing serious hiking or off the path camping I'd add you should also have a physical map and a compass and know how to use them. Where I live in the Appalachian foothills it's real easy to go from have t bars to a complete signal loss in less then 50 paces and increasing map and navigation apps don't work unless they can phone home.
Maltz42@reddit
Yes, but a phone isn't a guarantee either, depending on the environment. Put your phone in airplane mode (which does not disable GPS or compass, at least on iPhone) and see how useful it is. Most map apps still require a cellular connection or pre-downloaded maps. And a GPS lock can be difficult to acquire under tree cover, making even tracking unreliable. And if you're injured, even knowing where you are and how to get back might not do you any good.
I don't understand why more regular hikers don't carry a personal locator beacon. They're kind of expensive up front, but even badly injured, you only need capacity enough to get to it and push a button to get relatively quick help almost anywhere on the globe. It's good insurance.