Could have been worse, their GPS could have routed them.......
Happy ending for this family.
Never ever ever take a forest service road that you have never been on, in a rental car in the winter! What were they thinking?
Service trail in a rental car in the winter?
Easterners.............
Could have been worse, their GPS could have routed them down Martin Luther King Blvd after dark.
Bad: rental, service road, bad weather, unfamiliar territory, split up (did the woman play trail boss and go off alone?), probably did not register with ranger
Lucky they all survived - could have ended much worse.
FAIL.
When you travel 26.0 mikes on foot, only to be unknowingly “rescued” 0.2 short of a marathon.
That’s some of the dumbest luck I’ve ever heard of. The Kaibab Plateau in winter is about as remote and dangerous a place to be as anywhere in the lower 48. Much of the plateau is over 9000 feet high and completely snowed in by November. These people were likely twenty miles or more from the nearest human being by the time they managed to stick their vehicle. A nasty winter storm just blew through, dropping a foot or more of new snow. There is no reason at all that they should have found this woman until the buzzards began circling in April or May.
It appears a combination of not using maps and relying on a gps system in unfamiliar territory almost did them in. I’ve learned our GPS navigation system is less than perfect. In the remote countryside it shows roads that do not exist or will show the long way to get to the destination.
We travel forest service roads often. Just go get one of their maps, they are a bit confusing as they look like a spider web drawn on paper, but they do work.
Now for city driving, you can’t beat the gps navigation systems.
Broke every rule of outback travel.
GPS doe NOT stand for going places safely.
Put other people in harm’s way inexcusable.
Merry Christmas, Nick!
(Adventures with GPS, Darks.)
At least she didn’t have to walk 26 miles across the sea.
The south rim has the facilities and people to view the Grand Canyon particularly at this time of year when snow is on the ground. The north rim is if you want a less touristy experience. Well they got that in spades.
Maps work use them.
I had an experience in 1994 that I will eventually write a short story about. In a nutshell, my wife and small children went to Disneyland with the mother-in-law.
The mother-in-law is why I chose not to go with them.
Instead, I decided to take a day hike in New Hampshire on a 24-mile loop trail. I rented an apartment at a ski lodge for the weekend with hot tub and all. My plan was to do the hike on Saturday and sit in the hot tub with champagne and snacks on Sunday while watching NFL football. Then a steak dinner. The perfect weekend for a guy.
While driving up there Friday night, there was talk of a snowstorm later on Saturday afternoon. I decided to take the hike anyway and after an early morning diner breakfast of eggs and bacon, I was at the trailhead at 6am as dawn was just starting to break.
At the halfway point, I'm looking out into the valley and see literally a wall of snow approaching me. The storm was moving in early. I scoffed down my lunch of peanut butter sandwiches and apple cider and started back to the trailhead. The storm came over me almost immediately and within a few miles, I was no longer able to see the trail markers on the trees as it was a wet snow.
I got off the trail but fortunately had my compass and knew I had to move east. Eventually I hit the road but did not know if I was north or south of the trailhead. I took a gamble and headed north. By then, it was almost pitch dark and the snow was flying. About six inches on the ground already. I was starting to get slightly frostbit.
I was just about to give up and head south again when I saw the lump of my car off the side of the road at the trailhead. I got into the car and started it up but it was a two wheel drive so I was not able to get onto the road. I was stuck! I had no snow shovel in the trunk. Major mistake!
A snowplow was coming down the road with the yellow lights flashing and I ran out onto the road to try and flag it down but it did not see me and kept on heading south. But I kept my wits about me. I pulled the floor mats out of my car and put them behind the tires. I was able to pull out and gain enough momentum to make the just plowed road. I scrambled to grab my floor mats and headed south to where my ski resort lodge was.
I will never forget the blissful feeling of sitting by the fire in the common area of the ski lodge, thawing myself out and sipping brandy. The next day, I sat in the hot tub watching the NFL playoff games and sipping on champagne with cheese and crackers and all kinds of other food. Later that night, I went down to the restaurant and had a thick steak with a bottle of very red, tannic wine. I almost died that weekend but it is what made all the food and drink taste so much better.
So Merry Christmas you dumb-ass Easterners who got lost by the Grand Canyon! I hope your food and drink taste very good today!
So the husband found his way to safety and then forgot where he left his wife or what?