Posted on 02/11/2016 8:31:39 PM PST by Utilizer
Five harrowing days after becoming stuck on a remote backcountry road in Death Valley National Park in August 2009, Alicia Sanchez lay down next to her Jeep Cherokee and prepared to die.
Then she heard a voice.
"I called as I approached, asking if she was okay," wrote Ranger Amber Nattrass in a park report. "She was waving frantically and screaming, 'My baby is dead, my baby is dead.' "
In the SUV, Nattrass found Sanchez's lifeless 6-year-old son Carlos on the front seat. "She told me they walked 10 miles but couldn't find any help (and) had run out of water and had been drinking their own urine," Nattrass wrote.
"She turned down a wrong road," Nattrass said in a recent interview. "She said she was following her GPS unit."
Danger has long stalked those who venture into California's desert in the heat of summer. But today, with more people pouring into the region, technology and tragedy are mixing in new and unexpected ways.
"It's what I'm beginning to call death by GPS," said Death Valley wilderness coordinator Charlie Callagan. "People are renting vehicles with GPS and they have no idea how it works and they are willing to trust the GPS to lead them into the middle of nowhere."
The number of people visiting Death Valley in the summer, when temperatures often exceed 120 degrees, has soared from 97,000 in 1985 to 257,500 in 2009. That pattern holds at Joshua Tree as well, which recorded 128,000 visitors in the summer of 1988. Last year: 230,000.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
As someone with paesan blood invite you to come on down... Where things are different!
Ok, Delmonte Parchissi662?
The number of people visiting Death Valley in the summer......if only there were some hint of danger in the name of the place...
I highly recommend that little rifle. We topped ours with Nikon BDC scopes. I can put every shot on a scuba tank at 150 yards. The Ruger mags were on sale at Cabela’s a while back and as luck would have it the included case has slots for 4 of them.
The whole rig even with the scope and mags is right around ten pounds and fits right next to the spare tire. Heck of a lot of fun to shoot. We went with the stainless version for obvious reasons. Worth the price delta IMO.
It’s got a pretty high Bond factor of its own if you ask me. LOL.
Check for sales. I got ours for right around $300 each IIRC. And we really like the Nikon glass. My eyes ain’t what they used to be. This getting old crap ain’t for sissies.
L
Morons. A $75 hand held GPS would have guided them out correctly.
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Not always. I have had my much more expensive GPS trying to herd me south of Portsmouth NH towards Boston when I was wanting to go to Maine. Repeatedly
I need to!! Tired of NY at 47. Great when you’re in your 20 or early 30s, but i’m ready to see nore.
And now that I know paesani live there too, i’m definitely interested :)
I think it’s a real term, but I couldn’t swear to it. I heard it from hubby.
“You have never met any one of these people in real life?”
People who frequent the desert? No, maybe one or two, counting you! One of my former co-workers used to go rock climbing every year, but I don’t really know where he’d go to do that.
I take it you are in Australia? Do you really have bears there? A bear in the desert, that’s really too much.
How about the kangeroos, can/do they hurt people in real life? I assume they wouldn’t actually eat one. Of course, you’ve got the dingoes, we know about them! I guess they are cousins to our coyotes.
Ditto on the bond factor..... as well as the eye sight issues. I’m wussin up more these days. I can be in the lazyboy recliner an get hurt ! .... old age sucks at times.
10-22TD stainless is on the list. going shopping today.
Been a long time since I was in saline valley. Last year we were driving by the road the leads to it and was buzzed by a fighter from China lake.
It was really cool and he waved by rocking his plane from side to side.
If you have an AAA membership, you can order them for free every year.
For most of these issues, it isn't a GPS satellite issue, it's the receiver owners who don't bother to load periodic mapping updates per manufacturer directions.
Put it on your bucket list.
I can tell you from personal experience that PLBs (EPRB) save lives! They SEND your coordinates to the AFRCC which in-turn contacts the authorities. It makes it a whole hell of a lot easier than doing a grid search and keeping track of multiple teams. with a PLB, you just GO TO IT! :-)
I would help but the dinner bell rang.
I’ll take your word for it. Last time I had to travel that way, West Palo Alto (the ‘affluent’ section) was on the other side of Downtown Palo Alto, then Hwy 101 separated the rest (East Palo Alto) and you could visually see the difference between the two if you came off the highway to get some petrol.
I turned off the wrong way once, and within a block or two I realized I had made a major mistake, turned about and went back over the overpass to the other side of the highway to load up and then continued on.
Never made THAT mistake again.
Because, like, the GPS said it was the right way! (paraphrasing what I imagine she might have said).
I may be mistaken on this, but I was under the impression that it was a subscription-based feature. You don’t subscribe, you don’t have that feature.
DeLorme inReach is subscription but it is very affordable. About a two thirds of the way down the page is pricing:
http://www.inreachdelorme.com/product-info/inreach-explorer.php
SPOT is also subscription.
I did not think she was blonde.
Indeed. Here is a pic of where I live (NorCal):
People here are great. :)
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