Posted on 05/19/2023 2:13:38 PM PDT by nickcarraway
If you go down, eventually you hit the ocean
It is still amazing that, with the weekly stories of people getting lost while taking a morning hike, there are those that will take off on such a trek without at least a bottle of water and a granola bar in their pocket. So many people do not know how to mark their trail when they take off from the beaten path so they can find their way back.
My husband was a boy scout in his youth. He has a great sense of direction, but anytime he was taking us for a hike in an unknown (or even known) area, he always left trail markers to help us find our way back. It’s so easy to get disoriented, especially on a cloudy day when you can’t see the sun. I would also suggest taking a compass, but that’s useless unless you know how to read one. Too many young people do not know the east from the west and have no idea how the location of the sun or moon in the sky can tell you in which direction you are traveling.
They were lucky the temps were as high as they were - every year, hikers go missing in the San Gabriel mountains, where temps easily and often drop to below freezing.
The hard-core hikers and backpackers in my own family carry satellite phones, file their plans at the ranger station (backpackers) and let us family members know when to expect them back.
Use Emergency SOS on your iPhone
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208076
Geesh, $2 magnetic compass would save you, IF, you were smart enough to bring one.
““...who were lost on a Southern California trail for about three hours Friday night before they were rescued.”
Lost for three hours. Pikers.”
Who else, other than me, found themselves humming the theme song from Gilligan’s Island while reading this article?
“Just a three hour tour....a three hour tour!”
Oooooooo….we loved Algonquin. Our girls were in high school when we planned a trip to Ontario “just because” Beautiful. Stayed in cabins at Madawaska and then Mattawa.
60 degrees
10 teens
A short hike
Big deal?
If I had been planning a wilderness trip, I might have done that. I tend to stick with trails and my plan to walk a short distance to a trail that I could see from the trail I was one seemed at the time to be a safe thing to do.
I learned.
CA used to talk about charging for searches of lost hikers. Why not? If you don’t know better, maybe coughing up $$$ would remind one to prepare better and not take off on a lark.
Does android have a similar app?
I’m pleased to learn of their rescue.
I’ve never been lost either; I’m always right here. My destination has gone missing a time or two, though.
All of my off-trail hiking occurred in the years before cellphones. I knew how to tell directions with and without a compass.
I never needed to, but I was able to build a shelter and start a fire. And I could build a water trap.
Wait….the app was called “We’re not prepared”???
My first thought was that they were TAC students.
I used to go hiking alone in the mountains east of Tucson. Off trail. In the 70s. It was easy enough to figure out where I WANTED to go, but not so easy to find a route that would take me there. But I always got back before dark because I wasn’t suicidal. My Mom would have KILLED me if I got back after dark!
(((PING)))
LOL...which turned into three very successful seasons on the boob tube! Per wiki...
"...three seasons on the CBS network from September 26, 1964, to April 17, 1967."
(Also per Wiki...Mary Ann was more popular to fans than Ginger, based on fan mail!)
Wondering alone aimlessly in the woods was one of my favorite pastimes even in grade school.
Many times a group of us would venture out someplace we had never been at night as a challenge. Not knowing where we were for three hours was the point of the exercise.
I think about the pioneers venturing out into the untamed American wilderness that also contained hostile Indians and large carnivorous animals.
And this crowd gets lost carrying cell phones.
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