bheiser1 wrote:AlmostThere, thanks for that post. It made for very interesting and thought provoking reading. In particular the suggestion about leaving "additional identifying info" seems like a good idea. I already do that to some extent, but will do more.
As others have posted, it can be difficult to leave a detailed itinerary, partly because we may want to make decisions on the fly, "oh, this route looks more interesting, I'll try that one", and partly because of the permit issue. For example last summer I headed for Yosemite, on a Saturday afternoon, to go "wherever I could still find a permit to go". As you all know, there's no cell reception in most of Yosemite, so I didn't have any way to advise my people of my final permitted plans.
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I'm totally on board with leaving detailed directions as much as possible, and do so myself. And in fact now I'll add more details to what I provide. But recognizing that this isn't always possible, I am wondering what you, as a SAR person, think of the "electronic" approach. Wouldn't you be glad to be handed the last known GPS coordinates of the target of your search?
Thanks again for posting. It's definitely interesting to read from someone who actually does this stuff (SAR).
I know that I never understood SAR before... I'm still learning, tho it's two years I've been doing it. Still feeling like a noob sometimes.
The last known GPS coordinates? well, yes, if you also provide what geodetic datum you're using! If you're giving out coordinates using NAD27 CONUS and the SAR team getting the coordinates uses WGS 84, we could end up being quite a distance away from the actual location and never know it. We had some snowmobilers give us coordinates of a set of tracks they thought belonged to a lost snowshoer - we luckily thought to double check what their GPS was set to, and found they were using WGS 84 ("what's that mean??" they asked) and reset it to get accurate coordinates! Fresno SAR uses NAD27, which is what Tom Harrison and other commercially made maps (some older FS maps are WGS) use. You might want to check the GPS unit you use to be sure it's the same as your map, too, if you use both.
Actually, Yosemite has good cell service in Tuolumne Meadows campground. I know this because I was called out for a search at 2 am while staying there last year! Also you'll get service on many of the high points around Yosemite Valley (we had signal on Devil's Dance Floor, Half Dome, and Glacier Point) and in Curry Village. I had a couple bars over at the Lodge. You could always use WD's method of dropping a postcard in the mail, too. The post office isn't far from the Yosemite valley wilderness center, and at Tuolumne Meadows it's at the store. And there's a pay phone at the market in Yosemite Village, and there's a web kiosk at Degnan's Deli to dash off an overpriced email from a web account.
I know what you mean - I like to play trailhead bingo too! But when I go by myself these days I'm especially careful about leaving instructions, especially once I started SAR. They give out this humiliating award for SAR volunteers who need to be SAR'ed, you see....
(I didn't know what a geodetic datum was until I did some research prepping for training the newbies - it's astounding to me how complex maps can really be, how many different reference methods there are, and how much I never knew about these things... still not sure how it all works but at least now I know it's important to know what you're using, so you can inform others.)
. And it's better than if I went on such a trip (as above) without anything... and assuming it works, it's better than pre-notification, because it provides near-real-time updates.