Discussing Date of Exit and Cut-off Times

[sekihiker]

My wife has always joked that if I suffer from dementia toward the end of my life, she is going to take me to the trail head and drop me off for my last hike. That sounds awesome to me. In an ideal world, that would be the way I would want to go. Unfortunately, in this day and age, it would probably involve some kind of recovery effort which could put others in harm's way and require a lot of unnecessary expense.

Dying with dignity is an elusive goal. I'll never forget the Indian character (played by Chief Dan George) in the movie "Little Big Man" having his efforts to go to the Happy Hunting Ground thwarted by a thunder storm.

[Jimr]

Loved that movie and that particular theme.

[sparky]

Different strokes for different folks Mark. I have loved ones at home so me disappearing into the mountains never to be seen again is a big deal. We will do what we can to mitigate that. I am definitely feeling the spirit of your post, but many of our significant others have alternate opinions we must take into consideration.

Her que to call the authorities is at dark on my "exit day", although I always plan to exit the day prior. I always carry food for an extra day, and have an extra day on my permit to allow for error, but plan to exit the day before. (does that make sense?) That way if I am just running late, no harm no foul. So far that has never happened....and last year I hiked an unplanned and painful 30 trail miles or so because a knee injury diverted me from hiking any of the cross country passes out of the evolution area. Luckily I hit my planned exit time, and no call was made.

There are things worse than death.....burning questions or a plain fear of the unknown by those left behind is one of them. Not knowing what happened can especially eat up those that do not do what we do. So sorry Mark and rogue and anyone else, despite your wishes if you were to disappear you can bet your ass a rag tag ad hoc party of internet geeks will come looking for your empty shell.

[dave54]

Wife and I post our itinerary to dropbox where our daughter can read it. Post photos, messages, and updates whenever we have cell coverage. She also posts photos and messages which we retrieve when we can. Even then it may be several days to a week (or more?) between accessing dropbox. There is usually a tall point somewhere we can get at least a weak signal, at least enough for a text. The truck has a cell signal booster. There are portable signal boosters, but that is extra weight and bulk.

Neither of us worry about it. She knows we are out having fun and spending her inheritance.

[markskor]

Find it interesting that most of those seen carrying a SPOT or similar type device, in my Sierra, are those hiking in groups, and travelling on the most, well-traveled trails...JMT, Whitney, North Lake/Humphrey basin, Half Dome, etc.

"California, which fields the most search-and-rescue calls of any state, started tracking missions initiated by PLBs and SENDs. From 2013 to 2014, they increased from 53 to 87, and 36 of those 2014 calls were either accidental or non-emergency...Stats from the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, the first recipient of distress calls from PLBs, 80 percent of its calls are false alarms.

Australia had the world's highest per capita use of rescue beacons as of 2012. That year, only 109 out of 1,700 activations were genuine emergencies.

My greatest concern - "The risk to search-and-rescuers is always a serious consideration. Thirty-two rescuers have died on rescue missions in the National Park Service's history."
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2015-4 ... ing-device