OzSwaggie wrote:
(The reality is, if we don't emerge at our trailhead on the scheduled day, no-one will know or report us missing, until we don't step off the plane back in Oz... We don't like to worry people back home with the idea that we are doing something dangerous - so that's why we get the SPOT - so we feel like we can raise our own alarm if need be!)... So if the SPOT will not actually result in an SAR if they cannot phone and speak with someone first, I'm wondering if there's much point carrying it...) (It would be good if you could register your itinerary with SPOT headquarters...)
Curious why you think this...
Do you get a permit when you go backpacking? The rangers then know you are out there and have some sort of itinerary for you.
Why do you think leaving an itinerary and telling someone in Australia "if I do not call you by (date) please contact (park or county sheriff office of relevance) and give them all the info I left with you" would not work?
If you press 911 on a SPOT it transmits coordinates. Why would it NOT result in a SAR? That idea baffles me. 9 times out of 10 the itinerary left with the family is not much of anything at all - "my husband is somewhere in Yosemite, I think he said something about Half Dome? and Merced. Something. I dunno. PLEASE FIND HIM. I think he's wearing his hiking boots! and jeans, and white t shirt.... he's carrying a backpack. He had one of those bear thingies...." And yet, we search, usually with the info you put on the permit and a description that when used no one hiking the trails can verify they ever saw you, because they are too busy having fun to pay attention.... And the family gets the description wrong, because they think you took a blue tent and you took a green one, or they misremember the color of the pack - heck, they're too worried to remember the details. If you didn't write 'em down, that is.
When parks say don't rely on the SPOT they are trying to reduce risk by encouraging you to leave the itinerary in addition to using it - it'll maybe work, transmit the coordinates, or maybe not. A lot of the time it does. Sometimes it doesn't. We like details and itineraries best, because they are concrete information, in case the missing party, in a hypothermic daze, press 911 and then wander off leaving the SPOT on a rock... not far from several actual incidents where someone left their pack and all their gear and walked onward.
Too many things *could* happen, but good information is the ultimate backup plan. If you write down all the accurate information on your description, clothing, gear, and itinerary, it won't matter that the caller is totally unfamiliar with the Sierra Nevada. A lot of people who live two hours from Yosemite are just as ignorant about it as the population of Australia.... so even we locals have to be pretty specific about stuff when writing it all down. We started a SAR with no PLB/SPOT info, no real idea of where the guys started because the family who dropped them off could not remember where they left them, and nothing more than the itinerary on the permit. (The guys were fine. Just really delayed.) We obtained more information by checking campsite registrations at trailheads and then coordinated with two other jurisdictions to get organized along the long, winding route through two wilderness areas and a park.
There's not a reason to not leave an itinerary... phones work.