High Sierra Topix

Wandering Daisy wrote:... not that severely cold in Napa. I think they could have hunkerd down and then found their way out in morning.

Lions, Tigers and Bears, oh my! Ha ha!! It gets scary in the dark.

Yeah, well we don't know their particular circumstances and it's possible all they asked for were directions... Who knows? One thing for sure: if they'd had one of these new-fangled smart phones, they could have used Google Maps to navigate out for free.

rlown wrote:i'm assuming somewhere here?

Capture.JPG

And there's a golf course in the valley.. When is downhill not a good idea ever?

Actually, that's a great map. Because it doesn't show that the Oat Hill Mine Trail goes northwest and connects with the Palisades Trail...And the area between those two trails is pretty rugged.

I am not saying they shouldn't have got lost, or that they were right in calling for help. But I do know that there are no "trail maps" of this area, and lots of people access it. And there are some wild parts of that country. Aside from the sarcasm, there are certainly mountain lions, and probably bears.

No tigers.

Given the heavy use of Bay Area trails by the general public, I think it would be smarter to put some accurate signs up and produce good maps than to just continue to rescue lost hikers. I agree that lots of the trails are really poorly marked. I once had to do a 5-mile detour/backtrack at Point Reys because the trail shown on the map suddenly ended. But signs are really better for the typical urban hiker. A LOT of people cannot read a map no matter how accurate they are.

Going off-trail on the coast or in the Coast Range generally gets you into deep doo-doo quickly. I am mystified as to why these two kids decided to go off the roads.

On the American River bike path, they have put up maps with the pointer that says "you are here" and then shows several miles up and downstream. Prisoners make license plates, maybe they should also make trail signs?

Good points, Daisy. And I, too, wonder why they went off trail. But that area is pretty remote and confusing. We once hiked part of this trail...there were plenty of spots where it simply wasn't clear where we should be going. My favorite was a large gate that went across one road. Once we got over the gate, we noticed a sign on the back side that said:

"If you can read this sign, you are on the wrong side of the gate."

No exactly helpful trip information..

Scouter9 wrote: Of course, based on where they were lost, I imagine at somepoint, "hide the bong!" came into play.

:retard:

Of course, the newer smartphones have an actual GPS chip so coordinates don't depend on tower triangulation -- which have large errors inherent in the results. However, the reporting person has to know to set their phone to that default if it's not set to actual gps. You can also be directed (by dispatch) to download the Google mapping app which will give coordinates. Finally, there's a very cool app SAR teams in the UK are using where you just enter the URL of their site and your coordinates are captured then available to a responding SAR team.

The bad news is few e911 dispatchers or SAR teams are aware of these capabilities.

One more geeky solution is to have the person take a picture of the area they're in and send it to dispatch. On most modern smartphones, the coordinates are embedded in the photo and you also have a photo taken from their location.

Last, the decision to have them stay there seems to me to be correct. You don't want people who are already lost stumbling around in the dark or, really, even waiting until morning. If the risk is low, sending a team for them is the way to go.

Oh wait: last, last. There is also a gizmo that's only in the possession of Homeland Security and FBI etc. that can detect individual pings of cell phones without going through the towers. It was used successfully on at least one SAR last year Again, not well known even in the SAR community.

g.

Are you talking about Triggerfish, G? (No, that's not slang I'm asking Mr. Durkee.)

Are you talking about Triggerfish, G? (No, that's not slang I'm asking Mr. Durkee.)

Is Triggerfish the same as the Stingray? I've only heard about this puppy 2nd hand. Do you know anything about it? I'm actually going to soon try to put together a series of webinars on tech useful for SAR (cell phones, radar etc). Need to find out more about it.

thanks,

g.

any chance this forum would have access to the webinar material when complete? Hope there's some caveats in that like your cell phone has to be working/charged/on. GPS sucks the power right out of a cell phone and most shut down their phones to save power. Not to mention when out of coverage.

Your base assumption is that the person can touch their phone. It's an ok assumption as long as it's stated. Some might not be able to do that.

rlown wrote:And this is "beyond the Sierra."

Yes. Please try to be a little more careful where topics are posted. I've had to move quite a few threads recently, several of which were yours, balzaccom. Not everything belongs in the Backpacking / Hiking / Camping forum.

Cheers,
ERIC