SummitPost.org

Ahhhh Southern California...

but she seems to have done her best to avoid a rescue... credit for that. And well written... that is very unusual for reporters.

Details of the San Gorgonio rescue by the grateful rescued hiker
https://mysangrescue.blogspot.com/2018/ ... -2018.html

It is good that she has some lessons learned... even if I don't necessarily agree with all of them. They aren't bad suggestions as least for some. Credit her for that.

Quite a contrast to those two chicks who had to be yanked off Mount Baldy and claimed their only mistake was not having helmets! Even though that had nothing to do with it. Or PellucidWombat insisting he made not one mistake or had nothing to learn even when his partner was fatally injured. Better to learn from experience so there are not similar recurrences.

"A GPS location device that is not dependent on cellular range, such as a PLB like SPOT!"

The GPS device in modern cellphones is almost never "dependent" on cellular range. When you are in cellular range, the accuracy and speed of the fix are augmented with triangulation, maybe even with location information from a wifi provider. This augmentation is mainly useful in urban canyons among tall buildings. Almost always, you can put the phone in airplane mode when away from the city, and the GPS will work just fine. The chipsets and antennas in cellphones used to be inferior to those in dedicated GPS, but the difference has narrowed. Even in airplane mode, the cellphone battery life is usually inferior to that of a dedicated unit. It doesn't help that a lot of cellphone users don't realize how the GPS reception is affected by microwave absorbers (like your body), and that they can't turn it on (when out of cellular range) and get an instant fix. It takes time to detect the actual signals from GPS satellites, when there are no towers nearby to give the initial hint.

Preaching to the choir.

MoapaPk: I’ve been climbing 30 years. I carry a SPOT, but I don’t even own a cell phone or a dedicated GPS. I knew that it was tricky to find the summit of Cartago Pk., so I borrowed my wife’s smart phone and used a navigation app. I was concerned about battery life, so I turned it on occasionally, let it acquire the GPS satellites, confirmed where I was, and then turned it off. It worked pretty well, pointing me right to the summit. I decided I should either get a real GPS or learn to use her phone app better. Your post was helpful. Thanks!

I like the GPS feature on phones too... and had one a good while before I realized the GPS works even in airplane mode. Mine gets a fix very quickly... usually as fast as I can open the app... and it is a lot better than my old Garmin unit. It is certainly faster and has a much better map. Can even download maps for a large area if going to be out of cellular range, and switch between topo maps and a satellite view. A regular GPS can't do that, or at least mine couldn't.

Traveling around in Indonesia I was surprised it even had very good topo maps for the area. I've found the phone versions immensely better than GPS only units. But yeah you got to watch the battery on a longer trip.

bobpickering wrote:Your post was helpful. Thanks!

You are welcome, I hope it's still accurate! Technology is changing so rapidly. The biggest advantage that dedicate units had were battery life, readability of the screen, and greater sensitivity when stuck in canyons. All those issues are improving. I would like to cut down the number of devices I carry, and sooner of later I will make a padded smartphone pocket for my pack strap. The improvement in the cameras alone is a justification.

I would like to cut down the number of devices I carry, and sooner of later I will make a padded smartphone pocket for my pack strap. The improvement in the cameras alone is a justification.

Hey - can we pretend our cameras and GPS units still have some value. They cost me a lot of money.