Speaking of tracking

[christopher575]

I just saw that there's another missing hiker.

Isn't there some inexpensive way to make some gear hikers could carry that would make them easy to find?

Comments

[scearley.livejournal.com]

sort of.

The trouble is the tree cover blocking the outgoing signals. If you get lost in the desert, yeah. No problem (relatively). But in a thick forest, like we have around here....

Think of it this way: You get in an elevator and suddenly you lose a cell phone signal, even though the transmission towers are a block away. Now you move out to the forest where the tree canopy is dense, and the nearest tower is miles away....or a satellite in the case of a GPS tracker.

[ursaloco2.livejournal.com]

Cell phones/flares/not gettin' lost in the first place...
*sheesh*

[notlostonme.livejournal.com]

Seriously. It's like $5US to rent a sherpa.

[ursaloco2.livejournal.com]

I think the knowledge that I'd have to pay for them to find my ass would keep me from getting lost.

the idea that I'd have to be executed in the electric chair has been a good enough deterrent to my murdering some folks, so...

[monsterbrain.livejournal.com]

Isn't there some inexpensive way to make some gear hikers could carry that would make them easy to find?

Someone should make a rocket-propelled javelin sort of thing that pops open into a giant Day-Glo orange umbrella onces it goes above the tree canopy. Then it would get stuck up there and be easy to see from above.

[popcultureicon.livejournal.com]

embed a gps device and a radio beacon and we might have something.

[scearley.livejournal.com]

this idea is getting cheaper by the minute.

[badrobot68.livejournal.com]

Why do they think people are obligated to go look for them? That is what I want to know.

Off to climb a mountain? Bye bye. Have fun.

[weirdlovemaker.livejournal.com]

I say strap car alarms to them and then send people randomly into the woods to try and get some sleep.

I don't know about anyone else, but those fucking alarms wake me up from MILES away.

[weirdlovemaker.livejournal.com]

My sentiments exactly. Either that, or make everyone in the world sign "stupid activity waivers" when they graduate high school.

[popcultureicon.livejournal.com]

Hey, gps is cheap.

[badrobot68.livejournal.com]

Parents need to drill this into their kids' heads. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR ACTIONS. Don't be an idiot.

[weirdlovemaker.livejournal.com]

No, no one is! Didn't you know that? We're all unique snowflakes. And if you aren't, it's someone else's fault.

[sgtred.livejournal.com]

My phone generally gets a signal just about anywhere in the Cascades. Of course, some areas get a transmitter block, but that where I would just move to a new location.

A big problem with most hikers is hypothermia. It makes a person do really stupid things and the person thinks they're making a good choice when they do it. Removing more clothes because one feels "hot" when the core temp is really going down, walking in a circle, leaving important equipment behind, going off the trial to take a "short cut", are all common mistakes when experiencing hypothermia.

Bottom line: hikers should NEVER hike alone.

[mika-says.livejournal.com]

Raccoons always make off with the GPS devices! Don't you hate that?

[doughynut.livejournal.com]

It's called GPS. They really aren't that 'spensive anymore.

[gomezticator.livejournal.com]

Aren't cell phones trackable by this point?

[mr-quackenbush.livejournal.com]

sure, they're called flare guns.

[mr-quackenbush.livejournal.com]

Also, whatever happened to the basics of how to get unlost in the wilderness: Head downhill until you come to water, follow the water until you find a path, follow the path in the "road not less travelled" direction, find yourself back in civilization.