EXACTLY! I bought my ACR ResQLink+ from REI. With the REI dividend and a $50 rebate from ACR the total was a tad over $200. Mrs. Wayne said that she didn't need to chit chat when I was out in the woods. She wanted me found if something happened. The PLB rides on the shoulder strap of my pack. Don't leave home without it.
Wayne
Eddie Valiant: "That lame-brain freeway idea could only be cooked up by a toon."
https://wayne-ayearwithbigfootandbubba.blogspot.com
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Good idea . . . great idea. Did you send in the paper registration?
In a situation like this PLB will work only if you are capable of activating it. The nice thing about Spot is that it has a tracking mode that transmits your location every once in a while, so if you become incapacitated e.g. you slip off a cliff it will keep transmitting even if you cannot press that SOS button. The not-so-nice thing is the subscription fee which actually makes me wonder if I should switch to Garmin inReach.
One thing you can try is geocaching. First learn basics of the game, and once you get an idea how to play it use your gps (or phone) to get (magnetic) bearing & distance to a geocache and then bushwhack using a compass instead of following a trail. Remember to do this in places where it is safe e.g. no cliffs, swamps, dangerous stream crossings etc. Use your gps or phone to keep track where you came from and use your tracks to go back to your starting point if you encounter some obstacles that are difficult to get around. Start small until you gain some experience and feel comfortable with going off trail. Go places with cell phone coverage in case something went really wrong.
So it does sound like I did "start" correctly, as I do have a PLB.
AmKrzys;2181097: Might want to do more research. A PLB transmitter is notably more powerful than a personal tracker. Plus, the PLB utilizes more than one satellite system and interfaces through a government agency. I personally believe the PLB to be the best option for a last resort call for help.
you wont use all that(lensatic compass, Ipad) for the AT, maybe if you got way off trail you would use the compass but the trail itself is basically a hiking superhighway marked with a blaze every 500- 1000 feet through the woods and signs at virtually every road and trail intersection.
also most of the AT is so heavily covered with trees that there is almost no place to shoot good bearings making a lensatic compass virtually useless. just use a basic compass something like Suunto M-3D
I come from a country where if you don't have a PLB, especially if solo, youré an idiot, full stop. I can understand if you are on a busy track like the AT not carrying one, but I still did this year on the AT and will again when I finish next year. No matter how experienced you are at navigation and bushcraft, s%$t happens and it's a $200,149 gram insurance policy against becoming a statistic.
"He was a wise man who invented beer." Plato
i think the searchers checked all they could, looking at the gps tracks on this map they were all around her...
https://appalachiantrail.com/wp-cont...MAP_MWS_01.jpg
Thanks!
So maybe Inchworm moved around a bit during the first days, by bad luck as if she was hiding from the SAR.
I'm sorry but with maps you need to now where you are in order to know where to go. Inchworms limited abilities in navigation demonstrate the main problem with maps. You have to maintain positional awareness in order to use them. I believe a gps app with directional capability would probably helped her much more, it would have displayed the trail and given her a general direction to walk toward it. I totally support the use of maps in remote wilderness as a foolproof navigation tool, but only if you have the skill to use them. However she had a functioning cell phone and that was probably her best tool if it's full capabilities had been used.
I just wouldn't be able to sit in one spot for days and then weeks waiting for someone to find me. I've been lost in the woods before and did exactly what a previous poster suggested...found a spring and followed it until it joined a few other springs and turned into a creek that eventually flowed into a large reservoir. I started at the top of a mountain but I knew there was a road and a campground that ran along the shore of the lake and if I followed that water I would find my way back.
if she had a map and even moderate intelligence she would have seen that there was a road directly downhill from her position.
she wasnt nearly miles out in the middle of nowhere that some stories seem to make it.
anyone else find it odd that the SAR people apparently couldnt make it there in a day because it was so far in, but a TV crew can manage to make it to the spot?
sure, searching s you move is slow, but they cant pick up the next day where they left off?
If the SAR knew where to go, they would have been there within hours.
We had a rather dramatic accident here recently, when a guy fell in a doline, and only in his 4th night out (OK, actually "in" the hole) he managed to message his GPS location - the SAR Team was up and at his point within about 4 hours.
But as the long story of Inchworm got told, they searched at a different area miles off for days due to a reported sighting of Inchworm there - which was wrong. Days later they started from scratch, combing through vast areas.
Why they didn't find her although the above maps indicates that some team member(s) have actually passed by her location - who knows.
Is it customary for SAR folks to periodically blow whistles and listen for a response along the search route?