So far we've had good luck with beacon call-outs. The cases we've responded to have almost entirely been folks that were legitimately stuck or lost, and yes, they were somewhat under-prepared for the situation they were in, but that's just the modern reality of outdoor play and it makes no more sense to expect all recreationists to be perfectly prepared than it makes to expect all software developers to build some idealized unit-tested software.
I have heard from other SAR groups that the beacons have been a mixed bag, and they're getting too many call-outs from people who just got tired and want a ride home. Those people deserve a verbal chewing-out from the local coordinator, but on balance I'd still rather everyone go out with beacons and have a good time and hit that button if they need to.
Agreed. Recognizing that you're in over your head and calling for help before a life-threatening situation is an incredibly difficult call to make. A story I've heard is of someone struggling on a trip with friends deciding not to make the call for rescue, and then falling to their deaths from an exposed part of the trail.
The other argument for calling for help when you're in over your head in a non-critical situation (e.g dehydrated and exhausted and a ways out) is that it's hopefully lower risk for the rescuers than other SAR situations.
Eg; if I need an air evac vs. I broke my leg and can't walk out. Or if I can get medical advice from a rescuer. Similarly I can communicate dangers the rescuers may face.
The InReach also has tracking, so if you go missing and don't activate the beacon, they'll have a very good idea of where to look for you. I've also found it very useful for arranging pickups/meetings if I'm behind schedule or plans change.
The device itself is about the same price as a PLB, but there is a service charge. The basic plan is $15/mo, but you can turn it on and off at any time, so if you only go on a couple of trips per year, the price isn't overwhelmingly more than a PLB.
It seems like charging people for the cost of the rescue would solve that problem.
It's not just a theoretical possibility that people will hesitate to call for rescue if they think they'll be charged for it, it's something that has already happened in a lot of cases. When people delay a call for rescue, it complicates search and rescue efforts and may even further endanger rescuers.
A great example of this is injuries that worsen to the point that they require evac by helicopter. Helicopters are an over-used tool in SAR and they are extremely dangerous. It's much safer for us if we can just hike out to you, triage a minor injury, and escort you out on foot or by litter if necessary. If we arrive and you're delirious with pain, exhaustion, or dehydration, those options have just gone off the table.
Another really unfortunate related issue is the number of people that think they have to wait a certain period of time before reporting someone overdue or missing. That's not at all the case, especially where children are involved. We would much rather get out while the potential search area is only a few square miles than get called when it's gone up to 30 or more square miles, even if it means we more frequently get woken up in the middle of the night only to get a "disregard, subject located" notification 20 minutes later.
I have a number of statements available from various SAR groups and other articles on this subject if anyone's interested.
I bought rescue insurance the next day.
However, people that spend much time away from civilization ought to have Global Rescue or something similar. I support government and non profit rescue efforts and funding, but ultimately people participating in relatively risky adventures should bear some responsibility for having rescue insurance — and such insurance is pretty cheap. I’ve seen hikers with $300 hiking poles, $300 hiking boots, expensive GoreTex and yet they scoff at paying for insurance to cover the very expensive costs for rescue. A helicopter can cost $1000+ per hour to operate and people going into the backcountry are assuming a level of risk that they ought to be responsible for insuring.
As far as I know, though, most modern studies show that while there is some amount of risk compensation (people engage in riskier behavior after adopting a safety apparatus), the compensation is less than the benefit of the safety measure.
With beacons in particular, a potential compounding factor is that many people may not have gone out into the wilderness at all before beacons became available. So maybe there is a net increase in beacon usage but it could be because of an even greater increase in outdoor participation.
I think it's a net good for people to spend time in the outdoors, both for them personally and because it encourages society as a whole to prioritize preserving the environment. So if that results in more people needing to be rescued, it may still be worth it.
AEB deliberately is a scary experience to prevent this mistake. If your car's AEB triggers you'll be suddenly and violently brought to a complete halt in order that the feeling is "Oh shit, I fucked up, is everybody OK?" not "Wow I'm a great driver".
With a beacon the experience is likewise not great. It's not "Activate beacon, rescuers magically teleport in and save the day". There's zero real feedback, so most people will be worried that it hasn't been effective, nobody is coming. After an hour, or two, or more, rescuers may show up looking for you. That's a long time to be lost or injured in the middle of nowhere.
That's why Return Link Messages in the Galileo network are so interesting. Basically, there's a super low bandwidth message channel embedded in the GNSS data stream. Its sole purpose is to tell beacons "We saw your beacon and we're responding to it".
This is so true.
I live in the desert, and it's amazing the number of people who simply don't take the natural world seriously.
The dead and rescued are almost always tourists. And for some reason, almost always from Europe (I suspect because my observation has been that Asians tend to travel in large groups on air conditioned buses). They drive rental cars into deep sand and get stuck and die. They run out of gas and get stuck and die. They never bring enough food or water and don't know what to do in an emergency.
I was at a hotel on the Navajo Reservation (Arizona/New Mexico/Utah) about a year ago and there was a British couple arguing with the manager that of course their cell phone should work, they bought it in San Francisco. I tired to explain to them that the whole reason people visit places like this is to get away from technology. Even though I'm sure there are remote places in Europe, they had no concept that there are places in the world where there's no cell service.
A couple of years ago there was an article in the newspaper about a German guy who decided to rent a Harley Davidson and drive through the desert like some kind of David Hasselhof fantasy. It was 115° and he was in full-on black leather gear. They found him dead on the side of the road, still sitting on his motorcycle with his helmet on.
--:--
Editing to add the results from a four-second Google News search:
authorities in California launched a search for Pi-Wei Hung, 40, early Sunday afternoon... the woman’s vehicle was discovered stuck in the sand on the shoulder... and then died in the heat as she tried to walk out of the area. The high temperature that day was 113 degrees.
a 60-year-old tourist from Germany died from heat exposure... not far from his where his motorcycle was parked, upright and in working order, in the 118-degree heat.
...two French tourists got their car stuck in loose sand... no one knew their specific travel route, and they were out of cellphone range in temperatures above 110 degrees.
https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...
(I would check, but I've stuff to do and I've already been down that rabbit hole once.)
There are a few, here and there, but it's just completely different. Everywhere in Italy (I lived there a number of years) there are people. It might just be a little mountain hut, or a cabin or something, but there are pretty much always other people around.
Here in Oregon, I can ride my bike to places where I almost won't see other people all day.
1: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/World_po...
As someone from a purple region on that map (having lived near Aachen and Amsterdam), I can't imagine what it's like to be more than a few minutes driving away from the nearest occupied house or named road. The most alone I've ever been was probably in a German forest and that was almost certainly still within hearing distance from other people, if not immediately then almost certainly within 30 minutes of me wanting to reach someone.
Not sure if it would frighten me or if I'd be fine to be actually unreachable for a few hours.
If you live in an area of high density, people are your problems and it probably makes sense to you to generally limit their freedoms in favor of government control and general law and order.
If you live in an area of low density, you're immediate problems are generally not people, may be more survival related, and you are used to operating with MUCH greater independence, freedom, and self-reliance.
Applied to issues like gun control, government assistance programs, and taxation, it aligns pretty well.
Personally, I'm from an area where I routinely work in areas that are hours from cell reception or any form of help. I drive a big 4wd truck and a dirty 2-stroke chainsaw out of necessity. And, I carry a concealed pistol with me in the field.
This is often unfathomable to people that live in the bay area or Europe and I face criticism for my truck, for embracing individual rights to firearms, and I'm constantly faced with disdain from urban folks who like to insinuate that rural people are just stupid and ignorant. These people have never stared down a mountain lion 20 feet away, crouched and ready to pounce, lived without power or running water, nor faced a road wash-out that cut them off from civilization for weeks, or faced dozens of other situations I can recount where things like having the right to carry a loaded rifle in their truck might make a lot of sense. Nor can they understand the thin margins and lack of cash-flow people have to survive on in these places.
Very different worlds, and unfortunately it seems tough for people in different areas to acknowledge that they each have different needs.
Interesting thought, I had not considered the more vs less regulating thing in this way before.
Specifically about gun ownership, perhaps rather than a general allowance or prohibition on gun ownership, maybe it makes sense to allow those that work in rural areas to carry? Or just that you need some sort of license? It's not as if there exist no guns in Europe: there are gun clubs where people go to, uh, shoot I guess? Not even sure. They have a license and can keep all sorts of guns at the club, at home, and (locked away) on the direct way from and to there. Hunters carry hunting guns into the forest. And of course police that brings guns where ever. Edit: Oh, and look at Norwegian gun ownership. While that's hunting guns that are somehow different, they don't seem to have the issues that the USA has with guns there. /edit. So we also just adapt the rules to whatever is practical, it's not an outright ban on anything with gunpowder.
From what I read about research/statistics on general population gun ownership, generally it's better not to allow it, but that does not mean I can't understand that you carry one in your situation or that I think there shouldn't be an exception for that.
> I'm constantly faced with disdain from urban folks who like to insinuate that rural people are just stupid and ignorant.
I was thinking about this a bit, trying to figure out if I may have that bias as well. Sure, those who work with their hands are typically less educated, but generally working in a rural area (without saying whether you work some physical labor job)... for all I know it's a high tech job building wind turbines or whatever. But then, I guess we don't have so many "rural people" so I wouldn't know it from real life. I do know of the stereotype from books that have "backwards villages".
Some interesting thoughts, thanks for sharing!
More like days or more in vast areas of the US. Mind you, most people don't go to those places. But, even within popular national parks, you can go to places--albeit probably not without high-clearance 4WD and ability to use it or on foot--where you probably won't happen to run into anyone for a long time.
Unreachable for a few hours+ is absolutely the norm in many many places in the western US and even in some other areas like Maine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steens_Mountain
The "town" at the base of it is called Frenchglen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frenchglen,_Oregon - it has a little store and hotel.
From there it's about an hour to the nearest town with any kind of services like a hospital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burns,_Oregon - there are about 5000 people in the area.
From there it's another 2.5 hours, roughly (in good weather) to where I live which is a town of nearly 100K.
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.9351809,-119.0716963,10.06z/...
I assume that the 'regions' that were painted in the map are oblasts (Russian equivalents to counties) - so if there's a giant oblast, with a medium-sized town at its center, but few people living in the outskirts, the entire region gets painted orange.
One should keep in mind that the map is 25 years old, meaning it doesn't really show the post-soviet development of Eastern Europe or the population growth of Asia and Africa. But I don't think that the distribution of "empty" (less than 10 people per square km) has changed much, so for this purpose the map is perfectly adequate.
There are areas of grey (less than 2 people/sqkm) around the coasts everywhere. A processing artifact, or some indication of low water marks? I don't think the tidal area can ever be 20 km wide, but it's very sloppy if it's just bad drawing. (There's already a cyan outline for the coast! Why add grey areas too?)
Then I'm certain there are areas in Wicklow, Ireland with less than 2 residents/sqkm [0]. But the whole area is shown not one but 4 levels more populated, at 100+ residents/sqkm, comparable to Las Vegas and ahead of Buenos Aires which is shown at 41-100 residents/sqkm.
The resolution of the map appears to be at the 10km level, but I think this is misleading and in most of the world it's actually based on data at the country level or one level below.
One of the most surprising things to me about the map before I looked closely was the lack of wilderness in Turkey. If it's that dense all the way through, it should be a massive power. But aren't there mountains and deserts? Probably just the map being lazy again.
[0] https://maps.app.goo.gl/cktt79N4FDLegF7a6 - not the most egregiously incorrect measurement on the map, but one I know personally
This can be deceptive and sometimes add new dangers also. there are areas in Europe close to towns but with thousands of illegal waterholes hidden under grasses or a shrub. You just step over a grass and fall before seeing it.
Last year about a few hours drive south of Sydney I found a very young German couple who were on a otherwise completely deserted and unpatrolled beach. They walked down from the parking spot to the beach and spent a few minutes wading around in the water.
After speaking to them, I found that they'd flown into the country the previous day, rented the van that morning and this was the first beach they had found. They said the only thing that kept them from swimming out was a worry of sharks. I had to spend a few minutes educating them about rip currents, and pointed out that they'd just been wading in what looked like the biggest one on the beach.
Perhaps the issue is that tourists in general are very unprepared for other countries wilderness?
Iceland had stunningly good coverage; no matter how remote you were, it seemed like full service everywhere. (granted, I did't cross the center of the island).
Had no cell coverage on the Rallarvegen in Norway, which surprised me.
But yeah, it's all nothing like the US.
Okay yeah but that's very anecdotal. Just because there is a lot of people getting stuck that assume technology would just work, does not mean there weren't a lot of people getting stuck with no backup plan whatsoever. And I wouldn't trust memory either, besides that it is very fallible people also see the past as better than today (from various studies).
I would be interested if you have news (Google-branded or otherwise) that reports it has gone up since cell phone coverage became ubiquitous in many countries, corrected for things like plane ticket prices and car rental availability near a desert (i.e. more people trying it rather than actually a higher percentage of unprepared people).
I suspect that being willing to buy a $200 beacon means you're aware enough of the risks and of what safety gear is out there to seek extra protection when possible.
https://www.outsideonline.com/1986496/search-and-rescue-publ...
Your mileage may vary, each rescue team has different situations. In some areas they get too many calls (remember a call takes the rescuers away from their family and other thing they would do instead) and should do something about those who didn't make at least some attempt to be prepared.
In most situations, the cost of a rescue is not nearly as significant as media accounts portray. People love to cite the cost of helicopters in USCG rescues. USCG pilots need to fly a certain number of hours; those hours can come from missions or training sessions. When they fly more missions, they reduce their training hours.
Creating a rescue policy for really high-traffic areas like the most popular national parks is a different story. Those are outlier situations, and we shouldn't have the same policy for SAR in average rural areas that we do for popular national parks.
Edit: I meant to add another reason for not charging for rescue. I have been on missions where we reached the missing person, and the person initially refused our help because they thought we were going to charge them. The same conversation played out on the mountain that we're seeing play out in the comments here. In the end, these people are very happy to receive the assistance they needed; they were not going to get out of the mountains on their own.
https://www.colorado.gov/dola/search-and-rescue-fund
The state has set up a voluntary contribution system where hikers and other recreationalists can purchase a search-and-rescue card. Hunting/fishing licenses, off-highway vehicle permits, and other similar permits also contribute to the fund.
These cards are not mandatory for rescue, but rather, if a card/permit-holder is rescued, the localities' rescue costs are defrayed by the state fund.
99.99% of the times I've spend in the forest and desert has been "safe". It is the .01% and .001%s that get you.
I haven't analyzed the data, but these trends have definitely changed our callout pattern. We used to get regular calls for people who were overdue, and the only communication was with the person who reported them overdue. When cell phones first came out, it seemed we got a few more calls from people who had gone less prepared. But we're a coastal community, and handheld VHF radios played the role of a cell phone in our community before cell phones came out, so basic communication didn't change drastically at first.
I think things started to change once everyone had a phone, and there were enough towers to have decent coverage throughout our mountainous area. We get far fewer callouts where there's been no direct communication with the missing person. Now we tend to have direct communication with the person, or we are talking to a reporting party who has had some direct communication with the missing person. We are responding to known locations more often - the person is lost, but we know where they are and our mission is to reach them, and guide them safely out. Or they're injured/ immobile, and we go right to them and evacuate them.
Now we're starting to see people who are following others' routes using apps like Gaia, and getting in over their heads. People see a route on Gaia, and they think it's a trail or a clear route. In our mountains, experienced people are often bushwhacking through steep terrain where there's only one route that works, and if you don't know how to navigate that terrain you can get into dangerous cliffed-out areas quickly. And once you get off route, it can be really hard to get back to a safe place because there's no safe direct route back to the GPS track.
All of this has been exacerbated by the local effects of climate change. We're in a rainforest, and the vast majority of our days used to be overcast with drizzle. A good deal of our callouts were for people who went out in a break of clear weather, then got stuck when the clouds rolled back in and they couldn't see where to go. We get much longer periods of clear weather - weeks and months instead of hours and days - so people are going out in clear weather and coming back in clear weather. We also have ice fields and glaciers that are receding, leaving behind blue ice that's much more difficult to navigate than old snow, and loose silt and rocks that's much easier to slide on than exposed, weathered dirt with vegetation.
The interaction of people and wilderness is always going to be there, and the tools available are always going to influence how people interact with the wilderness. It's not always getting better or worse. People adapt to the tools available, and sometimes use them to get into more dangerous situations, and sometimes use them to avoid and get out of dangerous situations.
There are some communities where it's competitive to get onto a SAR team. This typically happens in large urban areas right next to popular outdoor locations. If there are 10k rock climbers in an area, there might be so many people interested in climbing SAR that they have limited spots available. That's pretty unusual, though.
SAR is usually administered through the local sheriff's department, although it can differ. Here in Alaska the state troopers are responsible for SAR, but our team is based at our local volunteer fire department. I would encourage you to get in touch with the people responsible for SAR in your area, and ask what it takes to get involved. Often times there are many different ways you can contribute, and it's a tremendously satisfying endeavor. It's also a really nice balance for sitting in front of a screen much of the day!
Yep, I'm in Denver, CO. D:
I'm going to pick something like this up before my next Wyoming adventure.
13 5-star ratings - everyone should have one, I haven't had to use mine but it gives me peace of mind
1 1-star rating - gave it to my son because he jet skis. After a while it was rusted. Gave it a shot, didn't work.
Reminds me of this xkcd https://xkcd.com/937/
I believe COSPAS SARSAT and the relevant US authorities got it together so that it is now possible to arrange a test carve out, agree with everybody when and where the units will be tested and not cause helicopters of annoyed rescuers to arrive so long as you stay in the agreed area and only test in the agreed time frame. But it can't be made trivial, so chances are only really hardcore survivalist outfits will do that work.
It is the best/cheapest insurance one can buy.
That being said, this is an interesting spin on the number. I've been hearing from friends on Search and Rescue crews that an increasing number of people are going out hiking being completely unprepared for any possible emergency, thinking that they'll just use their cell phone if anything goes wrong. I wonder if any of these beacon carriers fall closer into that camp than true serious conditions, though I suspect that simply carrying a beacon puts you in a higher preparedness bracket than the cell-phone only crew.