Fun factoid: one of the cornerstone references for search-and-rescue planning is a reference work called "Lost Person Behavior"[1] ... it has empirical data on how people tend to behave in various situations based on categorization of their circumstances.

For example, despondent people have historically tended to behave differently from those suffering dementia or lost hikers or plane crash survivors.

The text includes statistical data on where lost people have been found relative to the initial planning point for a search (e.g. last known point) - how far away, what type of terrain, whether they tend to go uphill or downhill etc.

One of the largest step-changes in lost person behavior came with the general adoption of the cellphone: many, many people now tend to go uphill than before - specifically in the hope of finding cellphone coverage.

[1] https://www.dbs-sar.com/LPB/lpb.htm

>One of the largest step-changes in lost person behavior came with the general adoption of the cellphone: many, many people now tend to go uphill than before - specifically in the hope of finding cellphone coverage.

Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

Historically, it was pretty situational if you should stay put and make yourself safe and visible to rescuers or if you should try to self-rescue. But my sense is today the general impulse is to call for rescue--with the caveat that many of the places people are most likely to get in trouble are the least likely to have cell phone reception.

If you get high enough, in many places you’ll eventually hit line of sight to at least some cell tower. I’ve gone deep into wilderness areas and it isn’t uncommon to get cell coverage somewhere on a ridge line or mountain peak. Often strong enough that you can hit Facebook, upload pictures, download offline maps, or even videos.

It’s kind of nuts, really.

Can confirm. In general, Death Valley has no signal. However, when my wife and I biked from saline valley to racetrack valley up the Lippincott road, we kept finding little spots of reasonably strong cell signal - enough that we were able to wait here: 8584JCR4+6C and get enough signal to download a new audiobook.

Our whole time left in DV, we never found any other reliably strong signal.

As of a few years ago Furnace Creek had cell service (it didn't used to) but Death Valley as a whole doesn't have much coverage. You were presumably seeing a tower somewhere in the mountains west of Death Valley.

Headed downhill into a ravine might make sense if you're looking for water (water flows down, after all).

I'm mildly amused that we have trained ourselves into anti-survival behaviors- head uphill where there is less water, more exposure to elements, etc. (of course, being uphill might make you more visible, but that's assuming anyone is coming anytime immediately soon)

Depends entirely on the situation. If a ten minute hike uphill gives you the ability to make a phone call, it's a pretty reasonable first step.