Re:How Not to Go Off the Grid
by ok_dad on Thursday October 13, 2022 @06:57PM
(#33197561)
The natural area around there had very bad cell service, plus I recognize the little store they made a call from in the article as the little store inside Salish lodge. Plus, it was 45 minutes from the trail where they got picked up by the couple, not 45 minutes from Seattle that they mentioned in the article?
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There are many natural areas around Western WA with poor-to-non-existing cell coverage. It's pretty bad around the Lodge specifically, true - I live in North Bend (which is also near the Snoqualmie Falls and the Lodge), and coverage on the outskirts of the city is bad enough that when we moved here a few years ago, we had to get phones that could do GAN / WiFi Calling to have reliable service.
But the article specifically talks of the Olympic National Park, which is also mostly uncovered. And even if they were hiking somewhere in the eastern parts of it, there's no trailhead anywhere on the Olympic peninsula that's 45 minutes away from the Salish Lodge. OTOH 45 minutes is exactly how long it takes to get from the Lodge to Seattle in normal traffic, so it would make sense if the car was already towed there by then. But then the article specifically talks about "45-minute drive back to the trailhead".
I suspect it's just a case of a non-local journalist misunderstanding some of the pieces from the interviews and cobbling the story together the best they could.
Ah I see, yea I’m not from around there either, so maybe things got mixed up in the article because I totally missed that they were hiking in Olympic park. Hopefully the girls didn’t need to eat the unexpected hotel stay, wherever it was.