EISPIRATEN

The couple on the date at the San Jacinto tram had no map and no knowledge of the area, and they just started randomly wandering around. Kind of unsurprising that they ran into trouble. On the way up in the tram, you get a very clear impression of how incredibly steep and rugged the canyons below the station are, so it's extra mind-boggling that they decided to head downhill.

Absolutely. They were dressed all wrong and hardly brought any water. From the comments he makes describing what happened the guy sounds very intelligent and logical but maybe we're so used to being safe and comfortable all the time, people are just unable to think about the "what if's."

After the couple first became lost they heard other hikers nearby and called out, but were not heard. I wonder if a whistle would have worked.

I saw one of those TV survival stories about a similar incident (might have been that exact incident, actually). I got the sense that the woman learned the wrong lesson. At the end she was really thankful to god for being rescued. I feel like it would be more productive to thank SAR, and to get a clear idea of how she got into that situation in the first place. And to not repeat those mistakes. I want to say they went up to elevation right before a winter storm came in. They had no idea where they were going, and were completely unprepared in terms of clothing and shelter. And when the storm DID come in, they hunkered down instead of descending. Is that the same incident, David?

Wear the whistle around your neck or else it's useless when you can't get to your pack, etc.

Dima, the incident was in May and I don't think a storm had come in. They sheltered in a crevasse the first night and then followed a stream down, which probably would have led to their death if not for the freaky coincidence after they became trapped. The woman was religious and prayed a lot throughout their ordeal but at the end of the episode she thanks the late John Donovan, because what really saved their lives was his emergency kit. An experienced hiker won’t learn much from watching this, but I thought it was a very powerful story.

hikeUp, I was thinking the same thing. Yesterday a whistle would only have helped if I could've grabbed it within a few seconds. But I’m not sure I want it hanging from my neck all the time, and I might forget to put it on. Maybe I'll attach it to my hat, which I almost always wear, or to my belt with a small spring clip or something.

A lot of packs have a whistle built into the pectoral strap buckle.

Riverside Mountain Rescue Unit publishes their reports of their missions both in a newsletter and online. They're really interesting reading, and in the aggregate they let you draw conclusions about what are the common mistakes, common things people do to get successfully rescued, and so on. Most of the stories involve people using phones to call for a rescue, and then the rescuers either find them by communicating on the phone or they find them by walking the area and looking or yelling. Sometimes a helicopter locates them by air. A PLB or Spot is probably better than a phone, since it gives your location and is more likely than a phone to work. I'm not a cell phone user, but if it's winter I usually carry my PLB.

General advice is that once you realize you're in trouble and there is likely to be a search and rescue mission, you should stay put to make it easier to find you.

HikeUp wrote: ↑Wear the whistle around your neck or else it's useless when you can't get to your pack, etc.

II guess twice I didnt have to worry about that....since both times it was swept away.
Then again I didnt have a very highly experienced survivor or whatever.
Then theres is time my pack split apart.

One of those happen on a planned overnight....I planned to sleep primitive...as a joke, but it turned out real.
Maybe I should apply for the very highly.or very very thing.. many do I need..
But Sass really doesnt like me.....'have you ever taken that test on yourself'....'

dima wrote: ↑At the end she was really thankful to god for being rescued. I feel like it would be more productive to thank SAR, and to get a clear idea of how she got into that situation in the first place.

I once happened upon an abandoned tent that was all torn up and littered with chewing tobacco tins. I found a diary that talked about god a lot. I still wonder what happened to that person.

Did the damage to the tent look like the kind of thing that would happen if the rapture took place and the person was torn out of the tent and lifted up to the sky?

bcrowell wrote: ↑Did the damage to the tent look like the kind of thing that would happen if the rapture took place and the person was torn out of the tent and lifted up to the sky?

Haha, sort of. That's probably what happened, now that I think about it. One of the diary entries reads: "Jesus woke me up 4:20 seems serious."

I have a spreadsheet list of everything I could possibly want on a day hike. For a particular hike, I check off the items I think are appropriate for that hike and cross out the others. I think a generic list for all hikes is a bit mind-bending.

Regarding cell phones, there was a comment that suggested a 911 call on a cell phone does not give your location. I would look into this. I believe a 911 call on a smartphone does give your GPS location. I called 911 once on the Skyline trail when a hiker collapsed. Unfortunately, I used my clamshell phone, which determines location much less accurately. I should have used his smartphone. I had a SPOT, but decided to call 911 because I could make a connection, and thought it would be helpful to be able to converse and provide details. I had a great deal of trouble with the 911 operator, which I believe is not unusual. Once you are communicating with SAR people, it is much easier.

The Riverside Mountain Rescue reports do make interesting reading. But their subjects tend to be so egregiously careless and unprepared that an intelligent and experienced hiker does not have much to learn from them.

Edward wrote: ↑I have a spreadsheet list of everything I could possibly want on a day hike. For a particular hike, I check off the items I think are appropriate for that hike and cross out the others. I think a generic list for all hikes is a bit mind-bending.

Yeah, I have it organized like this:

- checklist for mountain runs
- checklist for rock climbing
- checklist for a day hike
- checklist for multi-day backpacking
- additions to the hiking checklists if there will be cold weather
- additions to the hiking checklists if there's snow
- additions to the hiking checklists if it's more like mountaineering

> The Riverside Mountain Rescue reports do make interesting reading. But their subjects tend to be so egregiously careless and unprepared that an intelligent and experienced hiker does not have much to learn from them.

I would say that applies to 3/4 of them, but the other 1/4 feel more relevant.

The annual Accidents in North American Climbing is a lot better in this regard. Rock climbers and mountaineers tend to be pretty good at analyzing logically what went wrong.

What continues to shock me is how few people I see on trails who have a map and map reading skills. Like they literally are walking up a trail into the wilderness with no information about the area, and no plan other than to walk up a trail. One way you can tell is that they ask you how far it is to the top of the mountain. I always try to answer this kind of question with a smile and an encouraging word, but it's honestly pretty frightening. How can someone set out to climb a mountain without any information about what the route is or how long it is?

Yes, it is strange how many people do not carry a map. And often when they are in an area where they can have an excellent Tom Harrison map both in 'paper' and on their phone. I have read more than a few Riverside Mountain Rescue reports of people who have come to a trail junction, and turned the wrong way, even when they came up that way. Like people who go right (west) at the trail junction below the summit of San Jacinto, when they should go left (east) to return to the tram station. And while I rarely use my compass, many people seem to have no sense of cardinal directions. I am not a great navigator myself, by the way, I find it easy to become what I call 'locally lost'.

I used to buy Accidents in North American Mountaineering every year and and read it cover to cover. I think the last time I looked at one I saw a complaint that privacy concerns were reducing the information available to them.

Depends on if I’m on my bike. I have a buncha shit in my bike bags all the time. If not, I always carry a knife, some sort of light (either headlamp or surefire light), ferro rod and striker, probably layers, and maybe a lighter. Also some dumb snacks I’m sick of like apricots or some insufferable bar.

If I’m out doing a me-type adventure, I usually have some big fixed blade knife for bushwhacking and related tasks. I was feeling modest a while ago and stopped carrying fixed blade knives longer than a few inches years ago, but found I got sick of not being able to make a decent bivy site, chop wood, bushwhack, and other practical tasks, so I usually have a machete type blade on me as well as something tiny and easy for small tasks like cutting bandage or whatever crap. I almost always have a headlamp (looking for a new cool one), and sometimes I have a 2 cell Surefire light, which is real bright and allows me to spot and track trails waaaaaaaaaaaay better than any headlamp I’ve used, as well as being off my head. I find headlamp straps often give me a headache. I hate wearing shit on my head, but obviously a headlamp is supremely practical. I might buy some super cool high speed Petzl one to replace my cheap one.

If I’m alone or out doing most stuff in the hills, I have around my neck my dog tag chain, which has a ferro rod, ceramic striker, and USAF SERE brass compass. If I am recovered, the dog tag is of obvious use. The ferro rod is tiny and a total pain in the ass to use, so I’m gonna change that up and maybe just carry one of my regular rods in a pocket, as they’re mega easy to use. The compass is great for general land nav using terrain association. It’s not a super fancy lensatic compass, which is fine for around here or anywhere I can see shit. I was trained to do land nav in Fort Benning, Georgia, which despite how much cadre talked about dumb little hills like the Stairway to Heaven or whatever (honest work with a ruck), there aren’t really big hills there. I got lost easily surrounded by pine trees goddamn everywhere. Out here I can see a peak, associate it with the contour lines on my map or my deep memory of the San Gabes, and make it work easily.

I rarely bring a map. I have shit loaded on my phone in several programs like maps.me, CalTopo, Gaia, Google Maps, and if going somewhere fancy I usually save a map in my images folder, but my phone sucks sometimes so I just go on memory. If going to an unfamiliar place alone on foot, I typically bring a good quality map like a Tom Harrison. I sometimes print a map and laminate it with packaging tape, marking stuff with a sharpie and so forth.

I typically bring layers. I’ve fucked up and forgotten layers before and become hypothermic two times or so before. Sorry mom. I almost always bring more than enough water, as I drink a lot and I’ve been badly dehydrated maybe twice in my life. It’s always worth the weight. It’s typically priority number one out here. I also almost always bring a filter, such as a Sawyer Squeeze with an aftermarket bladder cause the stock ones always fail near the top, or an MSR Trailshot, which is time consuming but handy.

I’ve started bringing pants on bushwhacks. Why not. I have enough scars and I don’t think my girlfriend gives a shit about them. She bought me the pants anyway, and thinks I’m handsome in them, even if I look like a futuristic Polish forest militia member.

What else? Sometimes a signal mirror. I don’t own a PLB and won’t pay for one. Maybe I would if I had kids, but I don’t want those either. I’ve used one for myself and my buddy once, and one for a guy who broke his leg skiing on Thunder Mtn once. They’re expensive. I’m pretty careful nowadays so I’m not worried and you can’t make me worry, at least not about natural things, just human things.

Sometimes I bring a pistol or shotgun because I’ve had friends murdered before and I never got to say goodbye and I miss them. Humans are animals, and while I consider myself a people person and I do honestly believe humans to basically be good, I have seen people die, seen people kill, lost friends countless ways, and I’m trained and not an idiot. I rarely bring a firearm though as I only really worry about humans, not bears or lions or maybe hybridized super bobcats with venomous darts and breast implants. I just worry about vatos and retards who think they’re tough shit. I have been shot at in the San Gabes before, and I have also wandered across pot farms on more than a few occasions. I am not going to stop wandering my land as a free man because some dipshit wants to grow low quality ditchweed in some unnamed canyon. I’m not looking for trouble but I am also not going to give up my world freely to those who would be ‘a strong negative force’. I’ll let the reddit sadboys spend more time in the city typing away at how one should be safe or whatever while they prepare to climb Baldy bowl in some pseudo crampons and trekking poles.

Lemme also drive home the point that I think STEEL 10-12 point REAL CRAMPONS are the STANDARD for winter mountain travel in the San Gabes. That isn’t to say you can’t use micro spikes, but for crying out loud I’ve seen some stupid shit happen on my travels and it’s almost always human error compounded by poor equipment choice. I have confidence in some experienced trail runner picking the right time to run up Baldy or Etiwanda with spikes and no axe cause they know their shit, but damn dude, some guys goin up 45 degree slopes with poles and snowshoes, might as well have scuba gear.

I wish I had a monocular, something with good glass and about 10x magnification, and a tough enough body to survive. That would be cool.

Ok thank you for listening to my ted talk. I didn’t vote for trump and I don’t hate masks so don’t label me a whatever, I’m just an asshole who is somehow still alive despite the universe and my own past mistakes. Bye.

Taco wrote: ↑I wish I had a monocular, something with good glass and about 10x magnification, and a tough enough body to survive. That would be cool.

Why do you want a monocular [monocle?] (besides the cool factor)?
You are really a closet Mr. Peanut fanatic, aren't you?

Taco wrote: ↑...hybridized super bobcats with venomous darts and breast implants.

Can we get a TED talk on that subject, please? Thank you.

Taco wrote: ↑I almost always have a headlamp (looking for a new cool one)

I've been using a Nitecore NU25 headlamp lately and am really happy I bought it. No batteries to replace - it has a micro-USB port to charge the internal battery. It's really light, and has several modes of lighting, including red light. The brightest mode is insanely bright and would probably blind oncoming traffic, but it only lasts 30 minutes at that energy output. The 1 lumen mode (inside the tent reading a book) lasts about 160 hours. The next step up is good for night hiking. I've never needed to use "insane mode" as I'm not a trail runner I usually have a 10000 mAh battery pack for my phone so I can also use it to recharge the light if I'm on a long trip. No more carrying three extra AAA batteries as spares!

The Nitecore guys have a bunch of different headlamps to choose from. I bought the NU25 as it seemed to fit my purposes.
https://www.nitecorestore.com/NITECORE- ... e-nu25.htm

You can file this under Nice try -- not!

My hiking buddy and I tend to walk somewhat apart, often out of each others sight. When I added a whistle to my gear (on a small carabiner that clips to my belt) I got him one too. We got into the habit of doing 2 short chirps as a way to say Hey, all good, and by the way I'm over here. That seemed like a good way to check in, so then I got the bright idea to make a short list of "whistle codes". They were all combinations of short and long chirps for various messages like don't come this way; I'm heading back, you went the wrong way; come back, let's take a break soon, etc. Anything with a long chirp indicated some kind of alert or problem. I felt clever about this until the first day we tried it. You can probably guess why it was a bad idea.

We were on a busier trail than we usually hike, whistling to one another every so often. A couple of hikers came around a bend and seeing the whistle on my belt, asked if we were the people that had been whistling. I said yes and one guy said that they were a little alarmed hearing that, because they thought someone might be in trouble. Oops.

The other thing we found was that if one of us was around a bend in the trail, or if it was windy we couldn't hear each other at all, even if we weren't very far apart. Though our whistles are quite loud.

About an hour after running into the guys who thought someone might be in trouble, we came across a family of 3 that hikes every weekend. Each of them had a walkie talkie. That was a "Doh!" moment for me because I have a pair of them sitting in a drawer, and obviously that would be a much better way to communicate.

So we'll try the walkie talkies next weekend. The whistles will be for getting someone else's attention if there's an emergency....and it's not too windy.

P.S. Great post, Taco.

Whenever I feel like summoning SAR to my location I whip out my whistle and blow a bunch of Morse code signals.

My experience with walkie talkies has been that they almost never help. If the reason you can't hear each other is that it's windy, then the wind blowing over the mic of the walkie talkie will also make the walkie talkie useless. If the problem is that there's a conflict about hiking speed or whether to stay together, then that disagreement won't be fixed by having a walkie talkie -- you'll just be disagreeing over the walkie talkie. Ditto if one person decides on one route and someone else wants to take some other route.

In a situation where not everybody knows the area well, you just need to stay together. In a situation where everybody knows the area well, then someone who takes off on their own just needs to realize that they're on their own. People also need to communicate in advance about their expectations. If the issue is that someone's hiking in a group of 30 people, and it gets unmanageable, then IMO the solution is just not to hike in such huge groups, which is an awful experience anyway.

For rock climbing, the utility of walkie talkies is pretty decent if you're doing multipitch trad. However, weight and space are at a premium, and the problems with wind still apply. I find it works better if my partner and I just discuss what's going on before starting each pitch, and if it looks like there might be a communication issue, we talk through how that would be likely to play out.

Whistles and walkie talkies would certainly never be on any list of mine. Carry a cell phone and use it for calls, if you can make a connection. If there is any chance of trouble on a hike, I think at least one person should carry a satellite-based SOS device. I carry a SPOT rather than a PLB, so I can send the check-in/OK message. So nobody triggers an SAR operation, if I am running late. Mirrors are for people with contacts, who have something in their eye they need to remove.

While nobody has ever shot at me, guns on hikes make me nervous. I know of a case where someone was killed by his in-laws hunting in Idaho. Said to be an accident, though I am not so sure. We were once hiking down a service road in the San Gabriel's when we encountered some people shooting guns. Probably target shooting at cans and bottles. But we did not close with them and engage them in conversation to confirm this. Instead we speeded up and breathed a sigh of relief after turning a corner.

I was once browsing in a store, when someone came in and announced to the salesperson that he wanted a green pack. Because last year someone had shot at him during hunting season. The salesperson said no, you want an orange pack. The answer: 'I had an orange pack last year, now I want a green one.'

As for rock climbing, I wonder about the long ropes that are standard today. While you can do longer pitches, rope drag and communication are often a problem on longer pitches. And in mountaineering you carry the rope far more than you use it. I had a 40 meter (131') rope, and rarely wanted a longer one. The classic routes were first done in an era when 120' ropes were standard.

I've thought of radios for climbing and canyoneering and stuff, when you have to explain something technical over the sound of wind or water etc. I haven't done much climbing lately so I haven't put it into practice.

I typically use a 70m rope, as I like to link pitches and I tend to move quickly. A shorter one seems to be smart for general mountaineering, but I haven't roped up for that much in the past, usually going alone and never on glaciated terrain.

That's sad to hear about the in law situation.

My own experience with firearms and outside world is it depends on the training of the one carrying it. If I have one on me it is likely nobody would know. Some people do not take firearms handling seriously. One must be disciplined. Freedom requires responsibility etc etc.

Taco wrote: ↑That's sad to hear about the in law situation.

The victim of the shooting was a medical doctor from my home town. The hunting trip to Idaho was his in-laws' idea. His parents had their doubts that it was an accident. Perhaps because the widow's period of mourning was quite short, she quickly found an allegedly-new boyfriend and went for a cruise, leaving her two children behind. After considerable agonizing, the parents decided to remain silent with their doubts, for fear of losing access to their grandchildren.

Loved your earlier post, Taco.

That seems shady.

Thanks. Cheers!

We've used walkie talkies on 4 or 5 hikes so far and they've worked out really well. We wear them on neck lanyards.

They're almost always used for fairly mundane things like when to take the next break, do you see the deer on that hillside, I'm stopping for a few minutes; keep to your left at the next junction. But while we tend to walk separately, especially on the climbs, we always have the day's route downloaded to our phones so comments about turns etc. are mostly just courtesy and not really necessary.

We've been about a mile apart once or twice and still had clear reception. When we have a chance we'll do some range tests in 2 or 3 settings to get a better feel for the practical limits. But they've been very helpful so far. I don't think that even a strong wind would hamper communications and we carry spare batteries. I'm sold.