NDR - Nature's Teeth and Claws

Ray

Ray

Well-known member
So another person has followed their GPS to their (assumed) death. Following Chris "super tramp" McCandless as an inspiration, a teen has vanished into some of the harshest high desert in North America.

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/04/steens_mountain_search_missing.html

http://abcnews.go.com/US/oklahoma-teen-inspired-wild-missing-oregon-wilderness/story?id=18990644

Lets count: one CA family in SE Oregon followed their GPS onto logging roads that were closed in winter, but not gated. The father died trying to walk out. A Canadian couple followed their GPS into the Nevada backcountry trying to take a shortcut between two highways. They found the wife after over 40 days nearly dead in the car stuck in the mud. The remains of the husband have yet to be found. Now this kid with GPS in hand ended up going the opposite direction from where he wanted to go and walked away from his truck stuck in the snow up in the Steen Mountains.

Just like McCandless, this kid would be alive if he had spent a few dollars on a map and used the map to navigate.

Nature is a mean bitch, and too many people these days do not understand that.

As one person stated to me: Life is and IQ test and some flunk sooner than others.
 
So another person has followed their GPS to their (assumed) death. Following Chris "super tramp" McCandless as an inspiration, a teen has vanished into some of the harshest high desert in North America.

http://www.oregonlive.com/..._search_missing.html

http://abcnews.go.com/...ss/story?id=18990644

Lets count: one CA family in SE Oregon followed their GPS onto logging roads that were closed in winter, but not gated. The father died trying to walk out. A Canadian couple followed their GPS into the Nevada backcountry trying to take a shortcut between two highways. They found the wife after over 40 days nearly dead in the car stuck in the mud. The remains of the husband have yet to be found. Now this kid with GPS in hand ended up going the opposite direction from where he wanted to go and walked away from his truck stuck in the snow up in the Steen Mountains.

Just like McCandless, this kid would be alive if he had spent a few dollars on a map and used the map to navigate.

Nature is a mean bitch, and too many people these days do not understand that.

As one person stated to me: Life is and IQ test and some flunk sooner than others.
Click to expand...


The other day I heard a story about a mother and son that were lost in Death Valley because they followed the GPS and ran out of gas. Son died.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/08/local/me-deathvalley8

Any more info on the Canadians? - wow 40 days.
 
Technology combined with a complete lack of common sense will get you killed.
I took a flight in a small plane once, the pilot let me take the controls. After 5 minutes he told me " stop looking at the damn instruments, look out the windows! Let your eyes and brain tell you if the wings are level."
Same thing with the GPS, Use your eyes and your brain, if it looks like its leading you to nowhere, it probably is.
 
Some people do not know what they are getting themselves into. I have had many clients that think as long as they have a GPS all is fine. When I ask what their back up plan is for when the GPS goes dead they most of them say they have extra batteries. My usual answer is "Do you have a compass and a paper chart that you know how to use?" This leads to more conversation and instruction in charting with paper and they very quickly realize that they a very unprepared.

Several years ago I came across a few backpackers that were lost. They came to a very large blowdown just below the timberline and were so confused they had no idea which way to go. They said they could not find the trail that their GPS was telling them to follow. I explained that the trail was gone and they would have top bushwack their way through. I gave them a heading to follow and that just confused them more. I tried explain where they could pick up another trail to get them back. They argued with me for a few minutes until I said "fine , you can stay lost and I'll tell a forest ranger where we last saw you when we get back down in 8 days." Realizing they had no clue as to where they were and how to get back they asked if they could follow me until they could pick up another trail and get themselves out. While they were following me we had some discussions about preparedness. They all came to the realization that they should never had taken on a high mountain adventure. Besides there lack of knowledge of compass skills and mapping they also did not have much in the way of proper equipment to take on such a climb.

I feel bad for people who undertake outings like this only to find out their skills were not as good as they thought.


They were very close to winning a Darwin award.
 
Interesting stuff, Ray. My hopes would be that the mother can hug her son yet again for another time regardless of what she said in frustration.

Sometimes, I feel lucky to have gone into the wild with no modern devices. You make yourself very aware of your environment and one of the first things you do is learn how to observe and do a damn good job of it.

When I asked Ron Warbelow if he would fly me in to hunt sheep in the Tok area, he looked at the sky and said, "Maybe tomorrow." By the way on the 4th day of asking he finally took me in. He was just a kid but taught well by his father. Years ago people in the bush did not have satellite dishes to bring them instant weather forecasts and the pilots had to gauge everything from what they learned and could see. It's what kept them alive.

Technological goodies that most seem to surround themselves with are nice but batteries don't last forever if you are on a 15 day solo hunt. Give me a good compass and the heightened awareness that my senses like sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell can give me and that is enough. One of the first lessons I was ever taught by my mentors was how to focus on "landmarks" and then remember them in some sort of a sequence.
Al
 
Two years back a elderly lady was going up North and was following her GPS Got on to National Forest rd in the Nicolet national forest. That rd took her on to a logging rd which was meant for logging trucks in the winter and then on to what we call a skidding trail not meant for regular vehicles. She got stuck in some sand. All she knew she was in the woods and struck and miles from any where.

The thing that saved her was the fact that she could get cell phone coverage. A good person at the dispatch center. Six hours later she was found.
 
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