Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board SPOT 911 call last week

This is a link to an epic that occurred last week on the PCT, about 9 miles south of Trail Pass.  It involved a solo woman hiker nearly freezing, using the "911" feature on her SPOT, and mentions although only peripherally, of the monumental rescue effort put together to find her.  Many, many lessons learned by her.

The link is to her online journal, starting on the day when the trouble began:

http://postholer.com/journal/viewJournal.php?sid=f75f18070a41ae1e7d4e6c364069e8a6&entry_id=8688

Great story. Thats a tough decision on pushing the button or not. Its also the down side to going so light.

This SPOT alert was also checked out by NPS Sequoia Kings. A very weird case. The initial locations given by the SPOT people were WAY off -- over on the east side of the Crest north of Independence (I think). I've just got a very loose story but it's close to what the woman tells. The later 911 SPOT transmission was mapped correctly. Inyo SAR was checking out the sage trying to find this person in the rain and dark with, of course, no luck. They called Sequoia Kings wondering if we had any ideas.

Totally unknown if the fault was with SPOT or what the Satellite received. I hope Inyo Sheriff & SPOT are following up on this. Inyo called several times to make sure the location was correct and SPOT insisted it was. The first location alerts all agreed and were all wrong.

The problem with hitting the emergency 911 button is how do various agencies respond when a later "ok" button is hit. The consensus now is to view it as a 911 hangup -- a response is still necessary, though maybe not as quick.



Hmmmm. What did she think was going to happen? I mean, she calls it a 911 button (though after hearing this story, I called it the "Mommy" button). When you hit "911" on a SPOT, someone's going to make a rescue attempt. Of course, I'm glad she's OK, but sure wish she (and most other PCT hikers) were more prepared for storms like this. PCT hikers are good when the weather's good, but this storm wasn't all that unusual. How hard is it to carry a light tent? I also hope others note that one lesson is to stop and set up camp while you're still warm & functional... .


g.

Wow.....

Two pieces of info following up on what George Durkee reported.

This morning I talked to Doug Thompson at the store. He said that after the subject got a ride to Lone Pine from Horseshoe Meadow, she checked into the Hostel. Did not notify Inyo authorities. So SAR was still looking, the helos were still flying. Then a deputy was walking on the sidewalk near the Hostel and encountered a woman talking on her cell phone. He overheard enough to ask, "Are you (the subject)?" Of course, she was. And only then was the SAR called off. To underscore what George said, hitting 911 turns on the rescue system. Hitting OK later doesn't turn if off. The search continues until until a real person tells them it is no longer needed. From what George says, this issue is being worked.

Later, on the trail, I talked to a ranger who was involved in the search. He said the SPOT relayed the location as somewhere in the Hogback Creek drainage. That's the next canyon north of Whitney Portal. He said they were driving the roads, flashing lights, and had helicopter overflights--all in an area miles north of where the subject was. Eventually SPOT got it right, with no harm done (except for the needless expenditure of resources, looking in the wrong places). I wonder how many other instances of false locations have occurred. This one could have been critical.

Technology is wonderful when it works as it is supposed to. But technology sometimes fails, and operators sometime misuse.

Hello, I'm new to the forum, my name is Jim; I'm from Northern Virginia. I'm interested in the experiences shared on this forum as part of my planning to hike the Whitney Main Trail on 9/15/-9/17 later this summer.
I was struck by this SPOT story, and actually just reviewed the PCT hiker's trail log in its entirety. Sure makes for interesting reading, and for me delineates very clearly the erroneous decision-making that led ultimately to this near-tragedy. As someone else pointed out, it also emphasizes the folly of SUL packing in alpine environments. Of course that is only my opinion. Good lessons for me, and I'm sure glad the PCT hiker is alive and well. I've grown to like her, but not her logic.

Jim

This was what kept jumping out at me while I read the account. Taking a stroll in a rainstorm may be no big deal in most situations, but there was no home to go back to, no motel, no warm restaurant, no person along the trail with a camp set up for her, warm and dry. But she kept going, getting wetter and colder, basically gambling, and assumed way too much; thinking something like 'maybe it's a passing storm and getting wet will be OK and I'll dry off'. Then by the time she figured out her gamble wasn't paying off, she was in trouble beyond her ability to deal with it.

I don't know if the security of the SPOT affected her judgment, but obviously this should be a wake-up for that line of thinking. Years ago when I bought a GPS, it became quickly obvious that it's a nice tool, and extra insurance, but absolutely not something to stake your life on or replace normal good hiking practices...and the SPOT is similar. Use of a bit more common sense would have been far more valuable than the SPOT in this case, and being better prepared (besides the lack of a tent, a wet lighter was enough to be a major problem...how hard is it to prevent that from happening or have a usable backup?)

Of course it's easy to view from afar and say what she should have done, but reading the account can help us not to make the same mistakes.

Even PLB's sometimes give erroneous locations...

What I don't understand is why nobody looked at her "SPOT shared page" -- the page that shows the positions of the entire past week's locations. All she has on her postholer.com blog is a MyTopo link to the LAST spot location. It's lame!

Since she was carrying a SPOT messenger, she should have a web page showing all its past message locations. Why did not the family as well as the SPOT operator make this site available (by sending a link to the sheriff and SAR people)?

If she had been sending any sort of regular check-in transmissions, it would be pretty easy to determine her approximate location based on her daily progress, and they would have been able to disregard the bogus location.

I am totally puzzled.

Here's an example of Moose Tracks' SPOT page.

One of her relatives posted on another board a "has anyone seen ..." message. At that time she had just sent a HELP message on the Spot, but the location was correct on the Postholer journal site, at a spring several 100 yards off the trail. Later it turned to a 911, that post was not on the Postholer site - I don't know if Spot posts 911 messages on their site either - I could argue either way. I sent Bob R. an email forwarding the messages I had received on the other board and a photo of the subject as a heads up if they got called. We all were happy to see the OK message when she got back on the trail the next morning.

My concern with the Spot is the limited messaging capability, and it's only one-way communication. You don't know if the message was received (some don't go through, I understand the Spot 911 messages transmit every 15 minutes, but what if you're in a deep canyon and can't "see" a satellite?). You also can't tell them exactly what is wrong, as George says an OK is treated like a hangup 911, but considering the info Spot provides (user and location), really even their 911's a hangup calls in that is it a twisted ankle, a snow storm, or CPR in progress?

Not that I know of anything better. I carry a VHF ham radio, works good most passes and peaks but not so much in the canyons. Satellite phones are probably the best but still heavy and not cheap, so few carry them.

‎‎

I have a friend that works for a sat phone company and he was telling me just this ‎weekend that his company is working on a "SPOT" type device that would allow 2-way texting based communication in order to allow emergency personnel to ask questions regarding the ‎situation and for the hiker/backpacker (whomever) to respond and further narrow down ‎the exact "emergency" being faced. ‎

From my understanding the device has been designed and prototyped, and is currently in ‎the test stages to work out kinks...‎

I agree - we hope to have everyone we know follow our hike on the public tracking page - which is half the reason I decided to go with the device. I figured in tracking mode there's enough info coming across that even if a 911 signal is off for whatever reason, they'll be able to narrow the search immediately to the area we were last in.

Our tracking page

I really like my SPOT. Mainly because my wife likes it. I set it to track and never touch it. She follows along and feels good about things. Do I push it because I have a SPOT? No. A SPOT is a neat tool/toy. I hope and pray never to actually NEED it and I pray even more that it works if I do.

Nothing replaces common sense in the backcountry. If you go back far enough the only thing you have to count on is YOU. If you don't get a warm fuzzy from that, don't go very far from the trailhead until you have practiced the skill set to do so safely.

Then trust that little voice in your head - sometimes you gotta pull the plug on a trip - it happens. No matter how far you made it, you made it farther than 99% of the folks who stayed home that day..........................................DUG

I like her spirit. Self extraction counts bigtime.
And who hasn't chosen the wrong gear at times?
Sandals in a snow storm at 10400' deserves honorable mention
in 'Stories from the PCT'.

Some of this reminds me of a trip that my buddy, his girlfriend and I did back in July 1976. (We wanted to avoid the bicentennial crowds, so headed up into the Sierra instead.)

One day, we met up with a couple of college-age women hiking along with light packs and walking barefoot. They were through-hiking the PCT. Long (hippie) cotton dresses, much lighter packs than we were carrying, etc.

But, that was in July of a dry year, not early June in what has been a fairly wet spring with plenty of snow up high.

I keep asking myself questions about her story and her equipment choices:

1. Sandals? Ok, if it were August and her feet are good and hardened, maybe but in early June when she was certain to run into at least occasional snow above 10k feet?

2. When she was trying to set up camp, she mentioned a bivy sack plus a tarp. Ok, if the bivy is 1.5 to 2 pounds and the tarp is at least another pound, what's the point? My Walrus sumer tent is 3.25 pounds, less than a pound more than what she was carrying and a whole lot better shelter if it snows.

3. Alcohol stove? Yes, I know it's the standard for ultralightweight treks but again, we're talking about June, not August. I think I'd want something with a bit better heat output. Plus, what about one of the sparker starters (one example, there are lots of others)? These weigh under an ounce and will fire off a white gas stove and probably even an alcohol stove. Carry the lighter but take one of these as a backup.

Ultralight may be a worthy goal, but at some point you have to ask yourself whether it's appropriate for the conditions you're likely to encounter and whether you've built any margin into your ability to deal with unexpectedly harsh conditions?

I'm sure there's some ultralight hiking forum that rationalized this choice as the way to go. The internet may be a great resource for information, but sometimes you get the wrong advice. It all depends on where you ask for it. Ask here and people will quickly talk you into real shoes, but if you talk to the ounce counters on other forums, some may actually think it's not such a crazy idea.

I can only assume that this person has never done anything like this in the high mountains before, at least that's the only way I can explain her choice of footwear.

On my first major mountain outing (solo French Alps, June '81, plenty of snow and rain) I learned some lasting gear lessons, but at least I was wearing heavy duty moutaineering boots... No tent, just a plastic tarp, but I managed to stay dry during the worst weather. It was ultralight hiking due to lack of funds.

My plastic tarp shelter at some French pass in 1981 at about 8000 feet before the snow hit. That night sucked! I had no stove, a crappy sleeping bag, a useless ground pad, but I was smart enough to set up a shelter that kept me dry before things got ugly.

Another thing about ultralight - many think it will make their experience so much more enjoyable because the pack is lighter. Meanwhile you trade a comfortable pack for an uncomfortable one. You trade durable for fragile. You trade warm and multiple backups for barely warm enough and no backup. I'd consider those choices if I were to attempt some sort of trail record attempt, but not if I were to enjoy the trip.

Looking back at all the hiking I've done over 30 years, I can think of a few days when the pack felt uncomfortable, but most days the pack weight was irrelevant and the experience was so much better because I had nothing to worry about, packing a decent tent, a warm sleeping back, a comfortable ground pad, real food, a real stove, etc.

There is that occasional ultralighter who zips past me on the trail and I never see him again, but many times we meet up again and again, completing similar distance that day. Did I enjoy it less because I carried 10 pounds more? I definitely have less to worry about when a storm moves in.

Every time I read questions like "do I even need rain gear in the Sierras in summer?" I wonder where they get the idea that the weather up there is always nice. Take July 11, 2008.... google it.

OK, I bit but came up empty. What happened on July 11, 2008?

I think this event is what was being referred to... July 15th, 2008. The flash flood....

http://www.inyoregister.com/content/view/108166/1/

Also discussed in this thread

Fish, SoCal, we're on the same page about being prepared for serious weather. When we tried Mt. Ritter in late June, 1996, snow coverage was pretty much continuous above 10,000' and we ended up retreating from a blustery snowstorm that dumped a good 6" or more of fresh snow up around Thousand Island Lake. We hunkered down around Badger Lakes and waited a day for the weather to break but it blew back in the second time we went past 1,000 I. Lake and tried going up over North Glacier Pass. It took another three tries to finally get up to the top of "my" mountain.

I would not want to have been out somewhere with minimal gear in that storm in 1996!

Our first Whitney summit bid was two weeks after the flash flood... damage was still evident everywhere... 395 was still one lane with construction equipment... the Portal and road leading up showed damage...

The most important part of being prepared for the weather is to know and understand the typical patterns.. and then be prepared for them to change. LOL. I spent every day for two weeks (prompted by the flash floods) studying and charting the weather patterns within a 100 mile radius of Whitney on an hourly basis. I knew, on a typical day, where the T-storms were going to come from... where they were going to be heaviest... and what time we were going to have to seriously start watching for "hunker down" places.

Thankfully we never did have to hide from any weather. But we had the proper gear and the know how to do it if we needed to. Something I DID notice about the Sierra (Whitney specifically)... if you don't know what to watch for and where to watch for it.. it's goign to sneak up on you. On the MMWT you can't see the sky over Trail Crest until you're a good distance up the trail... alot of the summer storm systems that build and affect Whitney come up the Kern River Canyon behind the ridge line and you can't see them from the trail... it would be a very real possibility that you wouldn't see the storm until it falls over the crest and is on you...