Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Article: SPOT Satellite Tracker

Saving yourself from danger in the wilderness used to require skill. Also plenty of effort.

Now, all it takes is the touch of a finger.

Press button. Distress call transmitted. Authorities notified. Help on the way.

When used correctly, personal locator beacons and satellite trackers greatly assist search-and-rescue efforts by providing exact GPS coordinates for a person who is lost or injured.

But as more people take these devices into the backcountry, more people are using them irresponsibly, say rangers at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. Too often they decide to push a button instead of using their heads.

"We've had more illegitimate distress calls this summer than ever before, thanks to these gizmos," said wilderness coordinator Gregg Fauth.

Among the examples from this summer:

A Pacific Crest Trail hiker, frightened during a lightning storm, transmitted two 911 calls on her personal satellite messenger. A widespread search ensued, only for a sheriff to find her in Lone Pine several days later. She neglected to tell anyone she had gotten out.

Barely a mile from the trailhead, a Boy Scout troop sent a 911 emergency call because someone had sprained an ankle.

A 68-year-old-woman, backpacking solo in a remote section of the parks, sent an ambiguous "Help" message to her husband 15 times over a 12-hour period after falling and hitting her head. The woman never stopped moving, sending rangers on a needless chase, before she exited the wilderness on her own.

"We're going to respond, but we don't have the resources to be chasing people," said parks spokeswoman Adrienne Freeman. "Pressing a button is not the answer. Assessing risks is the answer."

Sequoia and Kings Canyon occupy 1,352 square miles of the Southern Sierra Nevada, 83% of which is designated wilderness. The jointly managed parks, visited by about 1.5 million people annually, contain the range's tallest peaks, including Mount Whitney, and the most remote river canyons.

Along with phones and GPS units, the introduction of satellite trackers and messengers for personal use raises the eternal debate over whether (or how much) technology belongs in the backcountry. And whether relying on computerized gadgets at the expense of tried-and-true backcountry skills somehow dilutes the experience.

"It should not replace basic skills like knowing how to use a map and compass or reading terrain," Fauth said. "And it shouldn't replace the basic reason why people go into the wilderness, which is about challenge and learning self reliance.

"Where's the sense of accomplishment if all you know how to do to get yourself out of trouble is push a button?"

How they work

Since purchasing his SPOT satellite messenger in June 2008, Steve Cosner never goes hiking or backpacking without it. Not only because he may need to summon help, but also to comfort his wife back home in Fresno when he's out rambling in the mountains.

Cosner's unit, the most popular in the marketplace, contains three function buttons labeled 911, Help and OK.

Press 911 and the GPS coordinates of your location are transmitted to the GEOS International Emergency Response Center, which in turn contacts local authorities.

Press Help or OK, and a pre-programmed e-mail or text message of your choosing is sent to up to 10 people. Help is designed for nonemergency assistance that could mean anything from "Send food" to "Pick me up a day early."

The OK button is to let folks on your list know all is well and also to provide a link of your location on Google Maps.

"It's a toy to tell folks where I am," Cosner said. "My wife likes to know. It gives her reassurance seeing where I am."

But even messages meant to reassure can put rangers in a tricky position. This summer, the mother of an 18-year-old solo backpacker called the park and demanded they start searching for her son because he didn't press the OK button on his SPOT device that day as promised, rangers said.

(No search was initiated because the hiker was not 24 hours overdue. He did not require help.)

"What happens when we lose the self-reliance factor in exchange for this technology?" Freeman asked. "If junior doesn't push his button because he forgot or he dropped it or the batteries ran out, it shouldn't be our problem."

Sequoia district ranger Dan Pontbriand was more blunt: "The parks are not a baby-sitting service."

That isn't all. Pontbriand also believes, as do many in his line of work, that satellite-based gadgetry can delude people who aren't experienced in the backcountry into making poor decisions.

In essence, technology doesn't make the wilderness safer. Wilderness is wilderness. Meet it on its own terms.

"People take risks they wouldn't normally take because they think these devices will just bail them out," Pontbriand said. "They say, 'I'll try to cross this fast-moving creek because if I slip, I can just push a button and someone will rescue me.'

"That's absolutely the wrong decision-making process."

Precision in rescues

Until SPOT, a subsidiary of Globalstar Inc., hit store shelves last year, personal locator beacons (PLBs) weren't as functional and cost several hundred dollars.

SPOT retails for $149, plus $99 for the annual service activation. Each unit weighs 7.2 ounces (a lighter second-generation unit was unveiled this month) and waterproof, making them attractive to boaters as well as backpackers.

And they have proven useful. According to company spokesman Derek Moore, SPOT has initiated more than 325 rescues in 51 countries during its first 11/2 years on the market.

"Many of those have been life-saving," Moore said. "We receive a lot of feedback from search and rescue agencies thanking us for bringing rescuers to within 28 feet of the victim by providing their GPS coordinates."

The product's terms and conditions, which also appear on its Web site (www.findmespot.com), clearly state the 911 function is to be used only in a life-threatening situation or as a last resort.

But Moore acknowledged that hasn't always been the case.

"With any safety device, the user needs to understand its functionality and intended use," he said. "People have to ultimately be responsible for themselves. The technology is there to enhance your experience and provide additional safety, but it's meant as a backup plan."

According to Randy Coffman of Shaver Lake, a retired national park ranger and search and rescue expert, no electronic gadget can ever replace backcountry basics like knowing how to use a map and compass, carrying a signal mirror or the ability to read terrain and conditions.

After all, it's wilderness. Batteries go dead, stuff has a tendency to break or become lost and rescue helicopters don't fly in bad weather. Even SPOT only transmits when the unit's antenna has a line-of-sight with a Globalstar satellite, which might not be the case if you happened to be at the bottom of a canyon.

"When people use these devices correctly and appropriately, it can help create a safe buffer for them," Coffman said. "But it should never be their sole reliance. It's just a tool in the box, not a magic answer."

There is a write-up of SPOT misuse over on WPSMB

Grand Canyon National Park (AZ)
Hikers Evacuated After Three SPOT Activations In Three Days

On the evening of September 23rd, rangers began a search for hikers who repeatedly activated their rented SPOT satellite tracking device. The GEOS Emergency Response Center in Houston reported that someone in the group of four hikers - two men and their two teenaged sons - had pressed the "help" button on their SPOT unit. The coordinates for the signal placed the group in a remote section of the park, most likely on the challenging Royal Arch loop. Due to darkness and the remoteness of the location, rangers were unable to reach them via helicopter until the following morning. When found, they'd moved about a mile and a half to a water source. They declined rescue, as they'd activated the device due to their lack of water. Later that same evening, the same SPOT device was again activated, this time using the "911" button. Coordinates placed them less than a quarter mile from the spot where searchers had found them that morning. Once again, nightfall prevented a response by park helicopter, so an Arizona DPS helicopter whose crew utilized night vision goggles was brought in. They found that the members of the group were concerned about possible dehydration because the water they'd found tasted salty, but no actual emergency existed. The helicopter crew declined their request for a night evacuation, but provided them with water before departing. On the following morning, another SPOT "help" activation came in from the group. This time they were flown out by park helicopter. All four refused medical assessment or treatment. The group's leader had reportedly hiked once at the Grand Canyon; the other adult had no Grand Canyon and very little backpacking experience. When asked what they would have done without the SPOT device, the leader stated, "We would have never attempted this hike." The group leader was issued a citation for creating a hazardous condition (36 CFR 2.34(a)(4)). [Submitted by Brandon Torres, Canyon District Shift Supervisor]

Tired from a hike? Rescuers fear Yuppie 911
Hikers are increasingly relying on personal locator beacons, just in case
AP Associated Press
updated 11:00 a.m. PT, Sun., Oct . 25, 2009

FRESNO, Calif. - Last month two men and their teenage sons tackled one of the world's most unforgiving summertime hikes: the Grand Canyon's parched and searing Royal Arch Loop. Along with bedrolls and freeze-dried food, the inexperienced backpackers carried a personal locator beacon — just in case.

In the span of three days, the group pushed the panic button three times, mobilizing helicopters for dangerous, lifesaving rescues inside the steep canyon walls.

What was that emergency? The water they had found to quench their thirst "tasted salty."

If they had not been toting the device that works like Onstar for hikers, "we would have never attempted this hike," one of them said after the third rescue crew forced them to board their chopper. It's a growing problem facing the men and women who risk their lives when they believe others are in danger of losing theirs.

Technology has made calling for help instantaneous even in the most remote places. Because would-be adventurers can send GPS coordinates to rescuers with the touch of a button, some are exploring terrain they do not have the experience, knowledge or endurance to tackle.

Yuppie 911
Rescue officials are deciding whether to start keeping statistics on the problem, but the incidents have become so frequent that the head of California's Search and Rescue operation has a name for the devices: Yuppie 911.

"Now you can go into the back country and take a risk you might not normally have taken," says Matt Scharper, who coordinates a rescue every day in a state with wilderness so rugged even crashed planes can take decades to find. "With the Yuppie 911, you send a message to a satellite and the government pulls your butt out of something you shouldn't have been in in the first place."

From the Sierra to the Cascades, Rockies and beyond, hikers are arming themselves with increasingly affordable technology intended to get them out of life-threatening situations.

While daring rescues are one result, very often the beacons go off unintentionally when the button is pushed in someone's backpack, or they are activated unnecessarily, as in the case of a woman who was frightened by a thunderstorm.

"There's controversy over these devices in the first place because it removes the self sufficiency that's required in the back country," Scharper says. "But we are a society of services, and every service you need you can get by calling."

'Crawled out'
The sheriff's office in San Bernardino County, the largest in the nation and home to part of the unforgiving Death Valley, hopes to reduce false alarms. So it is studying under what circumstances hikers activate the devices.

"In the past, people who got in trouble self-rescued; they got on their hands and knees and crawled out," says John Amrhein, the county's emergency coordinator. "We saw the increase in non-emergencies with cell phones: people called saying 'I'm cold and damp. Come get me out.' These take it to another level."

Personal locator beacons, which send distress signals to government satellites, became available in the early 1980s, but at a price exceeding $1,200. They have been legal for the public to use since 2003, and in the last year the price has fallen to less than $100 for devices that send alerts to a company, which then calls local law enforcement.

When rescue beacons tempt inexperienced hikers to attempt trails beyond their abilities, that can translate into unnecessary expense and a risk of lives.

Last year, the beacon for a hiker on the Pacific Crest Trail triggered accidentally in his backpack, sending helicopters scrambling. Recently, a couple from New Bruswick, British Columbia activated their beacon when they climbed a steep trail and could not get back down. A helicopter lowered them 200 feet to secure footing.

In September, a hiker from Placer County was panning for gold in New York Canyon when he became dehydrated and used his rescue beacon to call for help.

With darkness setting in on the same day, Mono County sheriff's deputies asked the National Guard for a high-altitude helicopter and a hoist for a treacherous rescue of two beacon-equipped hikers stranded at Convict Lake. The next day they hiked out on foot.

'Creating a hazardous condition'
When eight climbers ran into trouble last winter during a summit attempt of Mt. Hood in Oregon, they called for help after becoming stranded on a glacier in a snowstorm.

"The question is, would they have decided to go on the trip knowing the weather was going bad if they had not been able to take the beacons," asks Rocky Henderson of Portland Mountain Rescue. "We are now entering the Twilight Zone of someone else's intentions."

The Grand Canyon's Royal Arch loop, the National Park Service warns, "has a million ways to get into serious trouble" for those lacking skill and good judgment. One evening the fathers-and-sons team activated their beacon when they ran out of water.

Rescuers, who did not know the nature of the call, could not launch the helicopter until morning. When the rescuers arrived, the group had found a stream and declined help.

That night, they activated the emergency beacon again. This time the Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopter, which has night vision capabilities, launched into emergency mode.

When rescuers found them, the hikers were worried they might become dehydrated because the water they found tasted salty. They declined an evacuation, and the crew left water.

The following morning the group called for help again. This time, according to a park service report, rescuers took them out and cited the leader for "creating a hazardous condition" for the rescue teams.

This article/topic has worked its way out of the backcountry discussion circle into the mainstream media, as it was a featured NPR topic, tonight. As a solo hiker/Bp'r who carries a SPOT, I am finding myself to be even more diligent in my planning since this story broke, as I don't want to even consider the "mommy button" (love this) to be an option. This last summer,I found myself in the middle of a situation where one of the hikers in our group was suffering severe AMS(delirious), hypoxia(blue around the mouth, face, hands),& dehydration(from vomiting)while another hiker had SPOT, I think we were all stymied by "how bad IS bad enough for 911". Eventually, the hiker was stabilized by my force-feeding schedule of Gatorade/water; however, the period between delirium and stability was a long, scary period of time that could have ended very differently. Every so often I ask "should we have pressed the button?" It's easy to say "no" when I know the results. I hope to never be placed in that position again.

(BTW, there were much in the way of mistakes and bad judgement that allowed for the situation to escalate that the point that it did, however, my point of interest still lies with the "how bad is bad enough")

B

DUG, I like your "Running Late" message as the optional message. Before I paid for the Tracking feature, I used it as a tracking feature, since it sends its message repeatedly for an hour, similarly to Tracking (for 24 hours). I may go back to that mode, since I see they have raised the Tracking price to $50.

And your criteria for deciding when to press the 911 button is good: "Can I possibly get myself out? Will I die out here or be disabled if I don't get some attention quick?"

I have a question about your hike when you got sick: Did your brother have his own transportation out of Roads End? And your wife was already planning on picking you up? Or did your getting sick cause a scramble for alternate transportation?

And here's an important note about using the 911 button: Along with authorities being notified, it will send email to those on your alternate (help) message email list. But it will NOT show your location on the Google map where it shows your Tracking and Help locations. I emailed the Spot people about that, and they cited privacy issues. I know for myself, if I pressed 911, I'd want as many people as possible to know I was in trouble.

OK, I bought Son of Spot, not because I wanted it, but because it gives my family peace of mind. I hike/backpack solo. Even the most experienced person can be in the wrong place/wrong time. Spot is not 100% accurate, but my family relaxes when they get the I'm OK, and they'll know my last location if I go missing. Just another tool, not perfect. And yes, I'm annoyed by the extra weight and pushing the stupid buttons, but it's a fair trade off so they feel better.

Hey Karen
I haven't hiked solo yet, but the family still worries. I was given one for Christmas for the same reason as you...piece of mind for others.
I have not activated it yet so I can't comment on the accuracy. IMO SPOT is a great tool when used properly ie: tracking purposes. The 911 feature has always seemed to me like an easy way out for (inexperienced and/or unprepared) hikers...with no consequences when it's abused.