The Fresno County Sheriff's Office is currently involved in the search for four women near Lake Italy, approximately 20 miles northeast of Huntington Lake.

Details from ABC 30.

Such a telling report:

Part 1: "Last night, shortly after 9:00pm, the Sheriff's Office received a 911 cell phone call from one of the hikers who advised that she, her mother, and two other females lost their sense of direction due to thick smoke from the Aspen Creek fire.

The phone call continued to drop but, with the use of the phones GPS, dispatch personnel were able to get an approximate location on the John Muir Trail between Lake Italy and Bear Creek.

...SAR personnel are currently being deployed into the area to search for the hikers. "


Part 2: " In the second incident, at about 10:00am, the Sheriff's Office received a report of a GPS emergency "spot activation" in the area of Lake Virginia, approximately 10 miles north of Lake Edison in northeastern Fresno County.

The Sheriff's Office learned that a father and son were hiking in the area when the father started having serious medical issues.

H40 responded and was able to extract the ill hiker."

In part 1, they're out looking for missing hikers. In part 2, due to a SPOT, the problem is already resolved.

Seems pretty clear to me how much better it is to hike with a SPOT.

And that reminds me of the time I was hiking the JMT just S of Reds Meadow. We erroneously followed a horse-made trail that wasn't on the map, where it exited the JMT near Red Cones. We came upon really old jmt trail markers, and then junctions that did not identify the JMT. Not knowing which trail to follow, I guessed (wrongly), and started off on a trail that curved around in the wrong direction. Here's the spot on the map. (small cross-hairs in the center)

I had my SPOT and cell service, so called my son in Michigan, who looked up my signal, told me where I was on the map, which got us going in the correct direction. I found the write-up from 2010: Lost on the JMT: Reds Meadow southbound

I suppose if I'd had a hand-held GPS unit with a map of the JMT, that would have helped me out, too. But not having those, and with the equipment we did have, we were back on track in a short time.

Update:

2:18 p.m.: "The Fresno County Sheriff's Office has suspended its search for four women hiking near Lake Italy in the Sierra Nevada.

Hikers who had talked to the women on the John Muir Trail near Silver Pass told search and rescue crews Wednesday night that the women were all in good condition and had resumed hiking north to their destination in Tuolumne County, the sheriff's office said Thursday.

The women told the hikers of their call to the sheriff's office when they became disoriented due to smoke from the Aspen Fire, which has now blackened 2,500 acres northwest of Huntington Lake.

Search and rescue crews have been pulled from the area and the women's families have been notified, the sheriff's office said."

Oh. Well. Alrighty, then. Never mind.

Much adieu about...nothing? Sally forth!

Is there not some sort of protocol about cancelling a "help I'm lost" mayday call to SAR?

> Is there not some sort of protocol about cancelling a "help I'm lost" mayday call to SAR?

Not to beat the dead horse, but SPOT has a "Cancel 911" and "OK Check-in" button that could normally indicate that.

They called on a cell phone, not a SPOT...at least that is what gleaned for the report. These four women are responsible to call back to say they are found...or walk out and contact authorities, period. There is only one word continuing up the trail behavior...narcissistic.

SAR call outs cost money, to the tune of close to $500,000 for the idiots in OC, earlier this year. This does not include the lost wages of the volunteers who answer these call outs.

If you send an SOS message on a SPOT and want to cancel it, you have to press SOS and hold it until the SOS light blinks red to send a “Cancel SOS” message. Leave SPOT on until the SOS light stops blinking red to make sure your message got out. Turning off a SPOT or sending “Check-in/OK” won’t send anything to the authorities.

Do you think the responsible sheriff would call off the SAR and go away with no other explanation than a Spot "Cancel SOS" message? Do you think he should? Do you think people with Spots should expect that? Do you think they will expect that? YMMV

Dale B. Dalrymple

Translate, please (I do not text, so I am unfamiliar with new, abbreviated form of english)

Bee, "YMMV" means "Your mileage may vary". Comes originally from the gas mileage figures on new cars. We all know most people get lower mileage than the car makers' numbers.

DBD, a responsible sheriff would likely want to contact the SPOT carrier, that is for sure. But I would think that after receiving a Cancel SOS signal, plus maybe seeing the carrier signal an OK-Check-in, and then show some more signals indicating they were on the move, a reasonable command center would call off the troops, and maybe send a single person to meet and make contact.

I would also consider the SPOT carrier pretty irresponsible if they continued on their merry way and did not attempt to get to a location where full contact could be made to explain the reason for the SOS and the Cancel.

But as with your "YMMV" thought, we all know there are responsible people and ....not so responsible people.

BTW (By the way), that "Aspen Fire" on this side of the Sierra is the fire that caused the hikers (topic of this thread) to become disoriented. This afternoon from Fresno, we could see the plume of smoke, and it had created a huge thunderhead cloud above, from all the moisture released. Checking the web cam picture sequences today, the smoke in the Owens Valley is so bad, I feel sorry for anyone hiking Whitney today. I am sure they had a memorable (Negative) experience from all the smoke.

I don’t understand the point of your questions… or the YMMV gibberish.

If someone sends a SPOT SOS, and later decided that no rescue is necessary, the right thing to do is send a “Cancel SOS.” Turning it off or sending “Check-in/OK” isn’t the answer. This is true, regardless of the circumstances of the original SOS message and the decision to cancel it. This is also true, regardless of what anyone thinks the authorities will do when they receive the “Cancel SOS” message.

I doubt that “the responsible sheriff would call off the SAR and go away with no other explanation than a Spot Cancel SOS”, but I’ll bet they would scale back their SAR efforts, take fewer risks with their SAR personnel, and leave their helicopters on the ground. However, my original post is correct, regardless of what the sheriff decides to do.

If your original post is correct and complete, then the proper response by a SOS signaler who wants to cancel the call is to press the right buttons on the Spot and walk away as if nothing has happened. I think that the consequences of making a SOS call are great enough in cost and risk to responders that the caller is responsible for a better response than walking away as if nothing had happened. From your response to my post, your 'mileage' on this is clearly different than mine.

Dale B. Dalrymple

I have to wonder how this thread got so caught up with the hypothetical SPOT issue. What about the actual issue the facts here raise: these 4 hikers called 911, FROM THE JMT, initiated SAR, boots on the ground and chopper in the air, then got themselves straightened out, went on their merry way and made no more effort than to mention it to other passing hikers.

Discuss.

Salty Dog...Bingo!!! That was the reason for my last post. The father and son who were rescued by SAR had the SPOT, not the four women.

The issue is the same with Spot or cell phone or satellite phone. Pushing the right buttons to send a "nevermind" signal doesn't take away the responsibility that should have been there from the beginning

Dale B. Dalrymple

DBD, All I read in bobpickering's post was instructions on how to actually make a SPOT issue a Cancel-SOS signal. He didn't offer any opinion whether that was all one needed to do, or whether more was required. Leaving out any opinion is not supporting the idea of walking off without contacting the authorities.

Bit of a side track about what SPOT might have done for these ladies. I think we all agree, these four women should have done everything possible to make sure the SAR mission was called off as soon as possible. It's possible they didn't have cell coverage after they made the first call for help. It's also possible that they called 911 again as soon as they could, but other hikers got the word out first (seems unlikely). Climbing a peak to get service was probably not a good idea with all the smoke around. We just don't know how much effort they put into getting another 911 call out to cancel the SAR mission. That seems to be the crux of the matter.

The take-a-way lesson here, as I see it, is to head back out of the wilderness while trying to call 911 to get this resolved before resuming your hike or doing anything else for that matter. And Steve's point about SPOT is clear. I have a simple Personal Locator Beacon that only sends one message and my GPS coordinates to a government center. I was planning on an upgrade when the battery expires in a few years, might have to rethink that plan.

That's true Steve. And I think that listing the mechanics of the Spot Cancel-SOS on an internet forum discussion of a cell phone emergency call without giving any opinion on is irresponsible and ought to lead to some questions. I asked some.

I didn't question the accuracy of his Spot instructions, so by your logic, the questions in my post were also absolutely correct.

Please note that the post that you quoted was my response to saltydog's:


What you quoted was not my response to bobpickering. Why did you remove that significant information and then respond as if it were my post to bobpickering? Or didn't you notice the difference? But saltydog raises the same question that concerned me when I saw a post about Spot mechanics appear in a discussion that had otherwise moved to the topic of the appropriate behavior in cancelling an emergency call from a cell phone.

Dale B. Dalrymple

I originally posted on this thread because Bee asked a question, Steve answered that question, and I thought Steve’s answer needed clarification. I explained how “Cancel SOS” works and pointed out that sending “OK” doesn’t send anything to the sheriff or other authorities.

We all know that some people go out unprepared and get themselves into trouble they should have avoided. We know that people who stupidly get themselves into trouble sometimes correctly use SOS to get rescued, rather than die. We also know that people use SOS when there is no real emergency and with no regard for the costs or risks of the resulting SAR. I didn’t address these issues because I was responding to Bee and Steve, not pontificating about personal responsibility.

If you are out in the wilderness, SOS may be the only way you can call for help. If you use SOS and later decide that you don’t need SAR, “Cancel SOS” may be the only way to communicate this. Why you sent the original SOS and why you changed your mind are irrelevant. What the sheriff should do or will do upon receiving the “Cancel SOS” is irrelevant. What you think the sheriff will do is also irrelevant. Sending the “Cancel SOS” is the best you can do with no other means of communication.


Dale, calling me “irresponsible” for simply providing factual information on an often-misunderstood feature of SPOT is being a jerk.

Bob

Thank you for clarifying your post and making you position explicit.


The concluding sentence is precisely what I consider irresponsible. Having a Spot with a cancel button does not make the Spot to only means of communication available. If the situation was significant enough to require calling for a SAR then it's worth doing whatever it takes, including hiking your butt to a trail head and getting into communication with the applicable authorities to close out the response. And you are right, that doesn't depend on why the call was made or what the sheriff has decided to do. Whoever made (or requested) the call bought into that responsibility when the call was made in the first place. I don't think the rules are different for people with cell phones or Spots or schedules they would like to keep. I believe that is what responsibility requires. I'll be whatever that makes me to those who suggest that the new technology removes the need for responsible behavior if it isn't as convenient as their new toy.

saltydog, that's my "Discuss."

Dale B. Dalrymple

Dale, you seem to have trouble expressing yourself clearly, as the silly questions and YMMV testify. Why didn’t you just say that you need to let the authorities know that you are OK as soon as you get out of the wilderness, even if you have sent a ”Cancel SOS”? I would have agreed with you. There was no need for you to start this pissing contest and call me irresponsible for clarifying Steve’s post.

You also seem to have trouble understanding simple English. The paragraph you quoted above began with “If you are out in the wilderness.” The entire paragraph, including the sentence you find so irresponsible, dealt with what you should do in the wilderness. When you are in the wilderness, sending the “Cancel SOS” IS the best you can do with no other means of communication. What course of action would be better? Sending nothing?

Finally, you seem determined to play the straw man game with me. As Steve said, “Leaving out any opinion is not supporting the idea of walking off without contacting the authorities.” I never even hinted that I thought sending “Cancel SOS” was all that you should do. It isn’t, but it’s better than nothing. As I said above, you need to let the authorities know that you are OK as soon as you get out of the wilderness, even if you have sent a ”Cancel SOS.”

If you find it necessary to attack me yet again, see if you can do it without deliberately misrepresenting what I said.

Well told, sir.

bobpickering has been too puffed up for a fight with anyone with the nerve to ask him a question that he doesn't seem to have noticed, let alone responded to, what I have said about the topic. What I said was:



Are -you- capable of discussing the issue? (That would be like agreeing or disagreeing with the statements above or suggesting something else.)

Dale B. Dalrymple

Certainly. Any time you care to abandon the ad hominem, non-sequitur, straw argument and hypothesis contrary to fact as your primary rhetorical devices, I am all yours. Until then, I believe my endorsement of Bob's position is all that is warranted.

I'll take that as a no. You have a lot of names you like to call. Actually, I tried to get away from the turmoil between me and Bob. I asked you to take a free shot at what I had suggested to Bob and he had been unwilling to comment. I didn't expect you to agree on content or form. You chose to leave that out of the quote leading out your post the question I asked you:


I really would like to have seen what your analysis of the point I posted to you or what you thought Bob's position meant in your own words, without just quotes from his posts to see if I was just misunderstand what he meant but couldn't be enticed to say in any other way I might understand better. Bob quotes my entire post but refuses to comment on the only points where I think we differ. It may be that I agree with the content but object only to the means of expression (sorry, that's a type of distinction I think is important), but people who refuse to try to communicate like you and Bob at this point in the thread can't be forced to. You're the ones calling names and refusing to communicate.

Dale B. Dalrymple

I admit that due to the fact that most of my life, I communicated with non-english speaking people, or folks who had minimal familiarity with the language.... I learned to love brevity.

Can I state some points of position as painfully extracted from the discourse?

1. SPOT, Sat Phones, Cell phones are the common mode of backcountry 911, currently.

2. SPOT has a cancel mode, the other two devices are subject to signal availability for cancellation.

3. A perceived view is that "Cancellation" of 911 via SPOT is enough to consider the case closed on the emergency call out.

4. Sat phone & cell would require a form of secondary communication if no signal was attained.

QUERIES ARRISING FROM ABOVE PREMISE

1. IS a cancellation of 911 via SPOT enough effort to carry one without further effort to contact SAR?

2. IS contact with an outgoing group of hikers enough effort to consider case closed?

3. IN ALL CASES is direct contact a mandate, or at the very least an expected courtesy?

4. MUST direct contact be made immediatedly as numero uno priority once the emergency has passed, or is "as soon as possible/convenient" (after cancelling via "button" or word of mouth) when you hit the end of the JMT? (and the emergency was in Happy Isles)

I didn't say "as soon as you get out of the wilderness" because I think "as soon as you get out of the wilderness" is wrong. I wrote my alternative: "hiking your butt to a trail head and getting into communication with the applicable authorities to close out the response" and you have now quoted it. I think one means to continue on the pre-planed route as if nothing has happened and the other means do it now. Why haven't you responded to what Ive posted? Which do you think is what you are saying, or do you mean something else? I don't think we're saying the same thing. But what you think is for you to decide, so can you communicate about it?

I posted because I think that what you posted will encourage people to limit their responses to sending a cancel and ignoring the issue until their plans take them out of the wilderness. I don't know if that is what you intend or what you believe they should do. Those won't alter the effect of the words you posted unless you become willing to talk about them. I don't think that the effect I expect is desirable, and the effect does not depend on whether that is your intent or not.

Providing only factual information in the net without providing any information about how it should be used in context can rightly considered to be dangerous. fishmonger and SierraNevada have wrestled with this in the Ursack discussion, for example:
Fishmonger in ursack thread...
"You are the problem online - where people get their guidance and inspiration for what they end up doing. I guarantee you that 50% of those who head out with the Ursack have nowhere near the experience you or Skurka have ..."
SierraNevada in ursack thread
"I agree with you that internet information can cause people to make mistakes and I hope I've not written anything that has motivated someone to do something they shouldn't have done. ..."


If you look in my post that you have quoted, I said:" hiking your butt to a trail head and getting into communication with the applicable authorities to close out the response" I think that is better than a thru hiker waiting weeks and hundreds of miles for their next planned trailhead resupply outside the wilderness. Is that a hypothetical response? Of course. Is it a reasonable hypothesis for the audience of the Whitney Zone? Of course. By the way, is "no other means of communication" a hypothesis? Yes, a false one. If you have a 911 call to cancel you must be able to "hike your butt to a trailhead". If I'm going to be guilty of calling names, I'll call "hike your butt to a trailhead" out as "another means of communication" and "responsible".

Steve said that, and for just between you, Steve and me, he's right, and for your intent he's right, but for anything that gets posted on the net he's wrong. You are welcome to call it a straw man game, but I believe that people who post on the net are responsible for how we can expect our posts on the internet to be interpreted. You may only do dayhikes and the expressions "let the authorities know that you are OK as soon as you get out of the wilderness" and "hiking your butt to a trail head and getting into communication with the applicable authorities to close out the response" may mean the same to your dayhikes, but you posted in front of weekenders and JMT hikers and thru hikers who don't know that you don't care about or aren't able to communicate with or just won't communicate with people with practices other than your own.
If you were a new hiker reading to us from the manual of the Spot she just bought in preparation for her upcoming first day hike, I wouldn't have posted. But you are an experienced and respected mountaineer and what you post on the net will be read and interpreted from different viewpoints whether you intend it or like it or not. That's what happens when -you- post. Its up to you to decide whether you care or not.
Please consider responding to what I have said instead of asking again why I didn't just say I agreed with what you have said. I don't agree with the interpretation your post will receive and I have suggesting an alternative you have not responded to. I think they are different. Don't you? What did I say or assume about the 911 situation or the internet that you disagree with? I did assume that you are responsible for the effect of your posts on the audience you post them to. Do you agree, disagree, don't care?

Dale B. Dalrymple

Thank you for the summary. I hope discussing them will clarify people's positions.

1. dbd: Yes
2. dbd: All devices are subject to signal, battery and casualty limitations.

3. A perceived view is that "Cancellation" of 911 via SPOT is enough to consider the case closed on the emergency call out.
dbd: I would say that 3 may be perceived as true but is not an adequate response. See 3 below.

4. Sat phone & cell would require a form of secondary communication if no signal was attained.
dbd: Do you mean to make or to cancel a 911 call? No signal means that no call is made.

QUERIES ARISING FROM ABOVE PREMISE

1. IS a cancellation of 911 via SPOT enough effort to carry on without further effort to contact SAR?
dbd: I would say no. What do published sheriff and SAR group rules say?

2. IS contact with an outgoing group of hikers enough effort to consider case closed?
dbd: I don't know. How would you determine how highly the SAR agency would evaluate the capability of the outgoing group? Who would they trust? I think that's their call. What do published sheriff and SAR group rules say?

3. IN ALL CASES is direct contact a mandate, or at the very least an expected courtesy?
dbd: I would say yes. I've seen people try to use the phone to cancel a phone call 911. I've never seen the authorities allow the effort to succeed without some kind of personal outside contact. And I think that is the right policy. What do published sheriff and SAR group rules say?

4. MUST direct contact be made immediately as numero uno priority once the emergency has passed, or is "as soon as possible/convenient" (after cancelling via "button" or word of mouth) when you hit the end of the JMT? (and the emergency was in Happy Isles)
dbd: I would say at best safe cruising speed by best safe route. That's a lot of wiggle room, I think: don't kill yourself and don't take side trips to sight see. (SAR folks try not to kill themselves too, but they don't always succeed.)

Dale B. Dalrymple

I did not word #4 very well. What I meant to say is "THere is a good chance that while there was a signal when the 911 was made, it may no longer exist when the need for cancellation presents itself", so the need for a back-up re-contact plan would almost be guaranteed when using a cell phone. In fact, my signals are so spotty, that it is almost always the case that I cannot check in regularly, thus, creating MORE anxiety than if I said "I will bee out of range. altogether"

I feel much more understanding about how you stand at this point, Dale. I hope that others go through my informal list and weigh in, this way I don't have to slog through so much text to cross reference opinions.

"What is the SAR accepted protocol on cancelling a 911?" This has been my overarching query since the thread began. If I get a chance, I will do a little survey of the few SARs I know. Bob West, Do you still have contacts that you could pose this query to?

Bee,

I recently read an article on the use of tablets and mobile phones in the wilderness. The take away is people have become emboldened to do marginal things because they have decided to carry this iffy technology to make up for a lack of skills; thus, making the life of SAR more "interesting".

Since the SPOT's cancel 911 does not give you feed back, I would have to say the user is responsible for personal contact with government official who can communicate the cancellation be it a volunteer patroling the trails with a radio or a sworn ranger. If this means ending a trip so be it.

All right, since everyone insists on discussing SPOT instead of the situation that actually DID develop here with the 911 call, I give up and hereby throw the following gasoline on the fire:

Try This

Those videos of the harrowing night with the mountain lion are riveting.

Amen to what you said. It certainly is the person's responsibility to let law enforcement know that they are okay. Speaking as a retired SAR troop...I can recall the intense frustration and not a little anger at people who came out on their own okay but didn't tell anyone! In the meantime we continued looking for them, losing time and money off our day jobs.

Yes, people are taking electronic means of calling for help a little too casually, instead of taken necessary steps to be cautious and prepared before setting out.

What if the Spot doesn't connect or there is no cell-phone connectivity, and nobody to hear one's plaintiff calls for help? Why, there's only one thing left to do, pilgrim, but bend over (if able) and kiss your ass goodbye...LOL.