[pct-l] Death on the PCT / John Joseph Donovan

[Austin Williams]

Hi,

Even if you carry a gps, you should always carry a compass too... if for
nothing more than setting a bearing when your gps fails you during a
bailout.  Even Scott Williamson carries a compass, and he doesn't carry *
anything*.  :)

Any GPS will work with Half Mile's waypoints.  The only thing you have to
worry about is the amount of memory the GPS has.  If it doesn't have enough
memory to load all the points, then you'll need to load half the points
first... then when you get half way through your hike, load the other half.
Loading the rest of the waypoints can be done by switching out your memory
card (which you could send in a resupply package), or (if your gps doesn't
support memory cards) you'll have to find a computer, plug in your gps, and
load the rest of the waypoints that way.

Different models of GPS devices may require the waypoints be in different *
formats*.  But that's not a problem.  My wife and I have converted Half
Mile's waypoints into pretty much every gps-file format that exists.  That
way we can all load the waypoints in to any GPS device we come accross.  The
waypoint files are here: http://planyourhike.com/maps/gps.html, so you can
help yourself.

As far as I know, the lightest GPS that accepts data cards is the eTrex
Vista HCx ($300) at 5.5 oz (with batteries).

If you plan to bring maps with longitude\lattitude information, you could
get by with the Easy Showily track logger. You cannot load waypoints into
it, but it will display your longitude\lattitude on a screen and it only
weighs 1.6 oz (with AAA lithium batteries).

But bring a compass!







On Fri, Jan 22, 2010 at 9:26 PM, Don Billings <dbillings803 at yahoo.com>wrote:

> I just caught an interesting TV show regarding two tourists from Texas who
> wandered away from the Tram area on
> San Juancinto Mountain and got lost in 2006. They weren't really hikers.
> They were just walking a tourist trail and decided to go
> off trail but got confused.
>
> They stumbled around for four days before being rescued.
>
> The interesting thing was that they stumbled across what appeared to be an
> abandoned
> camp site. The tarp, backpack, shoes, and such were present. But upon
> evaluating what
> they had found, they realized by the log book that they had found a man's
> camp site who
> went missing exactly one year to the day before they found his camp.
>
> The remains of the thru hiker on the PCT were found two weeks later after
> they handed the
> man's ID over to their own rescuers. The remains were only 150 feet or so
> from his camp. He
> apparently had become disoriented in snowfall and was an ultralight hiker
> w/o much gear. As
> a solo hiker, nobody knew he was missing for about 10 days. It was an irony
> that the man had
> always said his biggest fear was to die alone. And, he did.
>
> His name was John Joseph Donovan. He turned age 60 just days before he
> died. He wasn't an
> inexperienced hiker but he did have a reputation for being a little sloppy
> and stubborn. He was
> supposed to partner up with a friend who had wisely decided to postpone two
> weeks due to the snowfall
> that year.
>
> The story can be read at Backpacker Magazine: Oct 2006.
>
> The young couple from Texas were the focus of the show I watched, but I
> researched the
> back story of the hiker. I knew from the description on the show that it
> was a PCT event even
> though the TV show did not mention the PCT.
>
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-- 
Austin Williams
PlanYourHike.com

"The mountains are calling and I must go."   -John Muir



-- 
Austin Williams
PlanYourHike.com

"The mountains are calling and I must go."   -John Muir