[pct-l] Jim still has the best answer :)

[abiegen at cox.net]

I will be hiking the PCT this year, perhaps the first 700 miles and am grappling with this question. GPS or no?

My experiences that lead me to want to bring it:

1. While hiking locally NOTPCT (Not On The PCT) some decades ago in Southern California on what later turned out to be the hotest day of that year, one person in the group started to get sick from the heat (104 at 11AM). He would walk for 10 minutes, throw up for five minutes, rinse, repeat. Some people turned back. The people that continued, including the sick guy, had never done the hike before and didn't have a map. Everyone thought the other guys knew what they were doing. Well we couldn't find our way through and it was getting dark. The leader had a cell phone and at a high point we were able to get a signal. 911 asked all the right questions - for a city - "Where are you?" and "what's the name of the closest cross street?" Finally we got through to them where we were and they called search and rescue who called in a military helicopter that came after us. The chopper circled over head and flew by several times but couldn't see us and didn't know exactly where we were. We eventually caught their attention but only after they almost ran out of fuel. They flew us to the closest hospital - in the opposite direction we wanted to go. But we were luck to get that. After five bags of saline for me and six for the original sick guy they released us. If we could have told them our coordinates, it would have ended 3 hours earlier when we first heard them looking for us. A couple of years back a young man died on that same trail under similar temperature conditions.

2. While hiking near the Devil's Postpile we knew from teh guide book that we were supposed to go a certain distance and then turn left. When we got there, there were two trails with about 10 degrees between them going to the left. They had all kinds of signs but they were for local landmarks not mentioned in the guidebook. As it turned out it didn't really matter since they came back together in a few miles anyway. But we could have saved the 1/2 hour trying to figure out what to do.

3. While hike on a primitive NOTPCT trail we climbed up into low clouds. The fog was so thick that we could not see 10 ten in front of us. We came to a known point where some wanted to climb a rock formation. We did that but when we came down we weren't sure which way to go. We stood there and argued for 10 or fifteen minutes. Out of the fog walking toward us came a beautiful Goddess in shorts and tee shirt. We ask if she knew the way back and then we followed her down the mountain. As we got close to the end we passed more and more people. The Goddess of the Wet Tee-shirt turned to us and commented, "look at all the people staring at us! You would think they had never seen wet people before." Well, I don't think they were staring at us guys.

So so you need a GPS? I guess not. You can get an exciting ride in a helicopter or your guess which trail it is or you can hope for the Goddess of the Wet Tee-Shirt to save you. A GPS might be more practical. I do still dream about my Goddess saving me though.

TrailHacker