[pct-l] Anyone have experience with SPOT-2 satellite

[Brian Lewis]

I was, and to a large degree remain in the camp that says "don't carry SPOT
or the like on a thru-hike unless your family forces you to".

But I opted to carry one on the CDT in 2011, and for the most part I was
glad I did; it's a bit more remote there, a lot less people about, and I
ended up walking over half of it solo.

There are a couple of nuances of having a SPOT that I hadn't considered
before I did so.   I was consistent in doing a "I'm here and okay" check-in
each trail day at lunchtime and at wherever I slept, so at the end I had a
really nice track of where I had gone, and when I had been at each place,
via postholer (beyond a one-time setup, that happened automatically whenever
I did a check-in).  If you want to see what that looks like, hopefully this
will do it:
http://postholer.com/gmap/gmap.php?trail_id=2&event_id=788            If you
hover your mouse pointer over any one of the location fixes, it gives you
basic data about it (date, time, coordinates).  And you can change the
background map type.

I found this kind of fun to look at after the trip in general, but it also
gave my wife some useful data during the trip, apart from "well, apparently
he's still alive out there".   Knowing which trail town I was headed to
next, she could better estimate when to mail  things to me, where that
applied.  And if she wanted to make sure she could talk to me at the next
trail town, she was better able to arrange her schedule to do that.       I
think that for some others that ended up following my trip via my trail
journal, having the map aspect made it a bit richer.      I know I've
encountered a situation or two along the way on long distance trips where I
was interested in (re)connecting with a particular thru-hiker, and if that
person had wanted to be found, a SPOT track (public or optionally private)
would certainly have helped narrow down "just where is s/he likely to be at
now" considerably.   I had one occasion in Colorado where a thru-hiking
friend surprised me, waiting at a pass, and it was wonderful getting trail
magic and just generally catching up.  I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't have
been there had I not been publishing my SPOT locations in my journal.

Also, my initial trail partner had to leave the trail in southern Montana.
So last year I drove him back to start the trail where we had split up, and
having the associated SPOT locations made it easy to find the right place.

On the whole, I'd still be disinclined to take a SPOT with me on the PCT or
the AT.   It's easier to check-in by phone (though certainly not always that
hard on the CDT either), and you can generally know pretty precisely where
you are on those trails without a satellite fix (!).   And you certainly do
have to have "the talk" with folks back home so that they won't freak out if
you miss a check-in.    But I'm a little less negative about the whole thing
now.



               Brian Lewis / 'Gadget'