After seeing seasoned hikers get lost and die in Joshua Tree and people following their GPS up mountain passes in winter in Oregon to only get stuck and die. I decided to buy a Garmin Inreach mini 2 last year. It has a SOS feature.
I’m not a big back country hiker, mostly exploring forest service roads. As I’ve gotten older I realize some of the close call mechanical issues I’ve had with my Jeep, could have been a bad situation for me. Just a week before Rona closed everything down I did get my Cherokee stuck on the side of a mountain road. It was starting to get snow covered and I was looking for a place to turn around when I slid into a ditch. If it wasn’t for the 1 random winter camper I passed a mile back, it was a 11 mile hike back into town in a no cell coverage area even in town. I wasn’t dressed for winter as it wasn’t snow lower down.
I probably would have tried to hike at dusk into town first before using the SOS feature but it would have been nice to have it incase I had trouble getting back into town. I didn’t have it then so who knows how that would have turned out. Anyways I’m more cautious now.
After seeing seasoned hikers get lost and die in Joshua Tree and people following their GPS up mountain passes in winter in Oregon to only get stuck and die. I decided to buy a Garmin Inreach mini 2 last year. It has a SOS feature.
I’m not a big back country hiker, mostly exploring forest service roads. As I’ve gotten older I realize some of the close call mechanical issues I’ve had with my Jeep, could have been a bad situation for me. Just a week before Rona closed everything down I did get my Cherokee stuck on the side of a mountain road. It was starting to get snow covered and I was looking for a place to turn around when I slid into a ditch. If it wasn’t for the 1 random winter camper I passed a mile back, it was a 11 mile hike back into town in a no cell coverage area even in town. I wasn’t dressed for winter as it wasn’t snow lower down.
I probably would have tried to hike at dusk into town first before using the SOS feature but it would have been nice to have it incase I had trouble getting back into town. I didn’t have it then so who knows how that would have turned out. Anyways I’m more cautious now.