They were not in trouble yet, but if one of the party twists an ankle or knee then the group can no longer move together. It only takes one misstep and that's a large group. Moving in the dark risks turning a minor embarrassment into something with much reduced tactical possibilities.

This assumes it's true - "moonlit sky" sounds like an editor's embellishment.


OK, I should back off as not enough is known. It's the leadership vs. management issue again... I was thinking in terms that once you're out of sight down that road you're not leading that group until you return.

As a thought experiment: let's pretend they had a 406 MHz beacon. What's the point at which you activate it? My understanding was that "being lost" by itself isn't good enough, but nearly out of food or water would be. But in this case SAR resources were being deployed anyway. Knowing what they knew at the time what's the right time to have activated a PBL had they had one?

"As others have noted, movement across country at night is a Bad Idea."

Not always. One report indicated a "moonlit night". I have navigated my way pretty good distances by moonlight, and on occasion read a map by moonlight.

And don't forget Bear Grylls' advice on his African segment, about how moving at night through packs of nocturnal predators was a good idea...

Frank2135

I'd be all over Bear Grylls' advice. Heck, we should all sleep during the day and only travel at night

Being a big fan of 406 MHz PLB's (yes, I have one) I thought about that very thing. The troop members were never in a life-threatening situation so it would not have been appropriate to set-off a PLB signal.

Still, as an assistant Scoutmaster myself, it would be good to know that I could call on help if things got bad and life was in jeapordy.

Ken K.

Here's another way to look at it. If they had a 406 PLB, which I would recommend, the fact that they didn't set it off is really an indication that this was not a serious situation, so nobody has to panic. One nice feature of the new SPOT device is that OK button, perfect for such a situation.

When I took my private pilot training, I was taught that if you have to make a precautionary landing (a controlled landing other than your destination, usually not at an airport), and you have no way of contacting the authorities, you were to wait until the SAR time on your flight plan (usually 1 hour after your ETA), and then manually activate your ELT (emergency locator transmitter). The theory was that (1) no-one would be organizing a search until you were reported overdue, so you would just be wasting battery power; (2) once you were reported overdue, the search and rescue people would come looking for you, so the sooner you were found the better off everyone would be.

I would follow the same logic today - even if I had plenty of supplies and knew where I was, as soon as I knew or had reason to believe that SAR had been alerted, I would activate the PLB, if only to make their job easier.

All this fuss because they were due back on Sunday and they didn't get back until Monday.

Change one detail and get them back on Sunday night and this wouldn't be a news story. It would be:

"How was your hike, Honey?"
"It was fun, Mom. We got lost for a while but we ran into somebody who told us which way to go."
"That's nice, I do hope you're not too tired for soccer practice tomorrow."

But its interesting to consider the situation when you are not in danger but you are overdue and know that all hell is breaking loose at home. If you know that SAR is probably being called out, do you activate the PLB to speed up the resolution of the process or might that cause SAR to assume that you're in even more danger and perhaps take extra risks to get to as soon as possible.

On the other hand, how much time do you give as a buffer? I don't want my wife to call SAR if I hiked a little slower than I anticipated, but if I break my leg on day 2 of a week long hike I don't want to wait an exra few days before they even start looking for me.

Looks like I need a PLB and a SPOT and a sat phone and perhaps a ham radio or two.

Wow, I missed this story when it came out.

Whatever the outcome, I think the scoutmasters made one critical mistake that turned the whole thing from an enjoyable hike into a potential survival situation: They deviated from their plans.

While my motto for the unexpected comes from Clint Eastwood - "Improvise, adapt, overcome," I also have a very Russian philosphy for most situations that I got from Fred Dalton Thompson - "Your average Ruskie, son, doesn't take a dump without a plan."

These adults ran into Stranger-Dangers who told them that the trail ahead "fizzled out." But instead of sticking to their original plan, or better, retracing their steps back along the path they had already traversed, they decided to head off in an unknown, unplanned direction, seeking something that was marked on their map. If the trail ahead becomes impassable or unfollowable, then take the trail behind, but either way, you stick to the freakin' trail! Leaving the trail is the simplest, quickest, easiest, and most foolproof method of getting lost.

If it were just the adults, and they were looking for a little of the unexpected, which can be good as well as bad, then I'd say, "Well, that's the risk you take when you go exploring." But these guys had a groups of minor children in their charge, and had no business going anywhere or doing anything that wasn't in the original plan (or their backup plan, if they had one), without a major compelling reason. And I don't consider a couple of strangers telling you that the trail ahead "fizzles out" to be a compelling enough reason to deviate from the plans.

Had they stuck to the original trail, or reversed direction and retraced their inbound trail, they might have been late, might have spent an extra night in the wild before getting home, but they probably would not have gotten lost.

They did make another, minor mistake in hiking on after dark. My own childhood camping experience taught me the hard way that A) setting up any kind of camp in the dark is difficult at best, and maybe even dangerous, and B) hiking through the woods after dark is at the very least dangerous, if not foolhardy.

I have a little scar on my shin to this day that I got when I was about 12 from walking through the woods in the dark; I stepped in a hole I couldn't see, fell forward onto a rock, and lost a chunk of flesh on a sharp edge. Fortunately, it didn't crack the bone or require stitches, but it did require butterfly closures and was pretty painful. Moonlight isn't particularly helpful when you're in the woods in the middle of summer - the leaves have a tendancy to screen out full daytime sunlight, let alone moonlight.

Then there's gathering wood and building a fire by flashlight; it's not easy, or particularly safe, considering the types of critters that can be found under logs and branches at night in North Carolina. Setting up tents by firelight and flashlight is also not easy, especially the part where you swing a heavy blunt instrument to drive tent pegs into the ground.

So while these guys do seem to have made some smart decisions, they also made some potentially fatal bad decisions, either out of carelessness or a misplaced sense of adventure-seeking. This was a Boy Scout camping trip, not the USMC Crucible - they were out there for some safe fun, not for a real-world test of their survival skills.

The very best way out of a survival situation is to not get into it in the first place. Sometimes it's unavoidable no matter what you do, but in this case it was completely avoidable.

But that assumes the beacon isn't lost, and that it works at all. Since the beacons aren't ever tested ever leaving the factory - at least my ResQFix isn't testable without needing factory service afterwards to replace the batteries - I'm not sure it's reasonable to assume the beacon works.

(I vaguely seem to recall that there was one set of tests run on small planes - by the FAA? SARSAT? - in Alaska? - where many beacons - 30%-50% - actually didn't work when tested. This is hazy memory but it did leave an impression not to assume too much of equipment that is never tested)


The SARSAT protocol that the beacons use to broadcast to the satellites has seven spare bits if I recall correctly. It would be possible to add encodings for activation reason - "OK", "test", "need rescue, not time critical", etc.

The main problem is that you don't know how long the beacon must be left active before the satellite pass and you hate to consume a non-replaceable battery on an OK in case an actual emergency arises later.

The other problem is that satellite resources aren't unlimited. From the documents I've read discussing doppler shift measurement in the satellites there is going to be a definite limit to the number of active beacons the system casn handle at any one time. And since this is an international system piggybacking on other people's satellites increasing capacity might not be easy, and definitely won't be cheap.

From the ARC web site listing the ResQFix features:

Full functional self-test of internal circuitry, battery voltage and power, 406 MHz transmission and GPS acquisition—an ACR exclusive

Are you saying the unit nust be sent in for factory service after a self test?