"...It would be hard to leave some of it behind if I had to walk..."

Maybe your best bet would be to take the hike with nothing ('cept maybe some water), and see what you wished you had on the walk. Four miles is not all that far, one hour twenty minutes or so, maybe a tad longer thanks to the hills...

I like the idea of carrying a camera. I've heard you should carry a cheap disposable camera in case of a car crash so you can document the damage and positions. I like to get them for doing Army training. If I break or lose it, I'm not out much like I would be with my digital camera, but its fun to take pictures to remember what I've done. You can also use a camera for self-defense, to diffuse a situation before it gets violent. Taking a person's picture can be pretty intimidating. How many people have been caught on cellphone cameras and arrested? It can also be a good way to make friends; "Here's a picture of Joe, some guy I met on my walk during the earthquake of 2009. Right after this he gave me a coke."

A camera has a lot of good uses and a disposable one is light weight and less then $10. I know many people have cameras on their phones, but if you don't its a tool worth considering.

And if you must have another use, once you run out of film the flash could be used as a signal. The flash is really bright and disposable cameras will continue to flash after the films gone until the battery dies (a long time).

Yet another reason why I like my dingleberry; the built in camera.

15 miles is going to be about my daily limit with gear over moderate terrain. I suppose I could push it if I had to and maybe double the mileage, but I'd be absolutely worthless at the end of the hike, if not dead. We're talking dark to dark brisk walking.

Used to be I could walk hike a lot more without feeling it. It sucks to get old.

Cell phone cameras are nice, if you have them. But I've sort of gone with the policy of dispersion. My cell phone, camera, PDA and MP3 player all seperate. My GPS would be too if I had one. The main reason for that is I can listen to music until my battery dies and still make phone calls. I can drop my phone and still have my calender. A little less convenient weight and bulk wise, and if you have your phone you have all those things. But with seperate devices you have greater aggregate battery life and a smaller chance of breaking them all at once. Whatever, it works for me, but I have yet to convince anyone else.

Too too true! OTOH, for me it still appears that it beats the alternative.

On a more serious note, one of the few advantages of age seems to be the ability to "pace" yourself better, and thus increase endurance, a sort of "tortoise and hare" effect.

I have to routinely drive up to Seattle from south of Olympia, WA, about 85 miles. Fortunately, I am never more than 100 ft from my 4WD vehicle, for whatever good that would be (probably not all that much) except that I would have access to my backpack and the vehicle tool bag.

I often think what an awful trip it would be to get home if a quake hit while I was there. The Alaskan Way Viaduct would be the first to go down. Then probably most of the bridges and overpasses, many of the trees and power poles, and lots of the high-rise buildings (it has too many for a city sitting on seven faults). Then wade through a few tons of broken glass, loose bricks, miscellaneous metal, approximately 4 million scared people, quite a large area built on fill...

There's no way you can prepare very well for that kind of scenario. I would figure that IF I could get through safely, I would probably be talking about ten days, minimum.

I guess I need to buy another couple of boxes of granola bars.

Sue

Too True!

Hmm, do you think it would be enough to incapacitate a small animal? Perhaps you could improvise a trap with it. Improbable, but its possible.

Oh dear Lord, there'd be a fair amount of that whole I-5 corridor along your route that'd be toast. So much of it is elevated, but I gotta think in a quake you'd have Queen Anne and Capital hill structures come tumbling down onto the freeway anyways. I always figured if the big one hit when I was living there, it'd be about as bad as it could get just about anywhere on the planet. Then there's the big tidal surge rebounding around in Elliot Bay and Hood Canal and such. It would not be fun to be skirting through Fife on I-5 or old 99 and watch the big wall of water either coming up the tidal flats Tsunami style, or down the Puyallup River valley as a La Har from Bonney Lake, Twin Lakes, and Mud Mountain Dam all letting go. Ugly!

I always figured the best bet would be to head east and get to high ground skirting the cascades from Issaquah through Black Diamond and around to Enumclaw. It is the long way around, but at least you'd be away from the urban hazards and most of the reservoir water. That's assuming Mount Rainier doesn't let go and blast the whole area to heck.

I see U of W is still predicting a force 9+ quake as imminent along the Juan de Fuca line. That'd pretty much make most of the urban sprawl along the I-5 corridor and along the west side (Bremerton) disappear I reckon.

I think one of the worst things about this kind of situation would be the fears of the people 'back home'.

You would know that you were (relatively) safe, and working your way back. They would not only be busy trying to survive, but would have the extra stress of not knowing how you were doing, or where you were.

I can't think of any kind of communication that would be guaranteed to work in this situation.

I guess I would try a little of everything, and hope I could get word to them that I was heading home.

Spread Spectrum HF burst transmission at 100w ERP would probably suffice. Those have shown to work under some of the nastiest electromagnetic conditions.