Although the SPOT might have helped, what they really needed was an appropriate response! Although a two way com might have helped, the real problem in this case is the lack of response capability. If there had been a helicopter at Anchorage ready to go, there could have been help within an hour.

The other problem here is our expectation. We have had PLB's for only a few years now. But we expect wilderness rescue within hours. The system is just learning to deal with this type of notification. We expect the same response we get from 911 on our cell phones (which often takes longer than we would like, even in the city). We have become used to instant response. I hope that it will come in the near future, but in many places it is not here yet. Just 10 or 15 years ago, the notification would have come when the event was scheduled to be over, when the pickup came in to get them.

As a philosophical rant, something is also lost when we have instant communication in the wilderness, is it truly wilderness any more? One of my favorite lines from Calvin Rutstrum's "Paradise Below Zero" is a statment made to him as the boat that brought them into northern Canada and would not be back for a year, "Now, dammit, at last we can holler for help and not be heard".

Respectfully,

Jerry