Picked this up from TV news tonight.
Five guys, five motorcycles: Nobody prepared for anything but fun. They all ran out of gas after getting separated and then finding each other. They discovered that being wet from riding through creeks plus a 20-degree night adds up to a miserable equation. Luckily, SAR fished them out of the woods before daybreak.

http://www.4029tv.com/video/22574172/index.html

If you didn't notice, this is my first post; I've been lurking for years. I've learned a ton from everyone. And I cried with you when OBG died.

I look forward to joining the great community that exists here.

Glad you decided to start posting.
I am happy for the riders that they were found quickly and nobody was hurt. The story does show how easy it is to get into trouble even in a group.

Yeah, and I still miss OBG too.

Welcome friend to the campfire great people here.

And we all miss OBG.

Lee

Welcome aboard!

Good to hear the bikers' adventure turned out okay.

Welcome to the fire, newsman!
-Blast

Amazing how just a little prep - Fire, tarp, snacks, would have made a difference.

Welcome to the group

Teacher

Welcome aboard Newsman.

If they'd only watched the Survivorman Episode where Les Stroud took various parts of his bike and used them for survival. Maybe if they had been out there a few days they might have considered the bikes for what they could use. Then again, they all ditched the bikes to meet up and then tried to walk out.

I'm curious if any of the bikes had an electric starter...

It's amazing that they found one another that night. You can cover a lot of ground on a bike and it's easy to get separated quickly. I'm glad they came out of the situation alright.

I Miss OBG. (period)
ps. welcome aboard newsman:)

Welcome to group.

A few points I though interesting from the video report:

The SAR team let them sleep for a few hours after building them a fire and getting them something to eat. Guessing that they wanted to get their energy built back up and wait until daylight to treck out.

Surprised, in a good way, that whoever was in the base camp requested help after four hours. I wonder if they had talked about a certain time limit as a past-due point before heading out.

Report said SAR spent 13 hours searching (assume in total for all five). As Nicodemus said, they probably did cover quite a bit of ground on their bikes.

Regards,
Buckeye

I find it hard to image that there was not at least a single lighter in the group. While this is national forest, it is NOT wilderness. It is crisscrossed by county roads, fire roads, and hiking trails. This the Ozarks, not the Rockies, but the hiking can be tough.

I wonder if these guys will actually go to the trouble of making a PSK, then stowing it under the seat of their bikes. Nothing fancy, a trash bag, some matches and tinder in a watertight container can make a miserable night much more tolerable.

This is the same campground hit by a flash flood in October, during a 4x4 rockcrawling event: 200 were stranded, 28 had to be rescued, and 3 rescue personnel in a boat capsized and had to self rescue. http://www.4029tv.com/news/21474144/detail.html.

It's difficult to think about flash flooding being a problem this high up in the hills, but a hard rain in the right spot is all it takes.

Here's video of a flash flood on a tributary to the river. It goes from clear water to flood in under 1 minute. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg8ODMAx4-A.