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Tuesday, February 01, 2011


INCIDENTS

Rocky Mountain National Park (CO)
Rangers Rescue Woman Seriously Injured In Fall

A long and challenging rescue came to an end around 11:30 p.m. last Saturday when rescuers carried an injured woman out of the backcountry to a waiting ambulance. Rebecca Stubbs, a 20-year-old student from Massachusetts who is attending the University of Colorado in Boulder, suffered a serious fall earlier that morning. She was in a party of five who left the Longs Peak Trailhead at 4 a. m. with the goal of climbing 13,191-foot Mount Meeker. Around 8 a.m., members of the party put on their crampons to start across a steep icy slope above Peacock Pool in the Chasm Lake area just east of Longs Peak. Stubbs fell and slid 200 feet down the slope, incurring multiple injuries. Her party activated a SPOT satellite GPS messenger device, alerting the International Emergency Coordination Center in Texas. The park received a call from the center shortly thereafter and rangers were sent to the trailhead to hike into Chasm Lake. Around 10 a.m., they came upon two members of the party, who confirmed the location and nature of the accident. Additional personnel responded as rangers continued to the accident scene, arriving around noon. They treated Stubbs, who remained alert and stable throughout the rescue. Personnel from the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group in Boulder and Larimer Country Search and Rescue and a paramedic from Estes Park Medical Center soon arrived to assist. Rescuers began the arduous task of raising her 200 feet and carefully moving her toward Chasm Junction, arriving there around 5:20 p.m. A total of 22 rescuers then carried Stubbs roughly three miles to the Longs Peak Trailhead. Stubbs was taken by ambulance to Estes Park Medical Center. [Submitted by Larry Frederick, Chief of Interpretation and Education]

Even a grouchy old Neanderthal like me will have to admit that SPOT/PLB is becoming the new standard of preparedness for a walk in the park.....

Thanks hikermor! I more inclined to get one every day! Spot2 costs about $150 and it's about $100 a year for the service. Seems like a good investment if you ever need it, plus it's got all those other features (GPS tracking) that could be put to good use regularly.

I heard discussion on the RMNP radio system of this while it was in the early stages.

One of the things discussed was that it was a signal from a 2nd generation beacon with a protected activation switch.

This weighed favorably on the decision for speed of response.

I finally caught Les Stroud's Survival Challenge this afternoon. That's the one where he takes of bunch of NHLrs and challenges them to survive 24 hrs in the bush, very much like the kids on Surivive this but only a day instead of longer. I don't want to sidetrack this discussion by talking about the show, but an interesting thing happened at the end of the show. They sent all the groups out with a Spot2, but they were one unit short so that group had only their maps, compasses and cel phones to rely on. In Les' words, from the SPOT Adventures website:

"...something went wrong with Brad May’s group. They were extremely late. In time I sent in one of the local guides to find them as he was well experienced in the bush and knew these lands like the back of his hand. But on his way to trying to find them he noticed that his own compass and gps were malfunctioning. Something was up with the magnetism in that area and it turns out theat Brads team was having the same trouble. This problem sent them off in the wrong direction into what could’ve been thousands and thousands of square miles of just bush. With a small bit of luck on their side, just moments before they were to take a wrong turn, the guide fired a shot in the air and they heard it."

Another vote in favour of carrying a PLB or SPOT of some sort.

I'm more and more inclined to not rely on any one form of navigation. Map and compass is great, but using a GPS occasionally to confirm gives confidence to the compass/map. In this situation, a GPS would have shown them going astray. . .

SPOT and PLB's are good for emergency situations like the one described. Not getting lost is great.

I was an early user of GPS, as it is extremely handy in field archaeology, particularly in locating archaeological sites quickly and unambiguously. During the preceding decades I had used map, compass, and aerial photographs for that purpose.

The unambiguity of GPS is a real plus, especially after Selective Availability was disabled, but even then the signal can be a little off if you are in a deep canyon, etc. It is worthwhile but GPS should not be relied upon exclusively. My understanding is that paper maps still contain more detail than most electronic versions - and they don't require batteries.

I don't buy that BOTH GPS and compass can be off.
The compass INSIDE the GPS perhaps but not both forms.

The higher sensitivity receivers such as on the Garmin 60CSx and newer GPSMAP 62 family do a pretty good job in canyons and under a canopy.

Point is though, take more than one form of navigation. Some work better than others, some more accurate, some more reliable, some need batteries, some are negatively effected by variations in the earth magnetic field.

It's good to be able to take a lat-long and transfer that point to a map. Is that where you think you are? My goal is to never need to activate my PLB. Although in certain circumstances I'll activate without a second thought . . . Darn, the ELT just sank.

I try to avoid using the GPS's electronic compass; it's a major power hog, power better saved for things a mag compass can't do.

I could , but not by enough to matter if your head is working. The one time I had a "bad" location from a GPS was in a canyon. I was in a rock shelter on the east side of the canyon, and the GPS put me in the bottom of the same canyon, but in the general area.

Compasses can be affected by local magnetism (many different types, like ore bodies). None of these affect the constellations and Polaris, except clouds. Be aware of your surroundings and examine all your available tools.

I'm curious in fashion magnetism could affect a GPS transceiver? They don't rely on magnetism at all...what am I missing?