Boy Scouts, GPS, Ham Radios and Signal Mirrors, Oh My!

Scout troops in Arizona were on neighboring peaks near Prescott practicing signal mirror techinques with one another. One troop got into some sort of fix. They got stranded or a boy became ill or heat injured and using a ham radio they contacted a citizen who forwarded their GPS coordinates to the local Sheriffs dept. who dispatched a helicopter.

I heard from a radio report that the pilot was able to see the mirror flashes from 5 miles away.

The talk back is pretty heated on if the troop was prepared or if it was a foolish outing.