I was working with 5 other people in the back county of Death Valley the same week this tragedy occurred and we never heard about it until we got back to Stovepipe Wells the day after they found the woman. I feel awful that we were only about 15 miles at one point from where she got stuck on the first day of her ordeal! It was blistering hot there - the daily temperatures were over 120 degrees that week.

For safety's sake, we told everyone where we would be during the day, and took the precaution of traveling with at least two vehicles each day to our worksites (one as a life boat just in case). We also brought 5+ gallons of water per person per day (extra to splash around to cool off with), a bunch of towels and a large cooler filled with nothing but ice (to cool off with). If someone did get too hot, we would have used the towels, water and ice to cool them off with. The drinking water was kept cool but not iced or too cold (you can kill yourself drinking ice water when you are hot).

There is NO cell phone coverage in Death Valley - we had more than 6 cell phones between all of us with more than three different carriers and none of them could send calls. So for backup, I brought my 2-meter portable ham radio (which never raised anyone when I tried to make hello calls with it). Our main emergency communications was covered by three SPOT emergency satellite transponders, which we used for daily safety check-in calls too.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of mistakes that woman made which led to the death of her son. Even though some had suggested that she should have walked out to get help, this would have been certain death. The nights do not cool off that much down there - it was still over 100 degrees at 11PM! The area where she was in is very remote, and to try to see a human walking out there would have been next to impossible. Another woman died the week before in the park trying to walk back to her car from the dunes near Stovepipe Wells. Walking anywhere during the summer down there is very dangerous and should not be attempted unless you have water cached along your route.

The most basic things she could have done to have survived this would have been to take at least 5 gallons of water for each of them (10 gallons), a real map, and communicate with people as to where she was going to be with a check-in call planned. The park visitor centers will do this for you if you want - just let them know who, when and where and they will send help if you don't check in. Oh yea - Don't forget to check in if you are done with your trip too, because you will get a call from a ranger and they won't be happy if they find you safely at home!!