Don't Count on Your Locator Beacon

[Ben]

I feel bad that this woman died, and won't go into detail listing mistakes, but will just say she might have wanted to make better choices from the git-go (like not going, given the weather).

What was interesting, was that even with her beacon active, they appeared to be getting +-1 mile coordinates. With good weather and open terrain, that might not be too problematic for searchers, especially with airborne resources, but in bad weather and closed terrain, that's bad. I'm very curious to know what model PEPIRB she had and what the terrain and vegetation were like where she activated it.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/02/17/hiker-who-got-lost-in-deteriorating-weather-conditions-found-dead-in-nh/

[RevDisk]

This was in August. It was still cold, wet and foggy. It reminded me of LV-426.

It's relatively easy to die in the White Mountains. People have frozen to death every month of the year except July or August. Visibility can drop from miles to single feet in a short period of time. I don't have an EIRB but I do plan on buying one. In the mean time, I do have an ACR MS-2000 and I highly recommend it. Even if you DO get an EIRB, owning a strobe is very handy. A lot of helicopter mounted FLIR units can specifically detect said strobes.

Earlier weather:

[230RN]

I have a vague notion as to how blowing snow and other crap can foul up GPS stuff, but I wonder if anyone had better notions.

For example, even snow or rain on the line of pine trees outside can screw up my over-the-air digital TV reception.

Help, please, on the GPS "problem?"

[KD5NRH]

Even if you DO get an EIRB, owning a strobe is very handy. A lot of helicopter mounted FLIR units can specifically detect said strobes.

EPIRB, strobe, at least 3 red aerial flares and a couple of handheld ones.  I'd also want a good signal mirror and at least a basic shelter kit.  Signalling in an area like that would be too important to short yourself of tried-and-true methods, and frankly, it sounds like she was just flat out unprepared for the possibility of having to hunker down and wait a bit.  30 below is pretty extreme, but a sheltered spot and a small fire will get you through a couple days.  Good emergency gear for that would still fit in a regular day pack, though I'd probably add a dry-bagged sleeping bag to my regular hiking emergency gear if that sort of weather was a possibility.  The extra bulk would be well worth it in case of a leg injury or anything else that precludes getting back to the car right away.

[RevDisk]

EPIRB, strobe, at least 3 red aerial flares and a couple of handheld ones.  I'd also want a good signal mirror and at least a basic shelter kit.  Signalling in an area like that would be too important to short yourself of tried-and-true methods, and frankly, it sounds like she was just flat out unprepared for the possibility of having to hunker down and wait a bit.  30 below is pretty extreme, but a sheltered spot and a small fire will get you through a couple days.  Good emergency gear for that would still fit in a regular day pack, though I'd probably add a dry-bagged sleeping bag to my regular hiking emergency gear if that sort of weather was a possibility.  The extra bulk would be well worth it in case of a leg injury or anything else that precludes getting back to the car right away.

On the White Mountains, aerial flares would be either a cruel joke or counterproductive. 100 mph winds would very quickly take it somewhere else in a hurry. Handheld flares would probably be more handy for quick firestarter, but it's not impossible for them to be handy. Under the specific circumstances of article, most useful aspect of a military strobe light would be to allow search team to more easily find one's corpse. Mt Washington and the surrounding mountains can have hurricane force winds roughly one day in three. Sending a helicopter into that is a quick way to turn one casualty into several. Helping rescue services more easily find your corpse might actually save lives. Orange streamer would be a good idea as well.

The lady apparently was well equipped. Just not enough for the area and weather she ended up going through. Snow hurricanes are nasty gorram things. It'll shred most consumer tents, and not a lot of hiker sleeping bags can deal with -30 temps. Large parts of the mountains are alpine, and don't have trees. Mostly moss, which doesn't burn well.

Best not to think of the White Mountains as yanno, nature. During the Winter months, think of it as an angrier version of the North Pole. With more interesting terrain. Oh, and lovely enough fact, during the winter, it is not terribly uncommon for the White Mountains to be colder than the North Pole.

[Jamisjockey]

The EPIRB I have for my boat weighs like 4 pounds and is large and bulky.  There are plenty of PLB's that are much smaller and just as accurate. 
I've fired aerial flares before, and I don't expect that in 100mph winds you're going to see much effectiveness from them.  During daytime, the smoke trail is the best visual indicator from the flare.  I can't imagine in whiteout snowstorm conditions them being worth a *expletive deleted*it. 

[charby]

EPIRB, strobe, at least 3 red aerial flares and a couple of handheld ones.  I'd also want a good signal mirror and at least a basic shelter kit.  Signalling in an area like that would be too important to short yourself of tried-and-true methods, and frankly, it sounds like she was just flat out unprepared for the possibility of having to hunker down and wait a bit.  30 below is pretty extreme, but a sheltered spot and a small fire will get you through a couple days.  Good emergency gear for that would still fit in a regular day pack, though I'd probably add a dry-bagged sleeping bag to my regular hiking emergency gear if that sort of weather was a possibility.  The extra bulk would be well worth it in case of a leg injury or anything else that precludes getting back to the car right away.

You've actually never been in a real blizzard have you?

[griz]

GPS systems are designed to work even in heavy cloud cover.  I've used them in downpours and they are still good to within 50 feet easily.  But I've never used one in a real blizzard, so don't know if that would have an effect.  It's also possible she sought shelter in an area protected by rock walls, and the signal bounce can be bad.  Either way it sounds like rescue would have been impossible in that weather even if they knew within one foot where she was.

[vaskidmark]

Green laser flare http://www.equipped.com/rescuelaser.htm

Put that sucker up into the clouds and it can look like the Martians are going to land.

Yes, they are expensive and can be finicky about batteries.  But if you are going off the highway into where Mother Nature makes the rules you do want to have as much going for you as possible.

According to the survival stuff I have read/watched a mylar sheet and a whole lot of forest floor litter can make you a shelter that works like a snow cave.  And I have experienced snow caves - they get quite warm when done right and not built on/out of wet snow/slush.

But caveat emptor - even with all the right stuff used the right way there is no guarantee you will survive.

stay safe.

[charby]

GPS systems are designed to work even in heavy cloud cover.  I've used them in downpours and they are still good to within 50 feet easily.  But I've never used one in a real blizzard, so don't know if that would have an effect.  It's also possible she sought shelter in an area protected by rock walls, and the signal bounce can be bad.  Either way it sounds like rescue would have been impossible in that weather even if they knew within one foot where she was.

Poor satellite geometry can give you some very skewed results.

I use a mapping grade Trimble GIS unit and I can get some screwy results with poor satellite and doing point collection on the fly.

[KD5NRH]

You've actually never been in a real blizzard have you?

Not outdoors, but then I've never been naked except for a Dolly Parton wig and a thin coat of honey and tied up in fistful's bedroom either, largely because I'm not stupid enough to put myself in either situation.  

If, for some reason, I did decide to go for a hike in blizzard country in blizzard season, I'd opt for a route with a lot more natural shelter spots instead of finding the most barren, exposed chunk of rock available.

But caveat emptor - even with all the right stuff used the right way there is no guarantee you will survive.

That applies to walking down the street or taking a nap in your own bed, too.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Been outside in a blizzard. Just to move from building to car. It was impressive. I was holding a 6 week old infant. The ZOMG factor for me was high


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[Ben]

One of the reasons I'm curious as to what exactly her "locator beacon" was is that if the official wasn't either misquoted or mispoke, +-1 mile is pretty wonky. That's ~3400 yards. Over the last 20 years, I've used Pluggers, Trimble XRs, and a slew of consumer units and have never seen more than a couple of hundred yard errors, and that was consumer units in the pre-WAAS, Selective Availability days.

Normally, before a correctly configured unit shows something ridiculous like being a mile off, it wouldn't have even locked on to any sats in the first place. I don't believe any current consumer units will even give you a position with less than three sats. Being a mile off outside of the polar regions is a curiosity. Though I'm not an expert on the workings of EPIRBS - there might have been something causing an error in the coms with the SARSAT satellites.

[MechAg94]

Is there some sort of Winter Mountain Hiking group I don't know about?  Hiking in the mountains in New Hampshire in Winter doesn't seem like a great idea even with all the right gear. 

[RevDisk]

One of the reasons I'm curious as to what exactly her "locator beacon" was is that if the official wasn't either misquoted or mispoke, +-1 mile is pretty wonky. That's ~3400 yards. Over the last 20 years, I've used Pluggers, Trimble XRs, and a slew of consumer units and have never seen more than a couple of hundred yard errors, and that was consumer units in the pre-WAAS, Selective Availability days.

Normally, before a correctly configured unit shows something ridiculous like being a mile off, it wouldn't have even locked on to any sats in the first place. I don't believe any current consumer units will even give you a position with less than three sats. Being a mile off outside of the polar regions is a curiosity. Though I'm not an expert on the workings of EPIRBS - there might have been something causing an error in the coms with the SARSAT satellites.

Some error receiving from GPS satellites, or transmitting to SARSAT.  I concur that 1 mile is weird, but not entirely out of the realm of possibility. Other possibility is that the beacon lost its fix and couldn't get a new one.

[Ben]

Some error receiving from GPS satellites, or transmitting to SARSAT.  I concur that 1 mile is weird, but not entirely out of the realm of possibility. Other possibility is that the beacon lost its fix and couldn't get a new one.

I guess another obvious possibility might be that she ignored what you should normally do in this situation, and instead of staying put, started walking and assumed her beacon would update her position. Don't know why she might decide to walk in those conditions, unless she was already well into hypothermia and not thinking clearly.

[KD5NRH]

One of the reasons I'm curious as to what exactly her "locator beacon" was is that if the official wasn't either misquoted or mispoke, +-1 mile is pretty wonky.

Well, he did say a mile circumference, which is an odd way of defining a search area, but would mean a ~280 yard radius.

Do most EPIRBs have some sort of indicator that would let the user know the fix sucks?  Seems like it would be a good feature, since one could then put the beacon somewhere with a good signal within line of sight or other means of letting searchers know where to go from there, while retreating to a nearby shelter.  One would hope that searchers wouldn't just say "Oh, it's an abandoned EPIRB that somebody left laying out on this rock.  Let's go home." but it would still speed things along to have some sort of arrow, cord or note attached to lead them right into the snow cave, small crevice or whatever else you're hiding from the weather in.

[bedlamite]

Well, he did say a mile circumference, which is an odd way of defining a search area, but would mean a ~280 yard radius.

Unfortunately, you can't assume that anyone knows the difference between circumference and radius anymore. 

Hiking in the mountains in New Hampshire in Winter doesn't seem like a great idea even with all the right gear. 

^Yeah, pretty much this.

[Boomhauer]

Holy hell talk about a nightmarish survival and SAR scenario.

Well, he did say a mile circumference, which is an odd way of defining a search area, but would mean a ~280 yard radius.

He probably said radius. I chalk up errors like that to the idiot reporters who pull *expletive deleted*it out of their asses when writing stories.


Those kinds of conditions, you are pretty much *expletive deleted*ed if you wind up in them, because help ain't gonna find you in time to make a difference.

Good emergency gear for that would still fit in a regular day pack

Not for this it wouldn't.

[Fitz]

Having a bit of extreme cold weather survival training, I can say pretty confidently that one does not pack what one needs to survive such a scenario in a simple day pack. Especially if you have any ambitions of getting out of it.

The best bit of kit for a situation like this is your head. Knowing how to navigate with the old fasioned methods routinely saves lives. It is possible to terrain associate in gnarly weather (especially if you keep good track of your position before the weather gets gnarly) , and dead reckoning works even in no visibility, if you're careful.

[Scout26]

Walking around in a blizzard in the mountains is a sure way to die quick.

Shelter is the most important asset.  Find a place to hunker down and ride out the storm.  Fire if you can build one, but in 40+ mph winds that going to be real tricky.

Hypothermia makes people do crazy and stupid things.  It's almost as it the brain sees that the body is dying and attempts to speed up the process in it's bad decision making.

And yeah, a simple daypack full of "stuff" ain't enough to try to survive that especially when temps and windchills drop well into the negatives.  And the only way a flare would work in white-out conditions was it you launched it at your rescuers and hit them with it.

http://news.yahoo.com/video/jim-cantore-still-freaking-thundersnow-215635138-cbs.html

Check out the background.  Now picture being out in the woods/mountains where there are no street lights, and you pretty much can't see your hand in front of your face.

[charby]

To add to what Scout said: This is what a blizzard looks like from a person's perspective.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Pictures don't do it justice . It was a real interesting thing for me.


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[charby]

Pictures don't do it justice . It was a real interesting thing for me.

You ain't kidding there.

[Hawkmoon]

Is there some sort of Winter Mountain Hiking group I don't know about?  Hiking in the mountains in New Hampshire in Winter doesn't seem like a great idea even with all the right gear. 

Especially solo.

And, if I read the article correctly, she intended to top THREE mountains in one trek. That's not a one-day stroll in the park. She should have had a good tent and a good alpine sleeping bag, not just a day pack with a few energy bars in it.

I have satellite TV (DirecTV), and I've lost signal during heavy snow storms. If she was in real blizzards conditions, it's probably a miracle that she got any signal out at all. The problem is (I think), the unit needs three satellites to triangulate location, but that information tells her EPIRB where she is, and then transmits that location to the hoped-for rescuers. If her unit isn't receiving a clean signal, it can't calculate where it is, so the coordinates of the "Please save my ass" upload message are worthless.