It's interesting that this popped up this weekend. I actually taught a land navy class to my unit at Drill this weekend. One of the "this is why it matters to you stories" was a SSG (E6) that got lost last year doing land nav at Ft. Jackson and died 50 m outside the land nav course.
And yes, I am super atypical for most people I know going into the woods but between my time in Alaska, and basic Murphy protection, I'd rather carry more than I have to. The line between civilization and dying alone in the woods is often very thin, and less than a 20 min walk from where you meant to be.
FYI, you can go to
www.caltopo.com and print topo maps free, of anywhere in the US and take one with you, just in case. I use 1:50,000 and MGRS because I like it, but you can play with your grid overlay and scale to your hearts content. Free. No reason not to have a map.
Funny story: Mrs. Mush, my mother, and I flew to Vegas a couple years back to climb Mt. Charleston. Like 16 mile round trip and 6500ish feet up. Mrs mush got food poisoning the night before, but we tried the hike anyway. She also got a touch of altitude sickness when we got over 10,000'. When we turned around, we were already late, and by the time we got to like 7 miles from the car, things were going bad. Mrs. Mush was that part of hypothermic where she was trying to take clothes off, storm had come in with 35 or so kt winds on the ridge we were on, dark was like 2.5 hours away, and we were moving 1.5 mph or so. It was decided that I'd go ahead to a high point get some cell service and call 911 to let Rescue know that we were at least out there, and what was going on.
Made the call, talked to a very professional lady at mountain rescue dispatch, told here we were still moving but we might end up stuck out here. Going down her checklist she asked what we had for supplies. I said "It was only supposed to be a day hike so not all that much. We're down to 6 liters of water, two gallon bags of trail mix, cheese and meat, fire starter, 4 space blankets, some 550 cord, 3 flashlights, one headlamp, our phones, two battery banks for the phones, good knife, standalone GPS, map, compass., and first aid kit" There was a solid 5 count pause, and she was like " Okaaaaay, seems like you have enough to make it to tomorrow if you need to."
We made it off the mountain about 2230, called them back and let them know, and they thanked us for both fixing it ourselves and thinking to give them a heads up.
Mrs. Mush put this sticker on her water bottle after that.
