Know how to use your gps

[OregonJim]

I touched on this a little on another thread.

On our middle hunt (Cow in Medicine Bow N.F. WY-12) we came across a elderly hiker who had to leave his wife on the mountain in high-teen overnight temps. They had lost a trail then gone cross country for several hours.
He had a working high end working GPS.
He kept saying it was malfunctioning but he didn't know how to enter a waypoint or pull up the track log.

In our last hunt we encountered a hunter who was twisted around about 3 miles deep.

After our hunt we were told the story of a couple of folks who got lost and ended up crossing some private land to walk out.

The common thread is that the GPS stayed in the pack or the folks didn't know how to use them.

Gear is only as good as your ability to utilize that gear.

In the situation of the lost hiker; it could have been fatal.

 

[Againstthewind]

Good job helping on the search, too. That is pretty cool. I agree a lot with what you said.

 

[25contender]

Yea this is a good thread. I ran into a hunter a few years back that couldn't figure out where he was with his GPS. He was three miles from where he wanted to be. His GPS was on north up and couldn't figure out why he was going in circles. I reset it for him to track up and he was on his way embarrassed but going the right direction.

 

[OregonJim]

You wouldn't believe how common this is on the water too.......

 

[packmule]

Needed GPS this week, deer were hugging private...and kept running to show track in case anyone wanted to dispute where I was.

 

[OregonJim]

Thanks PM,
I hadn't thought about that.
Makes perfect sense, in fact I can think of a couple of times I could have used that function and at least once where it might have gotten me in trouble !!!!!!

 

[kkruse]

Years ago before gps I had a guy walk with 100 yrds of me while we were having a quick lunch three times. He was banging on his compass and the muttering/cussing was getting louder each time. The fourth time a whistled to him and finally got him straightened out. He was just sure that his compass was off but if he'd if only trusted it he would have found the trail only 250 yrds away.


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[RSHusker]

They're only as good as the batteries in them though. I always take 2 extra sets of batteries and I have done a lot of refreshing on how to use a compass since I moved out here to Wyoming. I have the OnX map chip in mine and it's invaluable for the public vs private thing. My Garmin hooks up with the Base camp software and the birds eye imaging and I can do a lot of pre scouting from my couch and save a lot of fuel and time narrowing down where I want to put boots on the ground scouting.