Tell people where you are going before you start your hike.
Why
If you leave and don’t come back, hopefully people will start looking for you. If you don’t tell anyone where you are going, they will have no idea where to start. You could be lost or injured and unable to ask for help. (See my earlier tip on having backup emComms)
What I And Others Do
I tell my wife where I’m going. If I don’t come home in a reasonable amount of time, she’ll call my favorite SAR person (who is also a master SOTA operator) because she’ll want the dog back.
Tell a friend, preferably one that is into SOTA and SAR and let them know when you return. Using a friend that does SOTA means that they will know exactly where you are headed and probably how you are getting there. If you go missing, they know how to check sotawatch and the RBN network to see if you made it there. Let the person know when you get back to a safe area to avoid tripping their alarm. When I’m in Arizona by myself, I text my friend Dale, AA7OY, and let him know where I’m going and again when I get back to town. He’s like my local flight service station. 🙂
Leave a note on your car’s dashboard readable through the windshield. Many a hiker have been found because they left a note in their car describing where they were headed and possibly the planned route.
Turn on “tracking” on your satellite tracker of choice. If you are going deep into the outback, and you have a satellite tracker, turn on the auto track feature that pings your location every so often and let your friends know web-site for your track. If people go looking for you, your last known location will be there. I say “last known location” because you may have moved into an area without satellite coverage preventing the ping but it will get people close. You can see mine HERE.
In my conversation with local Forest Service personnel, they said they don’t provide any sort of service for check-in / check-out capability, but they do initiate searches for people that never told anyone where they were going all the time. A 10 second SMS to a friend could go a long way to helping SAR find you.
I’m sure there are some other options that I haven’t thought of but you get the idea. If you go missing and didn’t tell anyone where you were going, you could be there a looooong time.
Visit HamNinja.com/safetytips to see all the tips as they are published. More safety tips to come.
The Ham Ninja’s SOTA Safety Tips
SOTA Safety Tips is a weekly series of quick tips to remember to improve safety of the hobby. This was inspired by the SoCal SOTA group’s meetings on this topic and will be sourced from my own and others' experience. Don’t forget, you also need to support your group and others with this knowledge. I’ll keep these as short as possible. Send feedback to safetytips@HamNinja.com.
My Experience
I am not a safety or health professional, doctor, or other expert, just an amateur. Be careful out there and do your research. I’ve activated 817+ summits since Oct of 2017 in Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and several other states. Over that time I’ve hiked 2,540+ miles and climbed 626,000+ feet. I don’t have skills beyond class 3 hiking and really, “scrambouldering” and light snow pack are my upper skill limits and my hikes are normally 2 miles, NTE 18 miles. I was an Army medic and was a certified EMT. I have received training on desert survival, and recurrent first Aid training in other roles. First Aid is a perishable skill, get training..
You can contact me at safetytips@HamNinja.com.
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