Cell phone call leads to missing backpackers

[rrogers40]

Seeing as we had just talked about development in the Adirondacks what's your guys opinion about building cell towers out in the bush?

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- A Denali National Park and Preserve spokeswoman says two backpackers missing for nearly a week in the Alaska park are alive and well.

Erica Nelson, 23, is from Las Vegas, Nevada.
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National Park Service spokeswoman Kris Fister says 25-year-old Abby Flantz and 23-year-old Erica Nelson of Las Vegas were located in the park Wednesday.

She says one of the women called her mother on a cell phone and a helicopter was sent out to pick up the hikers.

The two had been last seen Thursday when they left for what was supposed to be an overnight camping trip.

The search for them started Saturday when they didn't show up for work.

Fister says the women will be reunited with their families, who had flown to Alaska to be on hand for the search.

www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/18/denali.hikers.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

[frankcor]

I heard the women being interviewed on the radio today. They didn't sound like they were prepared for the wilderness. They survived for 4 days on a granola bar?

Obviously, they weren't carrying firearms. <g>

[dgriffin]

Absolutely necessary. In the future, you won't be allowed in a park without a cell phone for fear you'll get lost and have to wait a few hours for help.

I live a mile or so from a couple of Catskill trailheads. Our local fire department does search and rescue if the lost soul is reasonably expected to have gone into the "bush" from our town. It's not unusual to hear of a hiker (usually from Queens) who walks in a quarter mile, trips over a tree root, skins his or her knee and then wants to be rescued. The firemen really don't mind; it's a chance to practice their rescue skills. But, as one of the guys was telling me, "You can't change your mind, once you ask to be rescued." He continued, "We have to carry you out and we won't let you get up off the litter and walk when you decide that being carried down a trail on a stretcher is not the most comfortable experience in the world." I wonder that the folks at the county 911 center don't explain to a cell caller in the woods just how he or she will be rescued . Maybe some would change their minds.

[rrogers40]

Apparently they were "seasoned" in wilderness "stuff".- but theres a difference between knowing about hiking and actually doing it. If you don't know where your going or the trail is not clearly marked turn around because thats when you get lost.