Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

yeah i just worry about passenger tires on some of those rocky roads. i've seen some subies around town with small lifts and more rugged tires that looked pretty sweet. still wouldn't take it for my taco

 

Sad update, one deceased but thankfully one survived:


INYO COUNTY, CA, APRIL 9, 2021, 3:30pm- At approximately 11:40am today Inyo County Search and Rescue team members were able to access the remote and steep ledge where missing campers Alexander Lofgren and Emily Henkel were located yesterday via aerial reconnaissance in the Willow Creek area of Death Valley National Park (DVNP).

The Inyo County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that Alexander Lofgren is deceased; custody was transferred to the Inyo County Coroner. An investigation will follow to determine the cause and manner of death. Emily Henkel was located alive and flown out for medical treatment by Lemoore Naval Air Station.

The technical search and rescue that took place today followed a lengthy search throughout DVNP that was initiated Tuesday April 6, after Inyo County Sheriff’s Office received notification that Lofgren and Henkel had not returned by their due date of April 4.

“This has been a tremendously difficult operation in a very unforgiving geographic area of Inyo County, I sincerely hope for healing and recovery for all involved,” stated Inyo County Sheriff Jeff Hollowell.

The Inyo County Sheriff’s Office would like to thank the following assisting agencies: Inyo County Search and Rescue, Death Valley National Park, Bureau of Land Management, and CalOES. For aerial support we would like to thank China Lake Naval Weapons Base, Lemoore Naval Air Station, Army National Guard, and CHP.

And to perhaps belabor the point - STAY WITH YOUR VEHICLE IF IT BECOMES DISABLED. This is sadly yet another fatality that would have had a happy ending if the parties had stayed with the vehicle. It’s counterintuitive but it’s the best choice.

 

so sad

 

It can be hard to admit the best place is staying put. But they did do somethings right, like leaving a message. It is a sad outcome and I hope the survivor recovers quickly.

 

the emotional recovery will probably be the longest. can't imagine what she is going through, what she witnessed

 

Sad news. My Wife and I were rarely alone and it was busy enough where we always ran into someone. I was hoping the same for them.

 

Another reason to not wheel alone. Sad indeed.

 

Yes, although a personal locator would have been pretty clutch here. I even take mine with me when I’m not solo.

 

These folks did the most important thing and left a plan. When they deviated, they left an update in the vehicle. I'm not sure two flats qualifies as an emergency. Certainly, where they ended up would-next question is whether or not a SPOT or the like would have been effective in the canyon.

 

All good points. But SPOT/Inreach both have non-emergency help needed options that could have been used prior to ditching the vehicle.

 

My point was they were on a ledge in a canyon. If you read through the complaints about these devices, there are reports of failure in canyons-would it have worked?

 

My point was they could have used this device before they ever even got into that kind of situation. Pretty sure their car wasn’t on said ledge. It’s not like this road was a slot canyon. Keenly aware of limitations of satellites line of sight. I build them for a living. Bottom line: have a PLB and don’t leave your car. RIP

 

Update: They're free thanks to a father's tireless efforts!

ATTN: TW member's daughters stuck in the sand

anyone-near-essex-baker-to-help-my-daughter-stuck-in-the-sand

From here:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...to-help-my-daughter-stuck-in-the-sand.716419/

 

@ucdbiendog is spot on for this scenario - having emergency comms ensures you don't end up ledged out attempting to rescue yourself in the first place. You would have communicated before getting stuck on a ledge. These folks were perfectly ambulatory at their vehicle and could have easily worked around any issues with line of sight even with a geostationary only system requiring view of the southern sky. Without means of communication they were left feeling they needed to "do something" which unfortunately as too often happens likely made things worse than if they had just "done nothing" (i.e. stayed at the car and sat in the shade for however many days it took).

That said, to address the concern of @ian408 it is important to understand how all these satellite systems work to understand what they will actually be able to do in an emergency. In general people's complaints about their operation when used as routine messaging devices are not applicable to when they are used as an emergency beacon. The devices operate differently when in an emergency mode.

SPOT, InReach and PLBs all use LEO (low earth orbit) constellations which means having view of a particular part of the sky is not critical. The satellites are constantly moving overhead and at some point the device will eventually have view of a satellite even in fairly restricted locations like deep canyons. In an emergency mode all of the beacons transmit continuously meaning given enough time they will get a message out as eventually a passing satellite will have view of the transmission.

The specifics for each are a bit different.

SPOT uses GlobalStar and specifically uses only a blind one-way transmission for communication. It uses GPS to determine location to send in the communication. It is a commercial service with a subscription. The SPOT beacon (that is their lower cost actual beacon products, not some of their two way messengers) when used for routine messages just blindly sends the message three times over 15 minutes hoping that your sky view and a satellite line up for one of those three tries. If you've got open skies it probably happens on the first try. If you've got restricted skies well odds decline as you have less sky. But in an emergency the beacon transmits continuously and thus the odds of a message getting through are much, much higher than in routine messaging. However, in restricted skies there is a good chance the SPOT beacon might not be able to get a GPS fix and thus your emergency message that gets out won't have location information. But at least it will start a SAR effort and the SAR folks can use whatever resources they have (loved ones, your itinerary, an earlier message you sent with a GPS fix) to narrow the search. For this reason when using SPOT it is best to send periodic status messages when you know you have good sky view so that SAR will have a recent fix if you have an emergency with restricted sky view.

InReach uses Iridium which supports two-way transmission with acknowledgement for communication. It also uses GPS to determine location. It is a commercial service with a subscription. The key point here is that the Iridium modem listens for a signal from an Iridium satellite before it even needs to attempt to send a message. If it can't hear the satellite then the satellite certainly can't hear it either. This allows it to be much "smarter" than the SPOT beacon since the SPOT can only blindly transmit and hope. InReach instead can listen for the satellite which is a much, much lower power operation than continuously transmitting in the blind. When the InReach hears the satellite it does a quick handshake and sends out the message and can confirm receipt. Now by default in routine messaging many InReach devices go one step further in power saving and won't even try to listen for Iridium until it can hear GPS first and will refuse to send a message without GPS unless you intervene. This makes the network seem far less reliable than it is - you need four GPS satellites in view to get a fix while only one Iridium to get a message out. Also some InReach devices (e.g. Mini) have really sucky GPS front ends that are far more limiting than their Iridium modems. Again in emergency mode all these restrictions are removed and the communications are more robust. So again with restricted sky you just need to wait long enough and very likely an emergency message will get out. It may not have a GPS fix in the message but again SAR can work around that.

PLB (Personal Locator Beacon) is by far the most robust for emergency communications and doesn't support routine messages at all. It is an emergency use device only with no provisions for messaging - the very act of turning it on means you need immediate help similar to the beacons in aircraft and ships that automatically activate when they crash or sink. It is a public service with no subscription. A PLB when activated begins transmitting continuously and at a power about 5 to 10 times higher than the Iridium or GlobalStar based systems. The SARSAT constellation like the others will eventually pass overhead even in very restricted sky view situations. Most PLBs have an integrated GPS and send location in their message. However, even without GPS the SARSAT constellation itself uses a synthetic aperture technique to geolocate the PLB transmission usually within a few miles. SAR teams also have radio direction finding equipment to home in on the PLB beacon. So even GPS denied the SARSAT constellation will get the SAR team a position fix close enough that they can then use their own direction finding equipment to home in on the beacon.

For an idea of how robust this can be Zion did a study with PLBs awhile back:

https://www.backcountrychronicles.com/plb-slot-canyon-test/

In almost all cases the PLB worked even in a slot canyon with a fix in 10 minutes. They had one canyon in which they got no signal but they only tested for 2 hours which means that all the possible satellite geometries hadn't really occurred. I can't find an older study which showed that with 24 hours you can get contact with extremely small sky views - given enough time the geometry eventually ends up favorable enough to be detected.

Basically all three of these technologies are quite robust even in restricted sky view scenarios when activated in an emergency mode. The PLB can be had for $300 and requires no subscription. They are smaller and weigh less than a typical cellphone these days. Yes $300 seems expensive when we consider how economical camping can be. That said consider that the full cost of operating most motor vehicles is about $0.50 per mile so that PLB only costs as much as 600 miles of driving which is probably typical for many folks visits to a National Park. Honestly, there is almost no excuse for someone who spends even a bit of time out in the wilderness on a routine basis not to own and carry one. If nothing else do it for your loved ones...

 

Good info there @DVexile. Thanks for the post.

 

@DVexil Thanks for your thorough explanation of the operational reality and foibles of GPS units; and also your link to the Zion study, lots of opportunity for mulling!

I'm pretty much a solo outdoor person and started with Spot when they first came out, lost that onearguments about 'where are you going, when will you be back and when should I call the sheriff'? Well worth the $ expended!

I moved on to inReach shortly after they were put on the market. I carried the inReach and a Garmin standalone GPS (because of information that I check while on an outing). Getting older and older and needing to trim the pack weight, I just ordered the Garmin 66i that combines the communication and GPS in one unit. $100 off on Garmin Outlet gave me the final twist of the arm.
and replaced it with the Gen 3. The only worthy part of either of them was they capable of ending
arguments about 'where are you going, when will you be back and when should I call the sheriff'
arguments about 'where are you going, when will you be back and when should I call the sheriff'? Well worth the $ expended! I moved on to inReach shortly after they were put on the market. I carried the inReach and a Garmin standalone GPS (because of information that I check while on an outing). Getting older and older and needing to trim pack weight, I just ordered the Garmin 66i that combines the communication and GPS in one unit. $100 off on Garmin Outlet gave me the final twist of the arm.

I'm not going to be going anywhere (alone) that might have connection issues, but still will think about adding a PBL. My son will eventually get all this gear so maybe sooner than later.
? Well worth the $ expended! I moved on to inReach shortly after they were put on the market. I carried the inReach and a Garmin standalone GPS (because of information that I check while on an outing). Getting older and older and needing to trim pack weight, I just ordered the Garmin 66i that combines the communication and GPS in one unit. $100 off on Garmin Outlet gave me the final twist of the arm.

I'm not going to be going anywhere (alone) that might have connection issues, but still will think about adding a PBL. My son will eventually get all this gear so maybe sooner than later.

 

Don't know what happened in the above post. It's all there, broken up but probably can be sorted out.

 

I carry my Inreach even when not solo. Never know who you’ll run into.

 

I just got back from solo wheeling in DV. Saw the Navy SAR SH-60 parked on the ramp at Lone Pine Airport yesterday. Should have taken a pic. While I do have an inreach and have a couple friends I trust to do what they can should I need help I try not to get myself into those situations but you never know what could happen.
Sad outcome for the couple.

Temps are creeping up and Saline Valley has tons of no-seeums (biting midges).

 

Just bought one myself before our last trip, feel kinda dumb for not getting one before considering when you need it, you need it!