GPS and Stupid

Well, I finally found this thread again. As we all figured would happen a couple of hunters stumbled upon his remains last weekend. You can find the whole story at the Idaho Statesman web site. He made it to within a few miles of town, but didn't know it, and was headed in thr wrong direction.
I was out in the Owyhees last weekend with my brother-in-law. When he commented on my Bug-out bag in the back of the truck I told him "just because we are only going out for the day doesn't mean that we are coming back today".
Be Safe.
 
An old topic I know (thanks for the update MadBug), but I want to comment on this:

jaymeister99 said:
But in a car I rarely see anybody with a (paper) map anymore. Everybody seems to rely solely on a GPS. Would it hurt much to pack a road atlas?
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I would guess that more people have gotten lost and died as a result of mis-reading paper maps. Turn the GPS upside down, it still works. Turn onto a road that's not on the map, and the GPS still works. Lost at night or in bad weather and can't figure out which way is north, the GPS still works.

The bigger problem, the couple seemed unfamiliar with their vehicle's limitations and were unprepared for wilderness backcountry driving.
 
Just to give some additional background as I read that the couple was from British Columbia. It does not surprise me that they left the sealed road. I might have done the same thing, as I'm very familiar with taking gravel connecting roads between two highways as a shortcut. Its a pretty common thing in western canada, where most of the major roads run east-west, and so the north-south roads are often a bit worse. I've been in situations where the road you were on runs out before you really notice it, and I learned to drive a GMC safari, being rear wheel drive, everything feels fine until you're stuck, not the shimmy you feel when a front wheel drive starts loosing traction(I may have gotten stuck more than once). They probably thought they were familiar enough with mountains, crap roads, and the like, and it snuck up on them. Where poor decisions made? yeah, but when you look at where they lived, they probably didn't realize just how far from help they really were.

Why mention all this? Well, one it easy to say "well, that happened to him, because he was dumb, and I'm not, so it won't happen to me" But the reality is, we have no idea what that guy's experience level was, and what really happened. The second thing to consider is that no one is invulnerable to trouble. Never let yourself get complacent, too familiar with whats going on, and let the auto-pilot take over. A couple days on the road, or a week of overtime days, your destination in sight, and it only takes one mistake. Don't judge too quick.
 
I'm also a map and compass man and pride myself in being able to navigate accurately with it. I remember when GPS was first being marketed for the hills, sitting through a very dull 2 hour lecture about it with a load of other British outdoor writers. The guy from Silva who'd been giving the talk took the GPS out on the hill the next day to impress us all. The batteries were flat!
 
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