Two California hikers found a family's message in a bottle and helped save them

[lentil_soup]

This reminded me of this real life story of trying to find a German family that got lost in Death Valley. It's a tragic story but I found very interesting how this person tries to piece together what happened. It's a long but worthwhile read.

https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...

[sizzzzlerz]

It is a fascinating story and the persistance of the author in trying to find the family is remarkable but its totally different than this story. The Germans were completely unprepared for their adventure without the correct clothing, not enough water, and apparently little or no knowledge of where they were going or where they were. The family in this story were prepared, knew exactly where they were going and where they were. They just ran into some bad luck but kept calm and did precisely the correct thing. The Germans were responsible for their own situation and paid the ultimate price.

[dmix]

Discussions:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12019567

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19263057

[hprotagonist]

Among other reasons, this is why i have a contingency email draft that I have ready to go whenever I go out on a serious-ish hike, along these lines:

“here’s who is going, this is our license plate, this is our gear, this is how much food we have, here’s a very rough itinerary; if i don’t update this email by such and such a time, contact the following SAR groups...”

[latchkey]

My favorite service for this: https://www.deadmansswitch.net

[hazeii]

In hotels I leave a note on the table saying where to look if I'm not back (never been needed, but stories like this remind me to keep doing it).

[lostlogin]

This and a personal locator beacon and you have saved yourself and others a massive set of problems if anything goes wrong.

[LorenPechtel]

Yup, I leave a dead-tree version with my wife before going out solo, period. And my gear includes a PLB.

If I were doing things where I didn't expect other hikers around I would upgrade that PLB to an inReach.

[throwaway5752]

Everyone should have a prep checklist, and letting someone know where you are, how long you will be there, and having a plan to survive that duration should be the foundation of it. Great call.

[roymurdock]

I went backpacking up arroyo seco with 2 friends on the same weekend. On our way into the campgrounds the rangers told us this story, we almost didn't believe them the story was so ridiculous on its face. Crazy to see this article in the news now.

Beautiful place to hike and camp, and if that's not your thing then check out the Tassajara zen center.

I wrote a trip recap here: https://roymurdock.com/blogs/2019/0722ventana.php

[dgaudet]

the news article left me wanting to know more about the hike, and i discovered this ropewiki article[0] which seems to be related, and link to a more detailed trip report[1]. i'm more of a peakbagger myself, but the photos of the canyons are fascinating (many examples in google images).

i'm guessing satellite locator beacons (such as resqlink, spot or in-reach) don't work very well in canyons. you'd need a much more monster antenna and transmitter.

[0] http://ropewiki.com/Arroyo_Seco_Gorge_(Los_Padres) [1] http://www.teamsk.org/arroyo/seco.html

[opwieurposiu]

We use an in-reach for text messaging at our cabin which is in the bottom of a gulch in the rocky mountains.

It does work, but only when a satellite happens to be in the right position. This basically means you have to queue up a message and it will get sent in 5-50 min.

[newsreview1]

I grew up in Southern Utah, just a few miles from the Zion Narrows, and have read of many tragic situations that didn't end nearly as well as this group's story. (Including my own brother on an overnight scouting event). God bless the two hikers who "left before the rescue without giving their names!" I hope the family can find them so they can give them personal thanks.

[gardnerbickford]

I don't mean to be rude but: why is this here? It would be a neat project to map out the changes in the types of stories and comments on HN over time. Over the years, HN has grown more and more in the direction of reddit front page and become less and less like an irc channel where people talk about technology.

[viach]

>> Over the years, HN has grown more and more in the direction of reddit front page and become less and less like an irc channel where people talk about technology.

Here is HN snapshot from 2008: http://web.archive.org/web/20080105031416/https://news.ycomb...

The top submissions is "Obama's Victory Speech". I don't think it's very technological, at least in common sense.

Probably the only very true HN existed in 2007, for several month. Well, these were good times..

[lelf]

> Please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.

(c) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, should be in FAQ too ;-)

[JshWright]

> less like an irc channel

How many IRC channels have you hung out in? Every channel I've ever been in with any sort of community has stuff like this pop up pretty regularly (things that may be "off-topic" by some definition, but are interesting, and spark some interesting conversation).

Channels where there are hard and fast rules about keeping the discussion strictly "on-topic" don't tend to be channels I hang out in. The same would be true for HN.

[is_true]

It's amazing. It's a story that connects us with a more simple life, with an unreliable communication method and involving lots of luck.

[chooseaname]

Because it was HNers wanted it here?

[amadeusw]

It reminds the tech afictionados that there exists real value in primitive technology.

If all you have is a cell phone with no battery or no reception, you can't get help, you can't hail rides etc.

[andy_ppp]

Surely you already know the reason it’s here? Someone submitted it and the community upvoted it. Chances are it’s probably interesting.

[postscapes1]

To be fair, the article mentioned the search team used night vision goggles and FLIR (forward looking infrared) technology :)

[Apocryphon]

This family hacked a terrible situation and innovated a workaround that led to a satisfactory exit.

[savingGrace]

Why could they not turn around and go back the way they came? I am not a hiker.

[jseutter]

From reading http://theory.stanford.edu/~rvg/arroyo/ (warning: nudity) linked from the ropewiki page, when hiking from the top, this journey is a combination of hiking, wading along the river and floating down it. It sounds like lots of fun. Turning around at the waterfall means that they would have to hike back as well as swim upstream, possibly through rapids, to get back to their starting point. It could be next to impossible.

I could see this being an easy trap to be caught out by if you had limited exposure to conditions in the area, or even if you had checked weather conditions and missed a rainfall upstream while out hiking. While they might be ashamed of needing a rescue, they thankfully made a smart choice and this is a cool story rather than a search for bodies.

[yardie]

Because descent is usually trickier than ascent. If you've ever climbed down a ladder missing a rung there is that brief moment of free fall where you assume where you're going to land. But if you're on a rain slick, moss covered trail a controlled descent can be difficult even under ideal circumstances.

[thiscatis]

Unrelated to the article but damn, that autoplay of the video and that woman's voice scared me.

[DenisM]

It surprises me that people can’t bring a PLB along when going to a non-trivial hike.

It’s only $300 and it can transmit SOS both to low orbit satellites and to rescue copters, and it has shelf life of five years (no need to charge).

[Rebelgecko]

I think the monthly subscription fees are a turnoff to some people (although I think there are a few brands now that don't require that)

[olalonde]

That autoplay video almost gave me a heart attack.

[mjevans]

I would actually love if there were a browser setting that froze video (and motion image sets) until they receive mouse focus; preferably also with a payload size dependent switch to having a play button start the download.

[bobowzki]

I always bring ham radio equipment when I hike like this. Most people don't realize mobile coverage is very limited.

[doctorRetro]

Nothing really poignant to say about this, other than thanks OP for posting something positive to read today.

[laumars]

I really enjoyed this story. However I did struggle on one part:

> Whitson, his 13-year-old son and girlfriend, Krystal Ramirez, had decided to spend Father's Day weekend backpacking the Arroyo Seco River.

It took me longer to parse this sentence than I should perhaps admit to. The first couple of reads lead me to believe his son and girlfriend were the same person.

[wvenable]

Just imagine if he had a daughter instead. I don't know why some linguists are so against the Oxford comma.

[parliament32]

Definitely an oxford comma situation, and need to fix those commas around the girlfriend's name. Whitson is the subject, not the son:

> Whitson, his 13-year-old son, and girlfriend Krystal Ramirez had decided to spend Father's Day weekend backpacking...

[jdbernard]

Nice place for an Oxford comma.

[kbutler]

Leaving out the oxford comma is like relying on JavaScript automatic semicolon insertion - it works fine, until it doesn't.

[CWuestefeld]

I'm still not sure whether it's the dad's girlfriend or the son's.

[chooseaname]

I love stories like this. But, what if the hikers would just rather not be found?

[ukyrgf]

It's just one sentence mentioning it at the end of the article. Doesn't sound like they're launching a massive campaign.