Yup. Two of them have been on my property and lost. Another party of six was more or less on my property and they weren't so much lost as they just overestimated their abilities. They had enough supplies and would likely have been out in a couple of days.
That's just my property.
That's also all we know about. There could be more.
I've mentioned this before, but I can't stress it enough. Maine is the most heavily forested state in the union. You can and will die out there if you don't know what you're doing. It's not a joke. It's not meant to sound tough. It does happen.
It can happen during any season. It's not just summer hikers.
We get a lot of people who have no fucking business being in the woods. The last search party I was on was one where we found them - and they all had working cell phones. Cell phones that have GPS. Even if you can't connect to the network, you can see GPS information and find out which direction you're moving. From there, you can point in the direction you came from and get back to where you came from.
Not one of the dumb bastards did so.
yeah even without service you can still access the map and find the nearest road even if you can not figure out where you came in
Yup... There were seven people in that party, as I recall. All of 'em had phones. Not one of 'em was smart enough to check GPS.
They didn't even make it a night. We were called to rescue 'em like mid afternoon. They were on a 'two hour' hike that started early and were supposed to be back by lunch. They were not. No, no... They were walking around in circles within a half mile of the trail they'd been on.
We found 'em on the whistle walk. That's where you walk the general area they should have been in while blowing whistles. It's one of the first steps, usually before they put planes and choppers in the air.
Whistle walk sounds like a great idea, that sound should carry a ways
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