A mistake and a reliance on gps - a lost hiker case

[dplanet]

.... but a happy ending case. FYI http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-n ... 6326819704

Related thread "Warburton - Mt Donna Buang".

[photohiker]

.... but a happy ending case. FYI http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-n ... 6326819704

Related thread "Warburton - Mt Donna Buang".

"The last set of co-ordinates for where he was going to get to the top of Mt Donna Buang he put in correctly,"

One wonders what GPS he was using... Sounds like an advert for a mapping GPS, you can see immediately that an incorrectly entered waypoint is not where you thought it was.

[sthughes]

I heard an interview on the ABC this morning with the guys Dad. Basically he banged in a couple of wrong numbers into the GPS and and got himself a bit lost. He was making his way out on a fire trail when the search began on Sunday and would have walked out under his own steam pretty soon anyway. Really if he'd been able to communicate that he was fine but gunna be waaay late then a lot of hassle could have been averted. They then went and collected his main pack that he had dumped to save time (he successfully marked a GPS waypoint where it was).
Just goes to show a GPS is a great tool, but you've gotta double check the numbers, particularly if it's not a mapping unit as huge errors aren't always obvious. Of course with no map it's hard to check which numbers are the wrong ones!
I did something similar on the Arthurs recently, but the waypoint was just the start of a shortcut so when we missed it it just meant an extra couple of hours walking on the main track. But if it had been a critical point (and if we hadn't had the notes with us to re-check it) it could have been a big stuff up.

[Earwig]

Any GPS will give you the cordinates of where you are standing. You can then work out where you are by looking at a map (one of those paper things that fold out - very useful, don't require batteries, don't even require a GPS if you know how to use them properly).

[Strider]

Any GPS will give you the cordinates of where you are standing.

Not entirely true. We had one of these at my old work and no one could get it to do so!

[Earwig]

Bugger. Do you still have it? Try touching the satellite signal strength graph on the main screen. It should bring up the Garmin screen of what satelites it's connected to and their signal strength ... and your location.

[Azza]

I think you can achieve the same mistake with a map...

I've been caught out using grid coordinates supplied by someone else - we're navigating by sight but knew that there were a couple of coordinates that we wanted to hit where there was likely to be a track or pad through the scrub. The coordinates were in a mixture of GDA94 and AGD66 because the Tasmap's they were source from were mixture of old and new. Unfortunately they were supplied as UTM with no additional information. It was most confusing as some coordinates were spot on but then they all a bit strange as we crossed onto another map, it eventually became blatantly obviously when they were indicating that we should head straight off a cliff and it wasn't like they appeared incorrect on the GPS map prior to that.
I worked out what was going on and reconfigured the GPS, in the end it made no difference as we picked the mistake.

Regardless of what you rely on to navigate a fair degree depends on the user.

I've had GPS'es go flat, maps get wet and fall apart... experience says don't rely on a single point of failure...

[photohiker]

Bugger. Do you still have it? Try touching the satellite signal strength graph on the main screen. It should bring up the Garmin screen of what satelites it's connected to and their signal strength ... and your location.

Bingo!



Page 8 of the manual...

[Strider]

Bugger. Do you still have it? Try touching the satellite signal strength graph on the main screen. It should bring up the Garmin screen of what satelites it's connected to and their signal strength ... and your location.

Argh! I'm no longer working there. Will leave those pricks to work it out for themselves!

[dplanet]

Watch out! Try not to turn it on and/or take a waypoint near communication towers. Not sure if I made a mistake. It was at a lookout where there are two sattlelite towers. The car park is there and the walk also starts from there. I took a waypoint there for a return trip; but, it did not work out as expected when I wanted some scrubbashing. This walk had not been planned and I did not have a proper map. Just wanted some ups and downs exercises for my upcoming walk.

Having a look at Spatial Map, edition 2006, there are communication towers near where he walked and Warburton is only several kms away. A phone call could be made. Battery ran out perhaps? Use yr phone wisely, I would suggest.

Someone mentioned map gets wet and falls apart. Keep the original map in the pack and use the copy.

Safe walking.

[wildlight]

Regardless of what you rely on to navigate a fair degree depends on the user.
... experience says don't rely on a single point of failure...

Them's choice words Azza, right on the money!

Cheers

Wildlight

[north-north-west]

How on earth do you get lost up there unless you're going cross country? And even then it's pretty straighforward terrain . . .

[Kinsayder]

Doona Buang is pretty straight forward though. I'm glad he's fine and all but buggers me how you could get lost there.

[jeza]

Then there was this bloke who disappeared around there, never to be seen again:
http://on-walkabout.com/2008/03/30/sear ... alled-off/

Though I think the police might have considered it suspicious circumstances.