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And planning implies checking more than one source for information about an unfamiliar situation! Just don't get it and probably never will.
Only so far that will get you. Best source is generally US Foresty maps if available. Even those though can be so out of date as to be irrelevant. More than a few times I've planned a route out along gravel or maintained dirt roads only to get there and well, reality on the ground is the once gravel or maintained dirt road is long since gone. The only way you're getting through is with a Jeep, a chainsaw, and a few sets of extra hands to roll the downed trees off whatever used to be a road eight years ago but clearly is not. Trails disapear with even greater regularity. Topomap plus compass and the skillset to use them, or just turn around and go back.
The surge in interest in outdoors activities is bringing with it a influx of people who really don't know what they're doing. The backcountry is not your curated 3-5 mile hiking loop or $70/night AZ RV park full of $200,000 RVs with a pool a minitaure golf course. If you're out there, you're largely on your own.
Only so far that will get you. Best source is generally US Foresty maps if available. Even those though can be so out of date as to be irrelevant. More than a few times I've planned a route out along gravel or maintained dirt roads only to get there and well, reality on the ground is the once gravel or maintained dirt road is long since gone. The only way you're getting through is with a Jeep, a chainsaw, and a few sets of extra hands to roll the downed trees off whatever used to be a road eight years ago but clearly is not. Trails disapear with even greater regularity. Topomap plus compass and the skillset to use them, or just turn around and go back.
The surge in interest in outdoors activities is bringing with it a influx of people who really don't know what they're doing. The backcountry is not your curated 3-5 mile hiking loop or $70/night AZ RV park full of $200,000 RVs with a pool a minitaure golf course. If you're out there, you're largely on your own.
yea but I don't think they were planning on going up into the mountains
They were taking two days to travel from Oregon to Tucson Arizona. That would not have left any time to cruise the mountains. They just relied too much on GPS without thought.
Only so far that will get you. Best source is generally US Foresty maps if available. Even those though can be so out of date as to be irrelevant. More than a few times I've planned a route out along gravel or maintained dirt roads only to get there and well, reality on the ground is the once gravel or maintained dirt road is long since gone. The only way you're getting through is with a Jeep, a chainsaw, and a few sets of extra hands to roll the downed trees off whatever used to be a road eight years ago but clearly is not. Trails disapear with even greater regularity. Topomap plus compass and the skillset to use them, or just turn around and go back.
The surge in interest in outdoors activities is bringing with it a influx of people who really don't know what they're doing. The backcountry is not your curated 3-5 mile hiking loop or $70/night AZ RV park full of $200,000 RVs with a pool a minitaure golf course. If you're out there, you're largely on your own.
USFS doesn't map BLM land, which is where they were.
They should have had a state atlas, like those put out by DeLorme. Great product, available for all 50 states. I own several. They're typically 100+ pages long, enough for detailed coverage of the entire state. Every page has GPS coordinates in the margins. Since mobile phones provide GPS coordinates (because there are always GPS satellites overhead) and have a compass, it's trivially easy to use the two (atlas + phone) to determine where you are and how to get out of where you are. It doesn't take too much common sense to discern no-go roads for an RV on the map.
Every other bookstore, REI, camping supply store, etc. in Nevada probably sells these for $20:
But to be brutally honest, anyone who would drive an RV with a car in tow into a Wilderness Study Area really is pretty lacking in common sense. A WSA is being studied for wilderness designation because of its primitive state. What roads it may have are mostly old, marginally maintained (if maintained at all), and without even the most basic elements of modern roads (no shoulders, very few if any signs - except for ones announcing that its a primitive WSA with nothing in the way of amenities - etc.).
USFS doesn't map BLM land, which is where they were.
They should have had a state atlas, like those put out by DeLorme. Great product, available for all 50 states. I own several. They're typically 100+ pages long, enough for detailed coverage of the entire state. Every page has GPS coordinates in the margins. Since mobile phones provide GPS coordinates (because there are always GPS satellites overhead) and have a compass, it's trivially easy to use the two (atlas + phone) to determine where you are and how to get out of where you are. It doesn't take too much common sense to discern no-go roads for an RV on the map.
Every other bookstore, REI, camping supply store, etc. in Nevada probably sells these for $20:
But to be brutally honest, anyone who would drive an RV with a car in tow into a Wilderness Study Area really is pretty lacking in common sense. A WSA is being studied for wilderness designation because of its primitive state. What roads it may have are mostly old, marginally maintained (if maintained at all), and without even the most basic elements of modern roads (no shoulders, very few if any signs - except for ones announcing that its a primitive WSA with nothing in the way of amenities - etc.).
They drove an RV into a WSA??? Who in their right mind DOES that? IME (except for Alaska during the ANILCA years), WSAs are posted for years if not decades, particularly along existing roads, with warnings to travelers that the roadbed isn't maintained or has already been abandoned. FWIW, I watched parts of the video. All it did was reinforce my impression they did this to themselves. Particularly with a wife who has such significant health problems she can't get far without a walker.
Last edited by Parnassia; 04-07-2022 at 06:58 PM..
They drove an RV into a WSA??? Who in their right mind DOES that? IME (except for Alaska during the ANILCA years), WSAs are posted for years if not decades, particularly along existing roads, with warnings to travelers that the roadbed isn't maintained or has already been abandoned. FWIW, I watched parts of the video. All it did was reinforce my impression they did this to themselves. Particularly with a wife who has such significant health problems she can't get far without a walker.
I looked up the last place they were at - Dyer Nevada. There is an RV park there, so maybe they stayed overnight.
But the route they took to get them to Silver Mountain area was not going towards Tucson.
I did the google road thing and even the roads in that town are not the best.
They drove an RV into a WSA??? Who in their right mind DOES that? IME (except for Alaska during the ANILCA years), WSAs are posted for years if not decades, particularly along existing roads, with warnings to travelers that the roadbed isn't maintained or has already been abandoned. FWIW, I watched parts of the video. All it did was reinforce my impression they did this to themselves. Particularly with a wife who has such significant health problems she can't get far without a walker.
I plugged in the coordinates that the woman sent out, and it appears to be within the Silver Peak Range WSA. They probably had no idea what a 'wilderness' designation means.
Maybe it was night, and they didn't see the signs. But then, wandering around the desert at night off major roads is a terrible idea. Like this couple, I live in the Midwest. Mostly, Things are different here. Except for some parts of northern Minnesota/Wisconsin/Michigan, you're never more than maybe a mile of flat land (or, at worst, gently rolling hills) from a farmhouse or five miles (via road, not as the crow flies) from a gas station. I don't think a lot of people east of the Mississippi realize just how remote it gets, and gets so really quickly, once you leave asphalt out west - especially in the desert.
I've coaxed rental cars further down bad desert roads than I perhaps should have. However, I was always well stocked with water and proper clothing, and I always had the means and the physical ability to simply walk out to the nearest highway if things went awry (they never did - I like the wilderness, but I err on the side of caution).
As Harold Francis Callahan once wisely observed: "A man's got to know his limitations".
USFS doesn't map BLM land, which is where they were.
They should have had a state atlas, like those put out by DeLorme. Great product, available for all 50 states. I own several. They're typically 100+ pages long, enough for detailed coverage of the entire state. Every page has GPS coordinates in the margins. Since mobile phones provide GPS coordinates (because there are always GPS satellites overhead) and have a compass, it's trivially easy to use the two (atlas + phone) to determine where you are and how to get out of where you are. It doesn't take too much common sense to discern no-go roads for an RV on the map.
Every other bookstore, REI, camping supply store, etc. in Nevada probably sells these for $20:
But to be brutally honest, anyone who would drive an RV with a car in tow into a Wilderness Study Area really is pretty lacking in common sense. A WSA is being studied for wilderness designation because of its primitive state. What roads it may have are mostly old, marginally maintained (if maintained at all), and without even the most basic elements of modern roads (no shoulders, very few if any signs - except for ones announcing that its a primitive WSA with nothing in the way of amenities - etc.).
THIS
I always keep a copy of the DeLorme Colorado Gazetteer in my vehicle. That and an old handheld orienteering GPS that I bought for a song at a pawn shop. These two items have gotten me out of trouble more than once. Best of all, they KEEP me out of trouble anywhere I might want to go. I wish more people would understand that the on-board GPS which came with your vehicle may be fine for getting around town, but the moment your tires leave the asphalt, that on-board GPS is often worthless.
I live near some fairly isolated National Parks and Monuments like Hovenweep and Canyons of the Ancients. Every year without fail there will be a story in the local paper about tourists who got lost thanks to poor instructions from their on-board GPS.
I think that people from more populated regions have no idea how desolated it can be out here in the Southwest. You can drive some back roads for hours and never encounter another vehicle. Getting basics like food and water can force you to go as much as 100 miles out of your way just to find a convenience store.
Folks, please plan ahead. If you are going to a National Park or Monument, call ahead to find out about road conditions, etc. The same for places located in National Forests or Bureau of Land Management land. Don't let your first trip into the wilds be your last!
And their nephew is mad because he thinks law enforcement didn't act fast enough to locate them.
Sounds like the nephew is gearing up for a lawsuit judging by his comments.
People seem to not take responsibility for their own actions anymore: everyone is always the victim of someone or something.
It is un-American to me. What are we becoming? How did it happen?
The question should be what this outspoken nephew did before the couple went on this trip.
Has he advised them to get a satellite phone? Make sure there is enough food/extra water in the RV? That their maps were set correctly in settings to avoid dirt roads?
They were older and physically extremely limited couple:both overweight; she was using a walker;
He was an Agent Orange cancer survivor- with one lung removed.
He was dying as he had troubles breathing in the low oxygen mountain air from day one according to her.
She was only able to get snow for herself with the walker - allegedly using her n95 mask to collect snow.
WTH? They didn’t have light plastic containers in their RV?
Where was that “concerned and caring” nephew at the time of trip planning?
He failed his job as a family member to advise these older and disabled people against going off the roads and get in touch with him immediately if something went even slightly wrong.
The shouldn’t even be in RV traveling in remote locations at all in their conditions
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