[pct-l] carrying a satellite phone

[Sandra]

Regarding satellite phone use....as I've written on this listserv  
before, because my home is in a very isolated and rural area ( 2  
miles past power lines up a logging road) and because my mother who  
lives there alone is elderly, I always carry a satellite phone  
backpacking.  With an extra battery, this weighs over half a pound,  
and costs me $29.95 a month plus $1.49 a minute, but it is a cost   
(in weight and $$) I gladly bear in exchange for the freedom to hike  
anywhere and still keep in touch.  Yes, you have to be able to see  
the sky.  It doesn't work between tall skyscrapers, or in deep  
canyons (actually it does, but for about 2 seconds when the satellite  
is right overhead!).  Dense timber such as we have up here in NW  
Washington makes it hard to keep a signal.  But when you are up on a  
ridge, as you often are on the PCT, it is just as good as cell  
service in an urban area. I'm with Outfitter Satellite of Tennessee,  
on a Globalstar 1650, but there is a lighter version just last month  
available.  On the Oregon PCT, I could get cell service (with  
Verizon) about 2/3 of the time, and used the satellite the rest of  
the time (I call at least once a day).  In Northern  Washington PCT  
areas, I usually have to be on the satellite service.  Haven't hiked  
much of the CA PCT.    You can rent the phones, but I bought mine  
from Outfitter Satellite as a VERY lightly used one for $350.

On a different subject, I just had an experience in my "own backyard"  
which made me realize the value of a GPS.  I was walking in the  
foothills behind our home, at about 2,500'  in dense 200' tall  
Douglas-Fir and Hemlock forests, following old railroad grades last  
used 90 years ago.  I went up a drainage and over a ridge into a  
group of drainages, decided I'd better turn around to get back home  
before dark, and could not follow the right grade...it was a network  
of old grades, all looking similar.  However, I was carrying my cell  
phone/PDA/GPS and had put in waypoints because I was trying to  
establish the location of the old grades.  So I looked at the little  
map on the PDA (It's a Treo 650 with a separate Bluetooth GPS  
receiver which is in my pocket), tracked back to the closest  
waypoint, and got home even faster than I'd come.  In this dense  
timber, where all the trees are similar ages and types and there are  
multiple drainages and many small hills...and absolutely NO way to  
see out for miles, a GPS and altimeter are invaluable (I also had a  
paper map and compass...I've been temporarily  lost in this Olympic  
National Forest area before!)

Sandy from the Olympics