I spend 40-plus hours a week staring at a computer screen, putting straight lines of type in rectangular boxes, listening to ringing phones. I'm in the woods to escape technology, not rely on it to save my insignificant little butt. If you have a crisis in the backcountry, you must simply deal with it, hopefully with the necessary foreknowledge of first aid and map-reading. Fifty, even 10 years ago, people with backwoods emergencies coped. Hughes says typical phone users have overrated their abilities to cope with and underrated the difficulties of a situation.
People now reach for the phone at the first instance of trouble.
Hughes had to tell them that he lacked rescue manpower and resources, and that they would have to hunker down until the morning when he could round up a Pacific Gas and Electric snowcat. She had to get out on her own, after all. Another problem Hughes has experienced is phone batteries that go weak or dead during a caller's often-lengthy attempt to describe where they are. A lack of planning will not augment the use of a cell phone. Your Web browser should have an easy way to read these newsgroups.