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Comment by kevinpet | Hacker News Reader

I'm confused. If you are talking about wilderness, I maybe agree. But then you talk about the AT.

If you are hiking on marked trails, you don't need to go drop $200 on electronics before you should feel safe going for a walk in the woods. You don't even need hiking boots, SPF 50 wicking t-shirts, or merino wool underwear.

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People lose track of the AT and die fairly routinely. Here's one from last year: https://www.macon.com/news/state/georgia/article240395571.ht...

Hiking a marked trail isn't as risky as summiting Everest, but it's not like walking through Ikea either. PLBs are a touch pricy, but I'd at least carry a FRS radio.

I'd at least carry a FRS radio.

Is FRS really useful for calling for help in the woods? You'd be lucky to get 1/2 mile of range, and you have to have someone nearby listening on your channel without privacy codes enabled. Do people even use FRS when hiking?

A whistle might have less range, but everyone within earshot will hear it.

A ham radio with a repeater list would likely be more useful than FRS... Or maybe GMRS, but those repeaters are less common.

A ham radio requires a ham license to use.

Which is trivially easy to get.

People wonder off the marked trails, get disoriented, go further away from the trails. Next thing you know they’re missing for days. The problem is that the more inexperienced someone is, the more likely such a scenario is to happen.

I have a Garmin Inreach that I’ve started carrying with me more often. I carry it both for others and in case something crazy happens. That’s also why I typically carry extra water. I have never needed it so you could say it’s a waste, but someday I may save somebody’s life because I will be able to get immediate help if it’s needed.

You also don’t need any of the gear you mentioned, but it sure makes the walk more enjoyable :)

Is Inreach something you pay a subscription for? Or do you get charged a (massive?) fee only upon use?

The Garmin inReach uses the Iridium satelite network. They offer two types of plans, Freedom and Annual [0], which you pay subscriptions for.

The "annual plans" allow you to save a little if you use your device every month of the year on a single plan. The "freedom plans" allow you to suspend your service, and let you hop between plans. You just pay for a month at a time at the plan level you select for that month.

[0] https://discover.garmin.com/en-US/inreach/personal/

You can also send text messages with it. On longer walks I use it to meet up with people in town or get weather updates.

I forget all the terms but I think a rescue is covered/cheap if I call it for myself.

Device is $350 upfront and then the subscription fee. Can’t put a price on a life (although some try).

https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/outdoor/inreach-2000-rescu...

I checked and I think I’m paying an additional $25/yr for GEOS SAR, not sure if it’s the 50 or 100 but it covers $50k-$100k per incident if I trigger SOS.

https://www.geosresponse.com/assets/pdf/GEOS-SAR-BENEFIT-TER...

The person in the article was on a marked trail, but some signs had burned in forest fires. There are similar events on the AT.

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