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I wonder if rescue teams could use some sort of portable cell towers (thinking something like the Google [streetview backpack](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/trekking-grand-canyon...) to find cellphones and people.

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Locating lost/stranded hikers is definitely resource intensive, but you still have to extract them from the area. In that particular case (Eaton Canyon waterfalls), the number of rescues performed by the Forest Service (most of them by helicopter) had climbed to an average of two a week in the year before the closure. That's an unbelievably high number that's caused directly by stupid, unprepared people stranding themselves. Closing the trail was definitely the right decision there. The only other alternative is "we are not going to rescue people anymore because we don't have the manpower and cannot afford to fly our helicopters so much."

Rescuers had no trouble locating these idiots: http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2009/10/third-time-was-...

This is a very real, big and growing problem for wilderness rescue services: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/science/earth/22parks.html

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