I decided that if I was going to be traversing around Alaska, I might as well take advantage of new safety technology so I bought a SPOT Personal Tracker. The prices are now down to a reasonable $100 (plus $140 yearly fee). SPOTs are GPS/emergency beacons for the lazy and technology inept. It is one weatherproof unit that performs three functions: tracking, emergency signaling and non-emergency messaging. Using GPS satellites, SPOT will take your location or track you, taking your position every 20 minutes. It also sends out an emergency signal to a central call center who contacts emergency rescue professionals. Finally, it will send out and “okay” signal with a preset message to your contacts, giving your position on Googlemaps. This is useful if you are just running late, but not in an emergency situation.
I tested it out this weekend. I drove to Counsel (the village at the end of the road going east) to meet people for a boat ride up the river and tracked my progress. Unfortunately, I drive too slowly, didn’t give myself enough time, and ended up missing the boat. I had never driven too far down the roads so this was a first. The Ford Ranger, while 4-wheel drive and a pretty reliable, doesn’t handle washboard roads very well. It is too light and the ass end kicks out . I used to keep sand bags in the back, but they were left back in Vermont.
After realizing I missed the boat, I walked around a little bit and then drove 76 miles home, stopping to check out all the old mining equipment along the way. There are a couple nice dredges and old mining camps on the road. Also, at the bridge in Solomon there is a great abandoned railroad train. Literally a whole train, engines and cars included. The train is smaller than your average train though - a rusty pigmy ghost train. It was brought up to the Seward Peninsula during the peak of the gold rush only to have its tracks washed away by a storm. So like everything else up here too big to be dumped in the ocean, it was abandoned.
The SPOT did just what it said it would do. I tested it when I started and it sent a signal with my position to my cell phone and to my father (who incorrectly guessed that my location on Front St. as being at the Board of Trade). It also tracked my trip. Here is my journey to Counsel:
One problem with all this cheap and easily available technology is that it tends to make people too brave. Instead of being cautious, idiots take stupid risks figuring that they can just hit their transponder button and wait for the helicopter. Hell, Discovery made a highly unwatched show with just that premise – come to Alaska to survive for 8 days but hit the button when you can’t hack it. This taxes the emergency responders, puts them at risk, and costs the State lots of money.
For example, my favorite news story since arriving in Alaska was this little gem from last summer. Two guys from Bethesda, Maryland used their transponder because the Alaskan summer was too bright and they were exposed to too much daylight. You read the correctly. No bear attack. No broken limbs. They got floatplaned out because they were at risk of sunburn. It is not surprising though. I lived in Bethesda for four months. There are more BMWs and Mercedes per capita than any other location on Earth. The Sunday morning jogging groups are the ass-hats who wear an aerodynamic five bottle hydration belt for a 4 mile jog/walk. These people freak out if the Bagel Store runs out of lox and chive cream cheese. In other words, complete pansies.
However, now with GPS and emergency beacons, these city dwelling panzies can go be John Wayne and Jack London. As much as I think that Chris McCandless and Tim Treadwell were retards whose death is not really mourning-worthy, at least they died being total idiots and didn’t pussy-foot it. They ran off into the woods without a safety button, and died from it. Hopefully I rely on my Arctic survival training and Boy Scout like preparedness and keep my adventures safe. If I never hit the 9/11 button and waste $140 for the next 20 years, I think I will be able to call my Alaskan adventures a success.
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