Is Technology Enabling Unnecessary Rescue Calls?

Once upon a time, there was no such thing as GPS or personal satellite locators. Hikers and backpackers had to rely on topographical maps and their own experience to keep them safe in the backcountry.

But that’s no longer the case. These days, anyone can buy a personal locator beacon to bring along on backcountry hikes. Seems smart, right? Maybe not so much.

Rescue officials fear the use of technology like GPS is providing a false sense of security and empowering inexperienced hikers to attempt routes they never would have before. Some hikers have begun using personal locator beacons that function like Onstar does for vehicles. Rescue officials call the device “Yuppie 911.”

“Now you can go into the back country and take a risk you might not normally have taken,” says Matt Scharper, who coordinates a rescue every day in a state with wilderness so rugged even crashed planes can take decades to find. “With the Yuppie 911, you send a message to a satellite and the government pulls your butt out of something you shouldn’t have been in in the first place.”

Rescue officials put there lives on the line every day to pull people out of dangerous situations. While these devices could, and do, prove invaluable in certain situations, they are also enabling false emergencies. A group of hikers recently used Yuppie 911 three times while they were hiking the Grand Canyon – one time because the water they were drinking was “too salty.” The devices have also been known to signal rescuers accidentally when bumped inside a backpack.

“There’s controversy over these devices in the first place because it removes the self sufficiency that’s required in the back country,” Scharper says. “But we are a society of services, and every service you need you can get by calling.”

Personal locator beacons have been legal since 2003 but have just recently dropped in price to an affordable $100.

What do you think – should there be rules established for what exactly constitutes an emergency in the backcountry?