Satellite phones - love them or leave them?

[Bigtree]

Am curious to hear some views on pros/cons of packing a satellite phone into the mountains. Given the nature of some recent trips of mine I've been pondering buying or renting one but am somewhat conflicted as I think a case can be made that it can undermine one's good judgement and self reliance given that "help is only a call away".

 

Thoughts?

[Jens]

I want one!

[magellan]

Me, too. They are about the same price as regular cels were 10 years ago.

[jmace]

I didnt have one or a radio to call out on for my trip last year, heli approach and walk out, and I found it weighed on my mind during all climbing decisions..some say thats part of the game..I think theres probably a healthy balance between having one and still maintaining a sense of self reliance..and if your like most folks no one wants to be rescued on the 6 news so if you can you'd probably walk out or wait for the return flight.

[MountaingirlBC]

The thought of having to be rescued because I did something stupid usually keeps me in check... with our without a sat phone.

[Fromage]

I have spent many golden hours using satellite phones in remote alpine settings as a NOLS instructor and mountain guide. I have had both positive and negative experiences with them. My views are shaped by my experience in the institutional settings of guiding, not personal climbs, so keep that in mind.

 

With NOLS I find the sat phone to be enormously helpful, in fact I would call it an indispensable piece of equipment. I typically go into the field (Wind Rivers, WY) with a sat phone that has about an hour of prepaid time on it. Some courses we'll burn up the whole hour, other courses it never comes out of the case. When you have a student whose abdominal pains are difficult to diagnose or you need a quick evac or need to consult base about a behavioral issue, the sat phone totally saves the day. Without a sat phone, I feel I would have made a couple decisions about my courses that, in retrospect, would have been poor. Having the phone gave me the ability to consult a medical authority or initiate a backcountry evacuation almost instantly. On a personal trip, having the ability to summon help almost anywhere is a big advantage if you need it.

 

Guiding, however, has been a different experience. Most of the places I guide in the Cascades are close enough to the road that someone can go for help pretty quickly, and cell coverage, although spotty, is useful enough to just bring along a cell phone. On a trip this spring I had a client bring a sat phone into the mountains with him- unbeknownst to everyone until it started ringing. He made no effort to limit his use of the phone, and it got out of hand. I'd be trying to teach crampon technique and this guy was off on the side making real estate deals on the phone. Pretty annoying. Then he'd complain about how expensive airtime was after closing a multi-million dollar deal.

 

As for my personal trips, I think the only kind of situation where I would consider a sat phone is if I was going somewhere like the Pickets for 10 days. The weight and the cost of a phone make me think twice about taking it. You can rent phones now, so that would be more cost effective if you shared it among a group. All the same, you have to have a lot of other skills and tools with you to make a sat phone useful, like the ability to know where you are. "Help, I fell down a ravine in the Terror Creek Basin" is not as useful to a rescuer as being able to say "I am at Y degrees latitude and X degrees longitude." It's even better to have all the phone numbers with you that you would want to call so you can talk directly with the ranger station or sheriff's office or your buddy instead of relying on a 911 operator to spread the word.

 

As an inexpensive safety alternative to a sat phone, I make sure to tell a trusted climbing partner (who is staying in town) the details of my trips. I will email a friend with my route description, intended climbing objectives, intended campsites, dates of my trip, what gear I'm taking (tent color, food, fuel) and predetermined Freak Out Time, after which he or she calls the cavalry if I haven't made contact. I keep my WFR certification current and climb with people who I trust to stay cool and make good decisions if I am hurt. I don't think a sat phone is a crutch in the wilderness, but it depends on who is using it. An experienced climber calling for help after getting clobbered by rockfall is one thing, a gumby hiker who takes the wrong turn and didn't bring enough fuel for his stove, that is another.

[crackers]

They don't necessarily work in the Caucasus and SE Turkey. If you're going someplace far afield I highly recommend talking to people who've used them in the area you're going to. Various military organizations have been known to use jammers to degrade or eliminate their functionality.

 

I leave the morality of it up to you, but I think msr fromage summarized my views pretty well...

[G-spotter]

if your sat phone also gets hit by the rock that injures you i guess you are doubly screwed over since your plan to get help/rescue just got changed significantly!