Lost Hunter Blames GPS; Wardens Say Device Worked Properly

A cautionary tale, perhaps (on several levels)...

A hunter who was lost in the woods of Maine for nearly 3 days claimed
his Garmin GPS malfunctioned, resulting in his plight.

Hunter tells saga of survival
http://www.sunjournal.com/story/242054-3/RiverValley/Hunter_tells_saga_of_survival/

Wright blames GPS; wardens say device worked properly
http://www.sunjournal.com/story/242055-3/RiverValley/Wright_blames_GPS_wardens_say_device_worked_properly/

I suppose that we'll never know what really happened... malfunctioning
GPS... multipath errors... walking too slowly under trees to get a good
bearing... user error... but one of the stories reported:

"Steven Wright's [the lost hunter's] sons pushed him to get the GPS
unit, which he hadn't used often before the Maine hunt. They're getting
him an upgrade for Christmas, Kerby Wright said."

The stories also report that the lost hunter used a Garmin Extreme
GPS... as I can't find any reference to a "Garmin Extreme" model, I can
only assume it was a Garmin eTrex.

On Fri, 07 Dec 2007 08:45:29 -0500, Deacon Blues


children shouldn't play with matches

[snipped]

[snipped]

An experienced outdoorsman would not have made the stupid mistakes made by
this man:
- left his survival gear in the truck
- entrusted his life to a piece of equipment he did not know how to
operate
- didn't have a compass and if he had one, and a map, probably couldn't
have found his a$$ with both hands
-
I am glad he was found alive. He put searchers at risk for his stupid
mistakes.

He almost was a candidate for the Darwin award.

Your last line says it all! Supposedly an "experienced" outdoors
man...yea right.

My wife wonders why I use my GPS when we're going places where the route is
fairly obvious. I use my GPS so that I am familiar with it, and the
shortcomings. That's street routing, though.


He had a compass. He used the screen light of the GPS to read it.

"On and off, he'd try the GPS, but said it kept giving him directions that
made no sense. At one point he said it showed his truck being 150 feet
away, but that would have meant he parked on the summit of Tumbledown, he
said."

That would be an interesting track to review. Maybe he went in circles, at
some points being within 150 feet of his truck.

--
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5