Apple’s latest update allows its products to work off-grid. But can a smartphone replace a purpose-built satellite messenger?
In 2019, I was seven days into the eight-day Arctic Circle Trail in Greenland when the trail ahead began to fill with smoke. I had unwittingly walked into the middle of a wildfire during an unprecedented summer in the Arctic.
As I got closer I met another hiker who had been in the vicinity for around an hour and was visibly agitated. He informed me that the next hut could no longer be accessed due to the dense smoke. We attempted to climb over a ridge and into the adjacent valley to continue the trek.
Our plan didn’t work. Once we reached the ridge, we could see the adjacent valley was worse than the one we’d just climbed out of. We were now trapped on three sides by either the fire or thick smoke. On the fourth side, to our rear, was a bank of tall mountains that we weren’t prepared to scale. It was no longer a matter of how to complete the trek but of how to escape safely.
Fortunately, my fellow hiker had a Garmin inReach satellite messenger. Our hand was forced so he hit the button and requested an emergency response. Within an hour we were collected from the plateau by an emergency response helicopter from Kangerlussuaq. Within three hours we were back in Kangerlussuaq, pitching our tents at the small campsite there in the early hours of the stark Arctic morning.
I was back where I had begun my trek seven days earlier but, more importantly, I was safe. If it wasn’t for the satellite messenger, I wouldn’t have been able to summon a rescue as my Android didn’t have an emergency messaging function. I now own a Spot satellite messenger and take it with me into the backcountry every time.
Earlier this year, Outside columnist Grayson Haver Currin reported a similar experience hiking the Continental Divide Trail in the USA. After becoming separated from his spouse, and without a satellite messaging device, he eventually resorted to the relatively rudimentary satellite function on his iPhone to text an SOS message to an emergency responder.
After some back and forth, the responder informed him that his spouse was safe and gave him her location in a nearby trail town. Currin said it was the “most embarrassing and unsettling instant in two years living…
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