Group of Teen Hikers Relied on Google Maps. It Was a Disaster. (sfgate.com)
- Reference: 0184797672
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/08/01/0552202/group-of-teen-hikers-relied-on-google-maps-it-was-a-disaster
- Source link: https://www.sfgate.com/national-parks/article/google-map-rescue-22367661.php
"Instead, the hike stretched deep into the night, leaving the group exhausted, dehydrated, injured and in need of a helicopter rescue..."
> Although the approximately 18-mile route with a 6,000-foot elevation gain can be completed by experienced trail runners in a day, search and rescue officials generally recommend hikers treat it as a two-day backpacking trip. The teenagers, all 17 years old, believed Google Maps' estimate that the route would take about five hours. The printed directions they were carrying, [2]which were shared publicly by Lions Bay Search and Rescue, gave simple instructions for two legs of the trail, but didn't account for the terrain or elevation. "[Google Maps] is calculating the time that you're walking a straight road on pavement," [said Maria Masiar, training officer and search manager with Lions Bay Search and Rescue]. "When you get into outdoor terrain, that no longer holds true."
>
> Expecting only a short outing, each hiker carried about half a liter of water and limited food. There are no reliable water sources along the trail, meaning hikers must carry enough supplies for the entire route. As the group climbed, they began suffering from dehydration and muscle cramps but continued onward despite falling dramatically behind schedule. Eventually, the group made the decision to turn back and abandon making it to the end of the trail — and as the sun began to set and the group started to descend, fatigue took its toll. According to Masiar, members of the group had already stumbled and fallen several times while trying to race the coming dark, and only one hiker had a headlamp. Eventually, another hiker slipped about 10 feet off a boulder, injuring his tailbone badly enough that he could no longer continue. Search and rescue crews responded, ultimately evacuating him by helicopter.
[1] https://www.sfgate.com/national-parks/article/google-map-rescue-22367661.php
[2] https://www.facebook.com/LionsBaySAR/posts/1775893060442344?ref=embed_post
Dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
People do dumb stuff in the mountains all the time. A couple of people apparently tried to hike this trail last winter in shorts.
This is a BC provincial park so there is undoubtedly a great big sign at the trailhead telling you how long to expect it to take and advising minimal equipment you should make sure to bring. There's also an official website (advising only experienced hikers go beyond a certain point) and many, many other websites.
Re: Dumb (Score:1)
Yeah this sounds like a case of natural selection at work. Glad the kids made it out.
Re: (Score:2)
The signs I've seen photographed in Google Maps (I'm several timezones away and am not about to just go there and check) do not say how long you can expect to take, so maybe nobody felt the need to upload a snapshot of one of those signs. Pretty much every such sign in Austria has that information, I find their estimates a bit pessimistic but that is not a bad thing.
18 miles is just under 29km. I'd feel safe in assuming I could do 20km on a well signposted trail with not too much vertical, although I'd nee
Re: (Score:1)
People that confidentially mess up even getting basic information from a reliable source will not look at signs either. I am all for rescuing them, but they should be billed for it afterwards. May be a valuable life lesson. At least for those that are not so stupid they cannot be reached. We have a lot of the latter variant in the human race.
Using technology is hard (Score:4)
I'm going to victim blame. This is what happens when you blindly accept what a computer tells you. Based solely on this story, none of them did the least bit of research into what this trail entailed OTHER than what Google Maps said. Again, based solely on this story, none checked with any of the ranger stations or even the web site of the trail itself to see if it had any information on this trail.
If you've never hiked a trail, or even driven somewhere, in this day and age there is absolutely no excuse for not doing your research (the good kind, not the vaccination kind) prior to leaving. We literally have the information at our fingertips to find out what something is like prior to going there. How about we use it.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the victims here are the rescue crew that had their time wasted. Doing it to yourself (as these morons did) does not make you a proper victim.
Re: (Score:2)
Having steady employment is being a "victim" now?
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is the ease at which we are connected - we assume cellular coverage is universal because everywhere we go there is cellphone coverage basically. And a lot of people who grew up with digital technology never envisioned there are alternatives to not being connected, always.
It happens all the time in BC, because we have a lot of urban trails and parks that are literally minutes from city limits. Cellphone coverage is basically there at the start of the trail because it's barely out of the city.
This
Re: Using technology is hard (Score:2)
Phone reception was not the issue in this case. They had printed the instructions and were working off paper copies. The issue was trusting the estimated journey time, which was waaaay off.
Re: (Score:1)
> I'm going to victim blame. This is what happens when you blindly accept what a computer tells you.
They're 17. Brains don't work right at that age.
Sound very inexperienced (Score:4, Insightful)
The water quantity seems short to me even for the 5-6 hour plan. I know I take more than that myself for similar duration. Very much a this will be fun let’s just do it scenario.
Real lesson is to get the actual trail maps and learn how to read them.
Of course - can still go wrong - in Boy Scouts in the mid 90s one of our leaders planned a hike. Somehow read an 8.5 mile hike that was actually 14 miles. Started seeming odd when we were nowhere our planned lunch spot at the point we needed the meal. Other leader double checked him and realized he fucked up. No sat phone or anything, so the parents at the far end got quite concerned when our planned pickup time came and went. Over 3 1/2 hours later we showed up. At least we had water purification stuff to make some extra water for ourselves.
Re: (Score:3)
> Somehow read an 8.5 mile hike that was actually 14 miles
8.5 miles is close to 14km. I can't see how that could have been a factor but the correlation feels too close to be coincidental.
Re: (Score:2)
> The water quantity seems short to me even for the 5-6 hour plan.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. Half a liter of water for a 5hr remote hike?! "We're all gonna diiiiiieee!"
You always have to be ready to get stuck there for awhile, even if you know the trail.
Re: (Score:2)
Generation Alphas: "That's what happens when you don't let us have our phones."
Stupid people doing stupid things (Score:1)
Seriously, what else is new? That the stupid ones in questions were teens seems to be immaterial.
Not all "teens" are silly. (Score:2)
I learnt orienteering in ninth grade because the outdoors demands to be taken seriously. My class quite enjoyed it. We hiked parts of the Appalachian Trail on our own without worry because we knew what to do and where we were at all times. None of this was difficult.
Rescuer perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
I've done a lot of incident response, and was a certified trainer for over a decade. One of the things I've observed is that the higher the reliance on technology among the party, the higher the probability that they'll require rescue. People who can read a topo map, can use a compass, who understand the importance of carrying more water than they think they'll ever need, and who have a (tested, working) flashlight rarely get into trouble. People who rely on Google/Apple/whatever maps, who are glued to their cell phones, who can't read a map or use a compass, set themselves up for issues. Of course, thankfully, most of the time those issues don't arise or are minor. But when they're not...
In this particular instance: 6000 feet of elevation gain is rather a lot. I've done 5000 up/down in a single day, but that's a LONG day even for someone who's fairly fit and accustomed to the exertion. Anyone who's not in shape is going to really struggle not just with the exertion but with the altitude, and we see in this instance, as they fatigue they may stumble and/or fall. It's just not a good idea, even for (let's say) young people who are physically active, go to the gym, play a sport or two -- because it's a very different kind of physical activity and because you can't just stop when you've had enough.
Aside: experienced trail runners make all of us look silly. I remember slogging my way up a trail at 11,000 feet when I heard the quick tap-tap-tap of one behind me. He went by with a quick "Morning!" and just kept going. I was still slogging my way up at about 12,000 feet when I saw him coming toward me, on his way back down -- same tap-tap-tap at the same pace, just out for a casual morning trot while we ordinary mortals were trudging along. I'm willing to bet that he did that trail often enough to know every rock, to have every step mapped out in his brain, to just dance his way up and down.
Re: (Score:2)
I think what happens often with over-reliance on technology is "kognitive surrender", i.e. you just believe the machine and do no fact-checking whatsoever. Apparently the numbers for LLMs can get really high, with one research finding that 72% believe faulty LLM answers and do not try to overrule them. That is exceptionally bad and worrying. Incidentally, that matches the observation that only about 20-30% of all people are accessible to rational argument and only about 10-15% can create such arguments them
Re: (Score:2)
I've done some trail running. Not enough to make a hiker look silly, but a bit, and a lot of hiking. I was hiking in Ethiopia one time and we kept having to duck off the trail to let women carrying bundles of stuff on their heads pass. The real kicker was when a guy on crutches who didn't have any feet passed us.
Complete ignorance of the outdoors. (Score:2)
I feel like it is more complete ignorance of the outdoors, high tech being a secondary thing. Analog gear has some advantages but its not idiot proof. One can hold a mechanical compass near something magnetic. There are some phone apps with downloadable topo maps and that are more oriented to wilderness use than the built-in map app.
The thing that freaks me out the most is 1/2 L of water. To me that speaks the loudest with respect to being utterly unprepared for a wilderness setting. I’m afraid to
It was 5 hours to drive (Score:4, Funny)
Need to switch to pedestrian mode.
Re: (Score:2)
No mod points, I'd say +1 funny...
Walking isn't hiking (Score:2)
Walking and hiking are usually two very different things, and 18 miles in 5 hours requires an average of 3.6 mph, which isn't a stroll.
Re: (Score:2)
Here is Sonnet 5's rather bad take on it:
> what would be a respectable time to walk 18 miles?
For an 18-mile walk, times generally break down like this:
Casual/relaxed pace (~20 min/mile, 3 mph): around 6 hours
Average brisk pace (~15â"17 min/mile, 3.5â"4 mph): around 4.5â"5 hours
Fast/fit pace (~13â"14 min/mile, 4.3â"4.5 mph): around 4â"4.2 hours
Competitive race-w
Re: (Score:2)
> Doing it on hilly terrain, with a loaded pack, on a hot day ... add 30 min.
For a 6,000 foot elevation gain? Hmm. Doubt.
Perhaps it would be best to consult [1]better sources [outdoorvancouver.ca]. This site has it as a "trail run" taking 9 hours. You'd already know from experience if you were this good.
[1] https://www.outdoorvancouver.ca/featured-trail-howe-sound-crest-trail/
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, it is described as a 17.1 mile trail (one way) with 6000 feet of elevation gain. It is suggested that this is a two day overnight backpacking trip if you aren't a trail runner.
Re: (Score:2)
Your post looks like how to get into trouble when stepping off of pavement, I think the humor is too subtle. :-)
Pedestrians get sent round traffic circles (Score:4, Interesting)
Using Google maps as a pedestrian is really dangerous. It tells you to walk around traffic circles as if you're a car that has to do 270 degrees.
Also, it keeps pointing the map north even if you're walking south.
Re: (Score:3)
> Using Google maps as a pedestrian is really dangerous.
The bike routes it gives are also quite bad, too. It doesn't seem to recognize bike trails and will often favor routing through roads without a bike lane, even when there are alternate roads with bike lanes available.
Kids today (Score:1)
People of Australia: "Please do not come to Australia, you are clearly not qualified yet"
Re: (Score:2)
Hungry dingos: "Please come to Australia. Visit and enjoy our beautiful outback."
Teens do stupid thing! (Score:2)
News at 11!
I'm surprised it had any trails at all (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean Google Maps it's a sh*show for literally going 15 minutes from the car in the "woods" in Western Europe (quotes there because it's more like someone's backyard in other places less populated, and I don't mean a king or anything). OpenStreetMaps are way better but it has to be a somehow popular region/destination.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not surprised it had the trail, but I am surprised it wasn't sending a bunch of cars down it.
Re: (Score:2)
> I'm not surprised it had the trail, but I am surprised it wasn't sending a bunch of cars down it.
I think that's more of an Apple Maps thing. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Google Maps is a shitshow if you try to use it for anything other than the Yellow Pages.