This past Sunday we took a trip out at the Husky Memorial, my 10 year old and two adults. About 13 miles into the trip in a sand wash my 10 year old got separated from us due to his concentration in the deep sand he was not looking at us just off the edge of the wash, he at some point turned around and went back right past us but did not stop nor did he stop in the area were he should have, were we could drive right to him. Short story long after at least an hour of looking for him he found the wash and retraced his steps right to were I last saw him and all was good. I was sacred but perhaps not as much as he was!! So here is the question with two young boys and the thought of this happening again what do others do to locate a young person separated from the group. Thought's 1 Two way radios. 2 A tracking devise?? 3 SPOT But if the kid panics and pushes the 911 button and is not hurt or in real trouble.
In the low tech category: a whistle from just about anywhere, got mine from a place that sells childrens party supplies. I'm glad you found him!!!
The Spot has 3 buttons all found on this page. S.O.S, Help, and Checkin/OK. Spot is worth it's weight in gold. And Dean is right, a whistle is worth weight in gold too. I always have one while riding.
A mountain rescue tactic is to teach kids to "hug a tree". That meaning - Teach them to stay where they last saw you or to stop and wait for you to back track and find them. This is probably more important while riding than hiking because they can ride faster than they can hike - that is bad because they can get lost faster and farther. A hiker typically covers about 3 - 4 miles in an hour so your search area is smaller.
We have the stop and stay put rule but he lost his cool and did not take the time to think. Thank God for me after he had exhausted all of his other ideas he was smart enough to retrace his steps.
Thoughts? It should never happen again nor in the first place. He got sperated not due to the wash, but because you were not paying attnetion. There's rules to follow...ya don't need homing devices if you are paying attention to what is going on. Common sense works better than battery opperated devices. On a casual trail ride: The Rule is no one gets dropped. Ever. You don't ever let anyone get seperated. Never get out of visual contact w/ each other. Break up a large group into a couple or three smaller ones with a leader, mid pack leader and a Tail-end Charlie. Leader looks back often and STOP at ALL intersections for re-group. Have a "broom" and use it. One responsible adult should be on the slowest riders tail (sweep), have a first aid kit and have a plan. There was only 3 of you and your son got dropped? Not cool. Edit- if this sounds harsh it's for a good reason. I cannot count the times I've gotten the call for a missing rider that got dropped on a causal trail ride. Most of them were small kids. When we got back the Leader got an earfull from me. Those were the good outcomes. Some were not so good.....some were downright tragic and I've given "bad news" to crying parents. Take it from there. No one gets left behind. Ever.
I agree 100%. As harsh as it sounds. With a child or even beginner adults on the ride, the group must realize this and adjust the ride accordingly. Always have a sweep rider. Stop at all intersection.Stop at all obstacles to make sure the whole group makes it through. In this case the kid should have been in between the 2 adults and in visual contact at all times when he got to this obstacle. Do not need technology to solve problems that common sense can take care of. If you are going to ride with someone young or new then ride WITH them. Ride at their level. They will enjoy it more and will be able to learn from watching you.
I agree and except the reality of the above post's. The fact is, at 10years old the kid is a better rider than myself. He was in the middle and I was picking up the rear and yes the leader had made a error in my opinion when he pulled off to the side of the wash with out stopping. I have only been riding dirt bikes for about the last 5 years and 99.9% of that is with my kids so I am well aware of what can happen and what should not ever happen. All that behind us, we have all read post here and on other forms of this issue. What I was looking for is back up plan that should never need to be used in a perfect world. We all know how fast things can go from great to tragic in a blink of an eye. Thank you for your advice Dan
Along with the others suggestions... Carry a smoke charge. A nice fat plume of purple or orange smoke gets some attention. The lost rider can pop it when searchers get "close" or there is big time trouble.
Garmin Rhino radio/GPS units map other Rhinos within Radio distance and also functions as your gps if you need to retrace back to the truck.
DMD One other thought. Do your kids each carry thier own water and a lot of it? as well as some power bars or emergency food? Each kid should have a basic camelback witha miniumum of two litres of water. Short range Motorola ( Read - Dependable ) walkie talkies . Food to last one day. Foil emergency blanket to use for a cold night and as a signal for search aircraft. Waterproof matches and the know how to light a signal fire for both rescue and warmth. If you are not in boy scouts or Devil Pups... now is the time for the kids and dad to sign up. IF you are doing desert rides of this magnitude, your kids need to have their wits about them and dad needs even more. Believe me ... a 40 plus mile desert ride is big magnitude for a 10 year old. I've ridden that area. I can only imagine what was going thru his head. Credit to you for raising a kid that while intially lost recovered his wits and back tracked. Now is a good time to have that "emergency preparedness" meeting with your kids. Before the next ride. T
That is a scary situation. I use my Garmin 530 HCX a lot with buddies hunting and riding. The Rhino series has an ability to "poll positions" and you can transmit your positions to eachother. Once you set the radio channel and get your positions on the screen, you can locate eachother. Its a big safety thing where I live because the single track through the high desert can go in multiple directions. If we get split up, we use the radio and polling features. Down side.... 350 bucks for my unit, but the other is about 300. Up side .. .you can save your tracks and plot them on your computer so you can keep a history of your rides, set waypoints of interest and name trails!
Scary situation, I'm glad it worked out and some lessons were learned. I agree with the previous posts and will be looking very seriously at the Garmin Rino series GPS/Radios when my boys are old enough to join me on some trail rides. Pricey but I like the fact you can track directly too them and I'm kind of a techy geek so they would be fun to play with and would be nice for skiing, snowmobiling, hunting etc. But agreed, they are NOT a replacement for good survival skills, good judgment and an organized ride with a plan. Happy trails!
+1, man, mine always ride in front. If I want to go off and not worry about them, I leave them with their mom. When they're riding, my eyes are on them all the time.:bonk:
I'm always surprised that the kids don't see things when riding. Focusing on riding they get tunnel vision and can drive right thru intersections, dry creek beds all sorts or landmarks. Getting lost and confused is easy for kids and reading the previous post sounds like Walt is in the same group.
Thank you all for the great info, We all ride with a camel pack even on short rides you never know when you might break down or perhaps you run across some one the is broke and in need water. The best advise above in my opinion is to be prepared to deal with a bad satiation, so I will make sure each rider has a some supplies in their back pack and will go over the ride rules each time even if they gets tired of hearing it. We are going to use some hand held 2 way radios until I can get the new GPS set up. Thank You Dan
