An important lesson for the intrepid explorer.

[TBRS1]

I've noticed in news reports that the misplaced people are inevitably described as "experienced hikers."

I suspect (as others have suggested) that there is a very big difference in what "experienced" can mean.

An experienced trail hiker is very differently experienced than is an experienced wilderness hiker.

Walking from a car park on a designated route and arriving at a known location is one thing.

Taking off cross country on unmarked routes is a whole 'nother thing.

 

[velociraptor]

I've noticed in news reports that the misplaced people are inevitably described as "experienced hikers."

Taking off cross country on unmarked routes is a whole 'nother thing.

Experienced hikers know to stick to trails. Going off-trail is usually an amateur move. Also a dick move as you trash the environment. Parks maintain established trails for sound reasons.

 

[TBRS1]

Experienced hikers know to stick to trails. Going off-trail is usually an amateur move. Also a dick move as you trash the environment. Parks maintain established trails for sound reasons.

Maybe.

Depends on whether one goes to or lives in the wilderness.

 

[velociraptor]

Depends on whether one goes to or lives in the wilderness.

People who live in the city or a town generally don't know enough about when or where to go off trail even if they are experienced hikers. Those who live in the wilderness usually like to establish trails and use those, and only break trail when they have a good reason for it, generally not "just because".

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

I've noticed in news reports that the misplaced people are inevitably described as "experienced hikers."

I suspect (as others have suggested) that there is a very big difference in what "experienced" can mean.

An experienced trail hiker is very differently experienced than is an experienced wilderness hiker.

This also happens with canoeing deaths. The paddlers are described as "experienced", but as the real experienced among us read the article, the rookie mistakes are horrifying.

Rescuers are allowed to laugh, they crack jokes to blow off the hard work and tension of the search. Same for hospice workers. Been there. Done that.

 

[UFO]

Rescuers are allowed to laugh, they crack jokes to blow off the hard work and tension of the search. Same for hospice workers. Been there. Done that.

Yes, that makes sense. I also suspected that perhaps it was a relief and happiness of getting some advancement on the case (first picture's lifted hands give that impression). Then I would understand it being caught on camera. But there wasn't any such context given so pictures felt as improper as laughing at the funeral.

 

[RemyZee]

Many people taking selfies die in the US every year, doing some dumb thing or the other like falling off the Grand Canyon cliffs, just to get a narcissistic picture of themselves.

In Yosemite on the half dome, people often fall two at the time as one starts to fall and the other tries to help.

 

[Outdated]

Rescuers are allowed to laugh, they crack jokes to blow off the hard work and tension of the search. Same for hospice workers. Been there. Done that.

In this case the "rescuers" are one of her brothers and a few of her closest friends. They've been flying back to Australia and carrying out unofficial searches on their own for the last couple of years. They're not just a bunch of cowboys though, they've worked closely with police and continued the police's own carefully laid out grid patterns and police have been unofficially helping them with data and logistics.

I think the expressions you see on those peoples faces are relief as much as anything else. To finally have part of the answer and to know that all the time effort and money they've spent wasn't wasted.

 

[vergil96]

Below freezing temperature isn't a counterindication for anything. However, you have to dress properly and keep on moving - maybe it's not obvious to someone who doesn't live in a place where there is no ice and snow every winter? You also need boots with tractor soles in order not to slip.

I suspect (as others have suggested) that there is a very big difference in what "experienced" can mean.

That's also what I thought.

Also "experience" doesn't mean someone is any good at it. I knew someone who kept on climbing mountains a lot and repeated the same stupid mistakes about it like not heading to civilisation as soon as the sun begins to go down. It was asking to get lost and get into trouble with animals in the dark in the middle of a forest (yes, there are no street lights in the forest *rolls eyes*).

but as the real experienced among us read the article, the rookie mistakes are horrifying.

Yes, exactly. To be clear, I wouldn't call myself "experienced", but to me, they are still rookie mistakes. In my opinion, it's common knowledge that you have to avoid them.

 

[the_tortoise]

People often fear the consequences of technology successfully replacing human workers, but to my mind the far greater danger is humans believing technology is reliable without question and doing the equivalent of hiring a stranger with completely unverified credentials and skills to do a complicated and high-risk job requiring huge amounts of high-level expert knowledge without ever once checking or supervising or evaluating their work - technology is only as smart or useful or reliable as those who build and maintain it. Just like a human being, no technology should be trusted without question.

Google maps in particular is notorious for its inaccuracy and bizarre errors. In terms of navigation/directions I trust if for basically nothing.

 

[UFO]

Below freezing temperature isn't a counterindication for anything.

Yes, I agree, it isn't. My point about the subject was that it is just about the odds of getting conditions that lead to maximum thermal transfer between skin and air. She was unlucky in that sense. Even worse, if she wasn't wearing water-resistant, layered clothing, but was just counting on staying inside her comfortable car.

I have found a little bit conflicting articles. Some article from two years ago mentioned that the police considered her inexperienced. Many other articles called her experienced. I didn't find any info if she has actually been camping in sub-zero conditions before.

 

[Outdated]

I have found a little bit conflicting articles. At some article from two years ago mentioned that the police considered her inexperienced. Many other articles called her experienced. I didn't find any info if she has actually been camping in sub-zero conditions before.

As others have mentioned, experience is a very subjective term. Running up and down marked trails is easier for people that do it all the time but that doesn't mean they're prepared for survival in the wilderness.

When they find her it will be interesting to find out if she was properly dressed for the conditions or not. My guess is not because she only intended a quick 1 Km dash down to the waterfall and then back to her car. That whole region of Tasmania is reknowned for people getting caught out in cold weather and needing to be rescued, and not all of them survive.

 

[vergil96]

If the tourist was Australian, underdressing is a very common mistake that foreigners from warmer countries make. I see immigrants from countries like Pakistan running around in trainers or even filp-flops, no socks, just a rain coat over a tshirt in the winter and then getting the flu or even pneumonia. If someone comes here from Italy or Spain, they know to wear socks and a sweater at least, but they tend to freeze all the time, because their clothing choices are very light compared to locals, e.g. they choose a cotton sweater when they should be wearing wool, wearing a typical autumn jacket when they should be wearing a puffer jacket, not wearing warm shoes etc.

 

[velociraptor]

e.g. they choose a cotton sweater when they should be wearing wool, wearing a typical autumn jacket when they should be wearing a puffer jacket, not wearing warm shoes etc.

Here in Canada the experienced hikers carry a few extra layers and a mylar bivy tent even in summer. There are also idiots like snow mobilers who break down and need a helicopter sent out because they don't have clothing or shelter for the night and their phone is down to 4% when they call in for help.

 

[Outdated]

If the tourist was Australian, underdressing is a very common mistake that foreigners from warmer countries make.

For many of us anything under 10C means that many jumpers and jackets that our arms are stuck straight out sideways and we can hardly move.

And we just got our weather forecast for Christmas Day, a little bit warm in Perth but just perfect everywhere else.

 

[vergil96]

For many of us anything under 10C means that many jumpers and jackets that our arms are stuck straight out sideways and we can hardly move.

You would all freeze up here in the north. It's below 10C more often than not.

 

[Shamar]

Never leave the marked trail.

Do not believe anything your phone tells you. Stick to the marked trail.

A couple of years ago a tourist disappeared in a remote part of north western Tasmania. She was young and fit and healthy, she was a seasoned traveller and an experienced hiker. Her car was found in the carpark of a trail heading to a waterfall but there was no other sign of her. The trail is only 1 Km long – just over half a mile, yet she got lost.

Her friends and family have come out to Australia a few times conducting their own searches and they finally had a breakthrough – they found her phone. They haven’t found her body yet but they’re beginning to piece together what must have happened.

View attachment 147626

Her last known location was at the waterfall and the carpark was to the south west of her, but her phone was found 600 metres away to the north west, 90 degrees perpendicular to where she should have been heading.

What they now think has happened is that she checked her phone while she was at the waterfall, it was late in a winter’s afternoon, temperatures were below freezing and it was already getting dark.

And Google Maps showed her a shortcut.

That’s only a part of the problem though. Australia’s a huge country and sparsely populated so we don’t have mobile phone infrastructure everywhere. 85% of Australia’s land mass has no mobile phone coverage. Instead of wide coverage we have small hotspots here and there where they’re needed, and we install them in some tourist places too so that people can take a picture and send it to their friends. Walk too far away from that transponder and you have no mobile access.I have worked in that region of Tasmania

So it’s looking like she started to follow a “shortcut” marked by Google Maps but the moment she moved away from the waterfall she lost access to Google Maps. It’s almost impossible to navigate in deep forests, constant dodging and weaving around trees and other obstacles makes you lose all sense of direction.

Tasmania Police to join renewed search for missing tourist Celine Cremer

Trust Aussies to always lay the easiest and quickest paths possible, we’re genuinely lazy bastards at heart and couldn’t imagine doing it any other way.
Never trust Google Maps.

I have worked in that region of Tasmania, both summer and winter. You can go three meters off the trail to take a leak and not find the way back. I would expect hypothermia was also a factor. It looks to me like maybe she missed the turn in the trail to the southwest just after leaving the falls. It never ceases to amaze me how so many people fail to understand the term "wild." After a career being in these kinds of places, I assume the weather will go bad with a possibility of getting disoriented, and prepare accordingly.

I worked with GPS when it was one channel multiplexed (translation: it received data from each satellite in turn, one at a time), and came in a medium size suitcase, not counting the car battery to power it. On a good day, the position had a 50% chance of being in a 15 meter radius circle. You had to average readings for a half hour to an hour to get a decently accurate position fix. I still don't trust them in dense woods without averaging.

 

[Outdated]

I have worked in that region of Tasmania, both summer and winter. You can go three meters off the trail to take a leak and not find the way back.

A lot of people from the northern hemisphere also don't understand what it means to not have deciduous trees. Even when the ground is covered in ice and snow our trees still retain their heavy canopies. In winter it would be very dark under those trees. Even if she had clear skies she wouldn't have been able to use sun or stars to navigate, she would only get very small glimpses of the sky here and there.

 

[the_tortoise]

For many of us anything under 10C means that many jumpers and jackets that our arms are stuck straight out sideways and we can hardly move.

You would all freeze up here in the north. It's below 10C more often than not.

My thermostat inside is set to 10C this winter, lol.

I figured I shouldn't set it much lower than 10C because the HVAC is ... odd; Some corners of the house are very chilly indeed and I don't want the pipes to freeze. Also I sometimes get hives from cold so not keen to risk that.

Gets to about -30C to -35C for at least a week or two (sometimes a month or two) during most winters where I live. (Although the weather this past decade has been all over the place and one winter was so warm that we had no lasting snow (meaning it may have snowed with rain but the snowflakes would melt when they touched the ground) until January - that winter I remember walking 15 minutes to the ER in the middle of the night to get a bad cut stitched closed in mid-December with a mid-weight hoody on and no jacket, there was no snow and it was not even cold enough for frost. Was warm.

Coldest weather I've been out in is about -45C.

A lot of people from the northern hemisphere also don't understand what it means to not have deciduous trees. Even when the ground is covered in ice and snow our trees still retain their heavy canopies. In winter it would be very dark under those trees. Even if she had clear skies she wouldn't have been able to use sun or stars to navigate, she would only get very small glimpses of the sky here and there.

In many parts of northern Canada the dominant species in forests are conifers...but then tree shapes and the heights and density of the trees matters, too. Not sure what the differences are in terms of how much sky you can see because I've never lived in deep forest nor been off-trail camping.

 

[Outdated]

Gets to about -30C to -35C for at least a week or two.....

In Adelaide 5C is usually the coldest winter night, anything below that is extremely rare, and it never gets below freezing. A little colder up in the hills to the east but never on the flat plains of the city.

Although the weather this past decade has been all over the place....

It's the same here. The antarctic has been shedding ice at an extremely high rate and currents take a lot of that cold water straight up in to the Great Australian Bight. The summer of 19/20 was a normal hot dry Adelaide summer but then we sort of had no real seasons for 4 years straight, perpetual autumn/spring with no real summer or winter.

Last year we had a normal sort of summer but this year it looks like it's going to be dodgy again, a couple of hot days here and there but mostly spring time weather. So while the rest of the country is suffering heat waves it's still very mild here.