JMT-2016: SPOT Messengers

Dear Friends and Family,

Sherri and Gary are trying to walk most of the John Muir Trail this year--starting Sunday morning, August 7th. Instead of going alone, we will be joining four other friends of ours: Rose, Sonya, Kate and Kim. This year instead of walking all the way to Mt Whitney, Sherri and Gary will be exiting at Roads End, near Cedar Grove in Kings Canyon. The rest of our group will be conquering Whitney.  We anticipate it will take us a little more than three weeks. Some of you have said they would like to follow us. Here's how:

• Each day after we set up camp, we will send out a message through our Personal Locator Beacon (SPOT Messenger or SPOT 2).
• It will appear on a map, which you can see at bit.ly/mapritto1 (if that does not work, try clicking on this link.). The link should be updated each night by about 7 or 8 .
• A map should appear in your browser, when you click it. You will see our locations from the past 5-7 days. Take a look at the map below for an example. By the way, Ritto and Shirley are the names of our two PLB's.

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  SPOT Map-Corrected from Original e-mail

  Most messages will say, we are OK. But if you see a “Custom” message or a message with text, we are probably on a day hike, or communicating with our support team.
• If a campsite does not appear for a day or two, do not panic, we may not have been able to transmit. If we are in trouble, we will have set off an alarm for our support crew to help us out.
  
  
  

For those of you who want to know more, here is a little more detail. We own both a SPOT Messenger PLB and a SPOT2. It uses satellite communications to transmit messages and coordinates. There is a limited number of message types which can be sent—see the list below. It's most important function is if we are in a terrible fix, to alert a national rescue center to find us. But its more common use is to let people know where we are and to help them follow us or to coordinate with our support team. Sherri's and Gary's support team consists of Gary's brother and our children. The SPOT Messenger has five buttons, which we mostly use the first one:

• “I am OK”,
• “Custom Messages”-which we use to say we are on a day hike,
• “Help”-to coordinate with our support team,
• “Tracks”-leaves a set of tracks on the map showing where we have been, and
• “SOS”-notifies the national rescue center.

The SPOT2 has those functions and the ability to send limited text messages.

Finally, for those of you who cannot get your fill of us, there is a blog of our summer travels which you might be interested in. They will not be updated with out JMT walk until we get back:

• Gary's Summer Trips Blog:  http://gary-summer.blogspot.com/