Originally Posted By TomD

btw, if you are soloing and are nervous about it, why are you doing it? If you aren't confident enough to be out alone, get some more experience before you wind up making a bad judgment call and needing a beacon.

A PLB or SPOT is not a substitute for experience or skills. Anyone who thinks so is an idiot.


I have the skills and experience the problem is that I know that in the course of a second your world can become very very bad.

Real life experience, I was backpacking and was going down a steep hill. I stepped and my knee went the wrong way. I later found out that my knee was badly hyper extended. There was no way that I was going to walk another mile. Thankfully I was with a group and about 20' from the road. What would have happened if I was alone and had been 11 miles in (which is where I started that morning)?

So just because you are knowledgeable and experienced, S*** still happens, its that knowledge and experience that helps to minimize the effects.