I would like to start a post where we learn from each others mistakes. Recently Backpacker Mag, posted all the writers & staffs closest calls. What I am looking for is similar to that kind of post. I read the UL vs. Safety Margin and there are some ideas there. This isn't about being embarrased, But here is an example.

Last year many of my weekend hikes are for the exercise to get back in shape. After a 10 miler in a local Pennsylvania Park with lots of small PUDS (pointless Ups & DownS) I didn’t get back to the car till after sunset. The car was parked on a paved back road near a back entrance that most of my family didn’t know about. I looked into the locked car and saw the keys had fallen out of my pocket and into the space between the seats. No problem, I called my wife on a cell phone to come bail me out. No answer. So I called my elderly mother in law, who was with my son as they were a couple of miles away. Great, I got thru and even in the poor reception of being in a wooded valley I started to describe where I was to my attention deficit son. I gave him great instructions as my battery died ¾ into the description on how to get here. Yea, I know I could have broken a window; I am looking at the keys…. Nope. After a half hour of waiting and no cars came by, I decided to hike in the wooded darkness to higher ground. Three miles later I managed to squeeze another call out and they were looking for me and …. The phone went dead again. I hiked the final two miles after that to the nearest common known spot a gas station, just as they pulled up. They had gone to the primary park entrance and driven back and forth down the wrong road not knowing the size of the park that they had lived next for years. They had kept turning around and searching the wrong spot for an hour. Had they continued the road would have curved around the park and they eventually come to the car. Please don't die of laughter here...One 70 year old Grandmother driving a 17 year old boy in the dark. That was my search party. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

My solution,
I now carry a spare phone battery because they are light and additional contact numbers. I take the time to put the ranger numbers in and make it a point to stop by and drop of a “Hike Plan” with them and a “Find my car here on a map” with the wife. A full charge is on the phone before hitting the trail. I even sewed in a clip inside the backpack to put the key on. (it’s a chipped one that cannot be copied.) Recently, I even replaced the battery on the car to insure a good start, I now do that every two or three years.