[ghaff]

I don't have one personally but if I did more solo hiking in more remote areas, especially in the Western US I'd probably break down and get one. Cell service isn't dependable and I'd likely convince myself that it was cheap insurance in the grand scheme of things.

Of course, people managed for a very long time without having the ability to call for help or check in and they generally were OK with that. (And calling for help doesn't mean that Superman is going to swoop in and pick you up anyway.) But they're probably a reasonable safety aid if you're somewhere that doesn't have reliable cell service.

[ashtonkem]

People also died in the back woods a lot more than they do now. There are tons of injuries that go from minor to fatal if you don’t have timely rescue. A rescue beacon or call doesn’t guarantee a good outcome, but it drastically changes the odds.

[ghaff]

>People also died in the back woods a lot more than they do now.

That certainly could be true although I suspect a lot of people are also less prepared/careful today because they assume they can just call for help. And then they end up with a dead battery, no cell reception, or conditions are just such that rescue is delayed.

That said, a cell phone probably should be on your "10 things to carry" list these days. And I could certainly be convinced that an inReach-like things should be too if you're regularly off by yourself in areas without a lot of people.

[ashtonkem]

Also, more people are in the back woods these days for recreational purposes rather than pure necessity, which also confounds the numbers. The relationship between safety gear and risk taking attitudes seems to be relatively complicated, and none of the sources I’ve read have managed to pin down whether or not safety equipment reliably produced more risk taking behavior.

Still, if I was in the habit of going further afield than your typical day hiker, or lived in a remote area, I think a rescue beacon would be a minimum requirement. An inReach gives you rescue functionality and GPS, so it’s kind of a win win.

The rumors of a satellite enabled iPhone might change this calculus again. Time will tell on that one.

[int_19h]

Even for a typical day hikers these things can save lives. It's surprisingly common for people to get lost a couple hundred yards off the trail, and even remain close to the trail even as they wander around all lost. This can easily happen on a day hike.

[emodendroket]

Compared to when? It's not like hiking is some new fad.

[ashtonkem]

Certain recreational activities are in fact new as hobbies, at least at scale. Skiing, mountaineering, and camping were once things you did out of necessity, not for funsies.

For example, our records for recreational skiing stretch back basically 300 years. Mountaineering has been done practically forever, but as a mass hobby it’s also basically 250 or so years old. The idea that you’d do it for fun rather than as a spiritual quest or to catch a lost sheep is a fairly new idea.

Hiking is a bit more debatable. Humans have walked on local trails for practical and recreational purposes forever. Some European trails are clearly very old, so that’s hardly new. But I think the idea of backpacking deep into the woods for fun has exploded in popularity over the past century, and certainly got a huge kick in the pants with the creation of the national park system.

[emodendroket]

Well, whether we mean the past century or the basically the entire existence of the United States, it's certainly much older than the GPS devices we're talking about, which was the sort of timeframe I had in mind when I said it is not a "fad." If we mean a couple hundred years then we could also call driving a car newfangled and faddish.

[thaumasiotes]

> But I think the idea of backpacking deep into the woods for fun has exploded in popularity over the past century

Have you heard about Robin Hood? ;D

[ghaff]

Pre-COVID many outdoor recreational activities as measured by stats like national park visits were up. (Some others like skiing I believe were down.) But without digging up a lot numbers, the parent's basic point squares with my understanding.