HikerAlert.com

Has anyone heard of this site or actually used it?  Seems like a great idea - if you have phone service to check in after your hike.

The premise is, you register your hike/trip with them, and if you don't check in by a predetermined date/time (that you set), they send an alert to someone on your contact list.  Cost is $4.99/year.

http://www.hikeralert.com/

Edit: Found a nice review.

http://www.modernhiker.com/2012/11/30/product-review-hiker-alert/

Jim,

Looks to me like the biggest benefit of the HikerAlert website is the thought you have to put into filling out their registration form. If everyone did that much, there would be far fewer SAR operations.

Yes, they do collect a lot of info, but I guess that's a good  thing.

Exactly, Bill.

If you don't know enough to do this on your own - to leave your route, your destination, and an expected time for return - you probably shouldn't be outside on your own anyway.

But there's a logical fallacy to how the Hiker.Alert website works.

If you don't check in with them on time, they'll contact family or friends for you, who will in turn will decide to request rescue or to wait a while longer.

Realistically, that just adds an extra obstacle between you and the SARs, and it's one you have no control over. Like carrying a SPOT, you have to rely on a third party to relay the call to someone else who might actually take action.

Instead, it would be more efficient to just tell your friends to call for rescue if you don't phone in by a certain time. The only advantage, here, is that the website would have all the information that probably should have been left with a wife or a buddy.

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