Ranger Canyon
How do you call for help whilst in the Grand Canyon?
ie when hiking on a trail, down in the Canyon, NOT near rangers stations or anything.
On the main trails (South Kaibab, Bright Angel, North Kaibab and to a lesser degree the upper parts of Hermit and Grandview) there are always a fair number of hikers (especially Bright Angel) and so there will likely be someone else along within 20-30 minutes at the most (maybe an hour or two on those later trails). These trails are pretty heavily patrolled by rangers too and Kaibab and BA both have regular mule trains. They are about as close to a highway as a trail gets.
If you are on some of the more remote trails, help may be much further away and it might be a day or two (or more) before another person comes along.
Contrary to the poster above, while you can usually get some cell phone reception when you are on the rim, there are very few places down in the canyon where you can get a good connection – I have never been able to except when I was very close to the top along the main South Rim trials. You certainly would not be able to get a cell phone connection along most stretches of the backcountry trails where you might most need it.
In many cases where people have been in trouble in the inner canyon, they have often tried to work their way down to the river where rafting trips go by at the rate of several per day for much of the year. Another option would be one of those satellite-based emergency transponder becons that you can buy – but even for those you need to get out into a pretty open area. If you had a signal mirror and knew how to use it, you might be able to signal sightseeing aircraft (but only if you were in an area outside of the no-fly zone over the central park).
If you don’t have an emergency locator becon and you got into serious trouble somewhere in the backcountry and away from the river then the odds are pretty good that you will be featured in the next revision of the popular “Death in the Grand Canyon” book. You wouldn’t be the first.
The best advise is to be prepared and be smart and avoid being in an emergency situation in the first place. Most emergencies in the canyon (and deaths) were due to bad planning, poor preparation, under-estimating the environment and/or over-estimating themselves.
206 Jet Ranger Helicopter flying fast and nap through canyon
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UNIVERSAL BIKE CARRIER RACK RIDGELINE RANGER CANYON $39.99 |