I think the big takeaway here is to know how to use your GPS.
Nope. The key is to pay attention to your surroundings and learn basic navigation skills. You should always know what direction the summit is, what direction your camp is, and what direction your car is. If you simply head in the general direction of down, will you end up near your camp, your car, or both? Or will you end up in Fresno? 99% of the time, you don’t even need a map and compass, let alone a GPS, to know this.
Pay attention! Identify landmarks you can recognize on the way back. Don’t rely on your partners or a battery-dependent electronic gizmo to save your butt.
Here is an extreme example: 21 years ago, my partner and I reached the summit of Mt. Williamson (14,370+) at 4:30 in the afternoon. It was February, it would be dark in half an hour, there was no moon, and it was starting to snow. And we had to descend some third class rock that now had snow on it without a rope. Four hours later, we were walking in 6” of fresh snow, and our old pre-LED headlamps had been off for 15-20 minutes to save batteries. We hadn’t looked at the map in a long time, if at all. We decided that we must be near camp. We turned on our headlamps and camp was thirty feet away.
There is a lot more to navigation than knowing how to use your GPS.
