Dear Editor:
Re: Faulty App Sends Hiker into Mountain Danger, Oct. 10 news story.
I would like to suggest a more probable reason for hikers’ general demise. The accuracy of GPS mapping software is dependent upon the number of satellites the device is able to communicate.
Sitting on top of a mountain is a good spot to start since the horizon is wide open. Clambering up a valley or cliff face is not such a great place to ask the question: “Where am I?”
I don’t know if manufacturers suggest optimal ways to use and abuse their device for GPS location purposes.
I was on Keats Island two weeks ago, walking my dog, and a couple of visitors asked me where they were in relation to my home on a paper map provided by a local Sunshine Coast Realtor, which was also wrong. Their smartphone device told us that we were standing outside my home. Both map and phone thought we were on Gordon Road, which was over half a mile away.
There have been tragic deaths on winter drives over mountainous goat tracks when occupants are stranded. Some were reported internationally.
A decent compass would help, perhaps, unless the local mountain has iron-bearing rock formations (which may cause magnetic interference). There must be a moral in these stories.
Paul W. Lancaster
Squamish
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