Helpful App for rock hounding

[miket]

Nov 1, 2018 18:20:02 GMT -5 Peruano said:

I have been known to mark a site with my gps when I see a big rock or one I can't carry on this trip - with the intention of coming back some day. The gadgets are wonderful, but many of my locales are right on the edge of cell phone coverage that I would not want to be without gps capability. I figured you were safe but its nice to remind some folks not to get too modern.

Thanks, but I'm really not that old.
Very early 50's. 
Most days I feel like i'm in me 30's still !

[miket]

Ok, so I did get out and rockhound Saturday. Unfortunately I went out after work and didn't get a chance to download any maps- which would have come in handy...

I'll share an embarrassing story- what the heck.

My son and I went out around 2:30 or so in the afternoon, it was raining and about 40 degrees. We parked on the highway, dressed pretty warmly and hopped the barbwire fence with our backpacks and started looking for Fairburns out on the prairie. After wandering around for miles it got to be about 6 o'clock and we were soaked and getting pretty cold and decided to call it a night.

That's when we found out that we pretty much didn't know which way the vehicle was. Earlier you could hear trains to the west and sparse vehicles on the highway to the east, but we couldn't hear a thing. It was pitch black out (we did have flashlights), we couldn't see the moon or any stars because of the clouds and rain- and there was no cell service.

So we guessed on the direction that we needed to go (correctly) and headed to higher ground to get a better look. Luckily we could see a glow in the distance and decided that it was the town of Ardmore, SD and it must be north. We found our way back to the highway then with freezing hands and a little bit wiser.

The moral of the story?
Next time I'll have maps downloaded.