Another GPS horror story (it turns out OK in the end)
Long story short: be skeptical of your GPS unit.
Long story long: One dark night a few weeks ago, we towed our trailer out of Bishop, Calif., on Highway 168 toward Big Trees Campground. We’d been there before but had never made the drive at night. It was so dark that we could not see any of the campground signs, but no problem. The iHikeGPS app on DW’s iPhone would let us know when to turn off.
Sure enough, the GPS told us when we had gotten to the turnoff. There was a yellow highway sign showing the “T” intersection for the roadway. We turned, knowing from past experience that the road down into the campground was long and bumpy. And yes, the GPS app showed that we were on exactly the right road. No problem.
We were a little surprised when we soon came to a deep sandy patch in the road, but we instantly had it all figured out – the sand must have washed down during a recent thunderstorm, and the forest service had not had time to clear it off. No problem. I shifted into “4WD low” and we powered through the sand and back onto clear pavement, still heading down.
We kept going. The bushes did not look well-maintained. OK – so the forest service is understaffed. No problem. We kept going down. The pavement came to another sandy patch. Wait -- this did not look right – it looked like the road was going to go off a CLIFF?! DW got out and walked ahead. Yep. A small cliff, but a cliff.
Problem.
I got out and surveyed the situation. The pavement had been washed out by a flood and had dead-ended into a tiny small sandy cul-de-sac. There was no feasible way to back the trailer up, all the way up a steep and long and narrow and sandy road. We had to turn the whole rig completely around in a space roughly as long as the truck and the trailer combined, in the pitch dark.
Problem.
DW strapped on her headlamp, and we fired up the walkie-talkies. (Remember that it was completely black – our usual hand-signals were useless.) Very slowly, very carefully, never going over the cliff, we “backed and forthed” for at least a half hour (45 minutes?) in the pitch dark, gaining a few degrees of rotation each time. It was the RV equivalent of two people exchanging clothes in a phone booth (remember phone booths?), with one hand tied behind our backs and all four sets of shoelaces tied together. Not impossible, but not easy or quick.
At this point, I am forced to admit that it was kind of fun, even though we were trapped in a dead end at night. We worked as a team. DW talked me through each maneuver – “Three feet, two feet, one foot, stop. Now forward, wheels to the right . . . .” No problem.
What a relief to finally get pointed in the right direction! We rolled slowly back to the highway, up the big hill, through the deep sand, and found the entrance to Big Trees Campground, fifty yards up the highway.
We later determined that the phony road was indeed the former entrance to the campground but had washed out several years ago. The forest service (or Inyo County? or CalTrans?) had neglected to put a “Dead End” sign on this now-useless stub of a road. And the GPS app had not been updated to show the new access road.
Getting a site at the campground was anticlimactic – there were plenty of vacancies, and it took us very little time to set up the trailer, headlamps and all.
We went back the next day (without the trailer, of course) to take photos of the dead end – this shot is a little out of focus, but DW (blue shirt) is standing on a boulder mid-way down the little cliff on the right side – note the tiny pad of dirt that we had to use for maneuvering. For scale, the pavement is about ten feet wide. The truck and trailer combined are about 35 feet long:
In this shot, I am standing right on the edge of that little pad:
In retrospect, our antenna should have gone up when we came to the deep sandy patch; but by that time we were already committed and could not have turned around anyway. I’m not sure how we could have completely prevented this situation. But you can bet that next time the GPS tells us “turn here” and there is no other external confirmation of the accuracy of the GPS, we will hesitate a while, before taking that turn.
Long story long: One dark night a few weeks ago, we towed our trailer out of Bishop, Calif., on Highway 168 toward Big Trees Campground. We’d been there before but had never made the drive at night. It was so dark that we could not see any of the campground signs, but no problem. The iHikeGPS app on DW’s iPhone would let us know when to turn off.
Sure enough, the GPS told us when we had gotten to the turnoff. There was a yellow highway sign showing the “T” intersection for the roadway. We turned, knowing from past experience that the road down into the campground was long and bumpy. And yes, the GPS app showed that we were on exactly the right road. No problem.
We were a little surprised when we soon came to a deep sandy patch in the road, but we instantly had it all figured out – the sand must have washed down during a recent thunderstorm, and the forest service had not had time to clear it off. No problem. I shifted into “4WD low” and we powered through the sand and back onto clear pavement, still heading down.
We kept going. The bushes did not look well-maintained. OK – so the forest service is understaffed. No problem. We kept going down. The pavement came to another sandy patch. Wait -- this did not look right – it looked like the road was going to go off a CLIFF?! DW got out and walked ahead. Yep. A small cliff, but a cliff.
Problem.
I got out and surveyed the situation. The pavement had been washed out by a flood and had dead-ended into a tiny small sandy cul-de-sac. There was no feasible way to back the trailer up, all the way up a steep and long and narrow and sandy road. We had to turn the whole rig completely around in a space roughly as long as the truck and the trailer combined, in the pitch dark.
Problem.
DW strapped on her headlamp, and we fired up the walkie-talkies. (Remember that it was completely black – our usual hand-signals were useless.) Very slowly, very carefully, never going over the cliff, we “backed and forthed” for at least a half hour (45 minutes?) in the pitch dark, gaining a few degrees of rotation each time. It was the RV equivalent of two people exchanging clothes in a phone booth (remember phone booths?), with one hand tied behind our backs and all four sets of shoelaces tied together. Not impossible, but not easy or quick.
At this point, I am forced to admit that it was kind of fun, even though we were trapped in a dead end at night. We worked as a team. DW talked me through each maneuver – “Three feet, two feet, one foot, stop. Now forward, wheels to the right . . . .” No problem.
What a relief to finally get pointed in the right direction! We rolled slowly back to the highway, up the big hill, through the deep sand, and found the entrance to Big Trees Campground, fifty yards up the highway.
We later determined that the phony road was indeed the former entrance to the campground but had washed out several years ago. The forest service (or Inyo County? or CalTrans?) had neglected to put a “Dead End” sign on this now-useless stub of a road. And the GPS app had not been updated to show the new access road.
Getting a site at the campground was anticlimactic – there were plenty of vacancies, and it took us very little time to set up the trailer, headlamps and all.
We went back the next day (without the trailer, of course) to take photos of the dead end – this shot is a little out of focus, but DW (blue shirt) is standing on a boulder mid-way down the little cliff on the right side – note the tiny pad of dirt that we had to use for maneuvering. For scale, the pavement is about ten feet wide. The truck and trailer combined are about 35 feet long:
In this shot, I am standing right on the edge of that little pad:
In retrospect, our antenna should have gone up when we came to the deep sandy patch; but by that time we were already committed and could not have turned around anyway. I’m not sure how we could have completely prevented this situation. But you can bet that next time the GPS tells us “turn here” and there is no other external confirmation of the accuracy of the GPS, we will hesitate a while, before taking that turn.
