It's Thursday and our last voice/text contact with Ward was last Monday. The Spot began broadcasting on Tuesday morning, marking the path we expected along the trail. The broadcasts stopped Tuesday pm at a point near Ward's planned destination. Dead batteries - we assume. I asked Ward to replace the batteries on two previous occasions, but he insisted they were OK (not sure how he would know - they were near the end of their life spans according to my estimates). We also talked about how to conserve power on the spot by shifting from automatic broadcasts to manual. Probably not a big deal for Ward, but it is for us.
We expected him to be near a hostel around I-40 by last night, and assumed he would be able to call us from there, either from his mobile phone or via calling card. That did not happen, perhaps for any number of reasons: 1) his phone battery could be dead, 2) there may not be a cell signal, 3) he may be staying in a shelter instead of a hostel, meaning no land lines, 4) no land line access in the hostel, or 5) no urgency to call. We'll make sure everything is working properly when he reaches Hot Springs.
We knew there would be times like this. I'm sure he's OK, but I still want to hear from him.
He may have pushed past the I40 area yesterday and made more mile towards Max Patch. Lots of elevation change in the I40/Pigeon River area, probably not good phone range. The "spot" battery theory makes sense too, its been getting a workout over the last week or so. I'm sure Ward is camped out somewhere between Max Patch and Hot Springs tonight, and he'll come strolling into town tomorrow, and crawl into the Hot Springs for some relaxation! Thanks for the update.
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