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Since the first time I read this, I've wondered what they could have done to survive once the car got stuck. The only thing I came up with is to set fire to the

• metacritic12 4y ago
  I remember they found the car first. Would staying by the car not have bought them enough time? I don't know if the advantage was enough, but basically the conclusion was that they found the car first. And this type of story keeps on happening (like the car in Washington state a few years ago where the only person who died wandered away from their car), to the extent there's a real lesson to stay still.
  • evan_ 4y ago
    The car wasn't found for three months, so probably not.
  • ipsi 4y ago
    > I remember they found the car first. Would staying by the car not have bought them enough time? Considering they went missing in June/July, and the car wasn't found until October, I think that's unlikely. As a general rule, absolutely, but in this case it wouldn't have been enough on its own.
• linksnapzz 4y ago
  I think that's actually the recommended course of action, if you're stuck somewhere remote, especially in the snow. Light the spare tire on fire-tire smoke is very dark & thick, and can been seen for miles in the daytime.
  • tstrimple 4y ago
    Yes. Use the spare tire, not the car. The car may be your only source of shade or shelter overnight.
    • prawn 4y ago
      Yeah, I think advice is typically stay with your car, though probably relies on people knowing you're missing (easier to search roads than everywhere) or there being at least occasional traffic on that route.
  • whartung 4y ago
    I guess I need to search the YouTubes for "Survival techniques to light your car tire on fire." I honestly don't think I have anything in my car, this second, that could do that. How much heat does a tire need to light up? Is one of those mini-spares enough tire to make a good signal? Its easy (well easier) with motorcycles, as you can readily get fuel out of the tank, assuming you have some fire source. But for a car? Not sure. Mind, for this specific case, you have to appreciate that these folks were rather far from the beaten path. They were certainly far away from the local ranger stations and what not. Ideally someone may have seen it and reported it, but I wouldn't necessarily guarantee it. They were in a pretty large valley where this happened. And, as an anecdote, my friends and I were stuck near there for 3 days one year. But it was in the mud, in the nearby dry ("dry") lake, and we were near a road. Never in any danger. But it was a fun extraction.
    • sonofhans 4y ago
      I bet a road flare would do it. It's always useful to carry a pack of those.
      • evan_ 4y ago
        Good thought but a rental car would definitely not have road flares.
        • ghaff 4y ago
          The general problem is that even if you're a well-prepared person in general when driving to remote locations--you're probably not (and can't easily be) well-prepared when flying to a foreign country and renting a car. Heck, forget the foreign country part. I'd be a lot more prepared for somewhere like Death Valley if I drove there from the East than if I flew there and rented a car.
        • astrange 4y ago
          I think some countries require you to keep one in your car.
    • 4y ago
• dddddaviddddd 4y ago
  In 1996, I'm not sure what their options would have been, but today a Personal Locator Beacon or some other satellite communication system is good to have if you're in a remote place with no cell reception.
  • LorenPechtel 4y ago
    Yup--I was out in Death Valley last week. There's no way I'm heading off into nowhere without at a minimum a PLB in my pack.
• WalterBright 4y ago
  The other thing to do is form SOS with rocks or stamp it in the snow or whatever, so people can see it from the air.
  • LorenPechtel 4y ago
    That's less visible than the car itself--and it took 3 months to find the car. I would think even smoke would be unlikely to be seen.
    • WalterBright 4y ago
      A car is just a car. A car with SOS next to it is someone that needs help.
      • pantalaimon 4y ago
        A car in a remote dry riverbed is still very unusual on its own
        • WalterBright 4y ago
          You can do as you like. Me, I'm going to tramp out the international distress signal in letters big enough to see at 10,000 feet. "Hey, there's an SOS! Let's check it out!" And I'll be back at the ranger station thanking them for saving my behind. You, you might get lucky when the ranger says "hey, wasn't that same car there 3 months ago? Let's check it out!" and recovers your desiccated body.
          • LorenPechtel 4y ago
            Tramp out how? You'll find little terrain that you can alter. Many trails are faint (as in a novice will likely not see them when they're right there) despite nothing erasing them for ages. There's minimal vegetation already, nothing that will show to a passing plane. I would consider a signal mirror a last resort as using one means you can't take shelter and will cook all the much faster. Smoke is more of an option but I would much prefer to save my gasoline for running the AC than for burning a tire. If I had some other fuel source fine, but it's such a low probability scenario it's not something I'm going to prepare for. My safety standards out there is never to be farther from asphalt than I can hoof it back if need be.
• _vbnz 4y ago
  The cabin they passed on the way there wasn't that far compared to how far they got in the end, the best option would likely have been to take what they had from the car and stay there. And try to set a tyre alight as a signal for help. That said, since it seems there wasn't much investigation until the car sighting in October, it's unlikely even that would have been enough.
• pengaru 4y ago
  Been awhile since I read the story, but for starters you don't drive your rental minivan into the unpaved desert wilderness, which IIRC is what they did. If you're simply stuck in an otherwise functioning vehicle, in something easily digged like sand... just get unstuck and go back from where you came. You can use the carpets/floor mats from within the vehicle if needed to get yourself out of sand in a pinch. It's just a matter of getting dirty and manual labor. I get stuck in desert sand pretty regularly, and only abandon the vehicle that got me into the isolated mess as a last resort, i.e. if it's irreparably broken or totally out of fuel. An automobile can very easily deliver its occupants to fatal-as-pedestrian situations. As a former mechanic and gearhead, I'd strongly recommend becoming mechanically inclined and able to improvise repairs on your vehicle if you intend to do such things. And select the vehicle such as to maximize success on that front.
  • timerol 4y ago
    Note that both of their rear tires were flat, which complicates things
    • pengaru 4y ago
      Flat tires are kind of not a big deal in sand, and actually do a better job of finding some grip in the loose stuff. Standard operating procedure is to intentionally deflate tires for sandy terrain... fully inflated all-seasons tend to just spin. I own a desert cabin on an unpaved road, and once drove the ~12 miles from town with a flat by deliberately keeping the flat side in the soft sandy shoulder for the entire pavement portion (~11 miles) of the trip. There was very little drama, and the wheel with the flat only got its paint scuffed up by the sand. Of course I drove slow to not beat up the bodywork with tire carcass, but it was perfectly mobile despite being a drive wheel on an open diff. But WRT to ze Germans, they presumably got flats after making the idiotic choice to drive off-road in a rugged desert terrain in an unprepared minivan. Don't do that.
  • cameldrv 4y ago
    Supposedly the van had 3 flat tires. That said, it also had an unused spare tire. It certainly would have been worth trying to get two good tires on the front and try to keep moving. The more fundamental problem I suspect is that they may not have been thinking clearly given all of the empty alcohol bottles that were found. In the van, there was an empty bottle of beer and an an empty bottle of Bourbon. There was another beer bottle 2 miles from the car. Near their remains were found, there was an empty 2 liter bottle of wine and another empty bottle of beer.
• cameldrv 4y ago
  In hindsight, their best bet might have been to walk back to the Geologist's Cabin and wait for someone to come along. Supposedly it's usually stocked with some food and water, and there's a spring right next to it. It would have been about a 4 mile walk with an elevation gain of about 1000 feet. Admittedly not easy with little kids, but they ultimately did make it 8 miles in the other direction.
  • rex_gallorum2 4y ago
    I read this story and mapped it out a few years ago, and they could (probably) have walked out the way they came. They passed a low scrubby area with a spring on the way in. I imagine most people would have simply backtracked on foot and (probably) survived. I can only guess they had absolutely no idea where they actually were - but perhaps thought they knew where they were. That is the only explanation for continuing forwards on foot rather than turning back. If you're looking at the wrong place on a map, especially an inadequate map, it's easy to think you're going the right way when they are 'dead' wrong.
    • ghaff 4y ago
      Well, the supposition in the story was that they assumed a military base would have big nasty fences patrolled by guards--as opposed to being a large patch of desert that the military blew stuff up in. Though they were in a bad situation in any case, with hindsight, they should have headed back down to West Side Road--not that there would be much traffic at that time of year. And even tried to cross the basin to Badwater if possible.
      • cameldrv 4y ago
        I don't think that would have been survivable. It's about a 20 mile hike down to the valley, and that day they had a high temp of 124 degrees F in the valley. Walking 20 miles at 124 degrees with no shade with a four year old and an eleven year old does not seem survivable to me. They don't call it Death Valley for nothing. The Geologist's cabin is about 4500 feet higher than the valley, so you'd expect the high temp to be about 100, but in the shade with adequate water (which there is at the Geologist's cabin), it's probably not life threatening.
• bombcar 4y ago
  Once the car got stuck they were in a bad spot - nobody knew they were out there so nobody was looking for them. It's remotely possible that hiking back out the way they came in would have done something, but the most likely thing would have been to start as dirty a smoke fire as they could during the day - and hope that a passing plane reported it.
  • rcurry 4y ago
    I’d have to agree here - with no comms and no water their best bet would have been to torch the van and hope someone sees the smoke.
    • prawn 4y ago
      Burn parts of the car first - rear seats or damaged tyre or something. A vehicle is still useful for shade/shelter.
  • thaumaturgy 4y ago
    Yeah, this is the correct answer. They simply didn't have the skills, ability, resources, or technology to survive in those circumstances once the car was crippled. They needed a big dose of good luck, and none came. I think when people ask this question, what they actually mean is, "what would be a smart thing to do if I were in this situation?" In the interests of answering that question with the best advice currently available: - Tell someone where you're going, how you're planning to get there, and when you should be back. It should be someone whose judgement you trust. I know, this is a chore, it's more fun to just take off on a whim for a weekend. But really, this is the number one thing that can get you found. - Today we have really cool Garmin InReach devices that work (nearly) everywhere in (nearly) all conditions. They aren't terribly expensive. You can push a button for an SOS and a nearby agency may receive your coordinates. I'm using some qualifiers here because heavy cloud cover or snow can interfere with the devices, they can run out of battery, there can be miscommunications for your coordinates (I've personally seen this happen), and the team dispatched to your location may not be terribly motivated for any number of reasons. InReach devices are not well-loved by SAR teams because of their tendency to get activated accidentally or because a hiker "got too tired to keep going" (neither of which is a good enough reason not to respond to any new InReach alert as a potentially life-threatening emergency). - Learn you some wilderness first aid if you can, it's probably the single best tool in your box for getting you out of bad situations. You'll get better at recognizing some common ailments and potentials for injury and you'll have a better sense of what to carry. I did not like the REI/NOLS WFA class, but it's better than nothing and is available in many popular outdoor areas. - Recognize when you're in the shit, stop, and reassess as calmly as possible. This has got to be the most frequently recurring pattern I see in accident reports and debriefings. So many people, even ones that should know better (maybe especially ones that should know better) get tunnel vision as things start to get progressively worse. Different sports have different phrases for it, in mountaineering it's called summit fever. The road is muddy, the sky is gray, and your car is starting to bog down? STOP. Take a few beats. Eat a candy bar. Get out, stretch your legs if appropriate. Whatever, the point is to do something different for a minute so you have time to reflect on your situation. Reassess: have things been getting worse for the last few minutes? What happens if they continue to worsen? Why do you think they'll get better if you keep going forward? Then, make a decision. - When lost, the current advice from NASAR and most organizations is to stop moving and stay put, but this can be really situational. Some situations may call for continuing to move towards something that looks like civilization, but there are also lots of areas where trying to do this ends up getting you into serious trouble. Once you deviate very far from your intended plan, the chances of finding you fall off a cliff (heh... little black humor there). Generally, your best chances of being found are on a trail, in a clearing.