A little tale about a wayward transmitter on a long, humid, sweaty mountain trek.
It all started in early October, during the end of a three-day adventure in the Eastern Sierra with my buddy JD.
It was a simple plan:
• Hike in from Whitney Portal and make base camp at Upper Boy Scout Lake (11,338' / 3,456m)
• Get up early the next day and summit Mount Russell (14,088' / 4,294m)
• Strike base camp, and head home.
This is early October, in the Sierras, practically summertime. And in my opinion, the best time of year to be up here.
The days are warm, and the nights can get a wee chilly.
Not freezing, just a wee chilly.
As summit bids go, you give it your best attempt amidst a variety of unknowns, including unmarked trails and poor satellite reception.
In our case, we simply ran out of time to arrive at the summit, and instead of risking a night-time descent, we decided to bail on this attempt and turn back.
After striking camp, it was time to head back down to the portal, back towards the tree-line and back to warmer temps.
And that's when something strange started...
Suddenly, a weird vibration on my wrist!
And alerts on the phone were going off!
What The ?!?
Yep! I had sweat off my Transmitter!
Next Step, Trail Triage!
A little further down the trail, out of the scree and rubble, I found a large, flat granite surface.
Perfect for a quick transmitter re-application.
An alcohol swab to wipe off all the sweat, dust and whatever else from the sensor area on my arm.
A fresh, new adhesive patch for the transmitter...
And we're. ready for placement
Doesn't take long...
A couple seconds, really.
...An excellent signal!
Press into place and we're stuck!!!
...hopefully for a bit longer this time!
Good to go !!!
One last thing...
I usually carry a collection of small adhesives in a zip-loc bag as part of my trail kit in my pack.
Small remnants of KT tape that I save from other device adhesives, perfect for one extra layer of stickiness.
A couple pieces of KT tape right on the patch edges should hold my transmitter in place for a lot longer now!!!
And that was that.
We finished hiking out, and with no more adhesive issues to report!
