InReach

If you are interested in learning what emergency satellite communication devices exist, see the page Emergency beacons.

The VOC owns 2 InReach Satellite GPS messengers.

All VOC InReaches devices can be mapped (tracked/followed) here: (to be set up)

Two of these devices themselves were donated by the family of Jared Stanley. Although not a member of the VOC, Jared was a member of the UBC Avalanche Research Group in the Atmospheric Science program, and likely would have joined the club had he been at UBC longer. Jared passed away in January 2005 while backcountry skiing at Mount Seymour, and the VOC holds an annual safety lecture in his memory.

How to rent

See also: Gear rental

• Any VOC member may borrow one of the InReaches for free, after putting down a fully-refundable deposit in a similar fashion to other equipment - however club trips get priority.
• If borrowing an InReach for an "official club trip" there is no deposit.
• If borrowing for a personal trip the VOC the deposit is $100.

Rental rules

When you borrow a device with the capability to launch Search and Rescue at the push of a button, you take on some responsibilities.

1. READ THE MANUAL seriously, read it. That way you know how it works. A PDF version is available here.
2. UPDATE THE MESSAGES so that you know what the messages you are sending actually are.
3. UPDATE THE MESSAGE RECIPIENTS so that if you push the buttons the messages go where you want them.
4. UPDATE THE CONTACT INFORMATION so that SAR knows who they are looking for.
5. CHECK THAT EVERYTHING WORKS by sending an OK message. (The Hotmail servers and even some phones are known to put your messages right in the spam folder.)
6. After the trip RETURN THE CONTACT INFORMATION TO THE DEFAULT PROFILE because who knows what sketchy VOCer is going to borrow it next weekend, and send SAR to come rescue you.
7. Careful: It's easy to miss the "Social Media Linking" part in the settings. The best thing is to leave it alone and not have your messages sent to Facebook or Twitter, but if you do change those, make **extra sure** to change them back after the trip, as they don't get changed with the rest of the message profile!

Failure to do these tasks will result in you not being able to borrow the InReaches in the future!

How to log in, change messages, etc.

• Go to the InReach login page.
• The username and password are written on the device.
• Go to the My SPOT devices tab.
• Select the device you have.
• Under "Contact Details"->"Profile in Use" use the "view/edit" link
• If it's your first time you should create a new profile, and you can reuse it later if you like.

Where does the tracking appear?

All devices map to here: (insert new link)

You can share this link with your emergency contact or family. All Ok messages will appear here.

Suggested Messages

The most important thing is that your messages are going to somebody who will actually get them and act responsibly and predictably. Messages mean nothing if there's no one to do something about it. Emergency contacts should know that they are your emergency contacts and what they should do when they receive your messages.

Suggested operations:

• Update the message recipients
• Emergency contacts are set to the VOC email lists by default.
• messages: OK Button is used as a checkpoint marker so people will know that I made it to the destination I planned to originally.
• Please leave the sound on maximum. This helps make sure you know when you received a message or if you initiated a rescue.
• The emergency rescue button. To activate, open the SOS cover, and hold down the rescue button. View this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8XtPH5OMwc) to see what happens when you press this button. If you accidentally pressed SOS, you can undo this by following .... procedure.