I just wanted to chime in here. I happen to be the person who had this experience and wrote this story. First of all, thanks for reading and giving your feedback. If I might respond. For those of you who might question my military training, yes, I was in the Army for 8 years. I served 2 combat tours, overseas, in both desert and mountain environments. I have been in and traversed terrain worse than this, in conditions that were as hot, if not hotter. It has been asked, "then why didn't you know better? Why weren't you better prepared? Where was your common sense?" Well, I'm not one for making excuses, so I have to admit that I made poor decisions that ran counter to common sense. But, this is not just a military training thing, because I will tell you, there were many times when we were ill prepared for some of the missions that we ran. We were under-equipped, under-manned, and only as prepared as the situation would allow. Some of the time we had to attempt a mission to find out if it was possible. This was the case, not only with the Army units I worked with, but also with the marine units. Sometimes you just have to adapt and overcome. There came a time, during this situation, where I needed to make a decision and I needed to stick to it. There is no room for second guessing yourself constantly. There are times when you need to decide on a course of action and then execute. In this situation, I surveyed my surrounding and decided that I WOULD make it to our destination. That turning around was failure, and that failure was not an option. I trusted my driving skills and I had faith that the road would take us to our destination, by hook or by crook. Clearly my decision was wrong and we paid dearly for it. I was underprepared, and though I had a compass, I did not have a map of the area. That was an oversight as well. Anyway, I don't think that there is any question regarding the mistakes that I made that led to us getting stuck.
I will say this to the people that talked about recognizing heat stroke: The initial warning signs of heat stroke often times look very similar to heat exhaustion. At the time when Betsy started displaying signs, I monitored them. She displayed fatigue, flushed skin, stomach cramps, and an absence of sweating. We plied her with water and gatorade, applied a damp towel to her face, and monitored her symptoms. They did not get worse, so it was not necessary to take her to the hospital. There was a moment where I was concerned that we would have needed to go, but it didn't end up that way. This was not due to carelessness. It was due to me being educated enough to recognize the difference between exhaustion and stroke. You don't always have to escalate to the highest levels. Sometimes you can just be prudent.
Also, to Camelracer, who hopes that "Betsy dumped the idiot," I am sorry to inform you that she did not decide on that course of action. She remains blissfully in love with "the idiot." To your point, though, I gave the same amount of research to the landmarks you mentioned as I did to the Death Valley one. THAT was my problem. My research for the Racetrack Playa needed to be more in depth, including having a route already marked out. It was because I merely glanced at a map of the area, then blindly followed my GPS that this situation happened, so your assertion that all it would have taken to avoid this debacle would have been to look at a map, well, it's noted, but it's a little less simplistic than just that.
I made my mistakes and I take my licks for all that. I updated the last part of the story to make that more clear, so check it out if you want, but there are certain things that aren't valid to say... Anyway, that's just my bit.
