Northridge Hiker Would Be Lost Without a Cellular Phone

Before Walter Roden went strolling in Angeles National Forest, he put food and water into a backpack in case he became lost, as outdoorsmen have done for centuries. But as a modern-day hiker, he also stuck in a cellular phone--which was a lot handier when he got lost.

Sheriff’s deputies said the Northridge man could have used a compass or a map, but the phone was useful just the same Monday, although it set in motion an eventually unneeded search for Roden.

“I hike a lot and usually am prepared,” Roden said. “But I never hiked this area before and didn’t have a map. So I brought the phone along in case I went down the wrong trail.

“I did just that. I didn’t know exactly where I was.

“The problem was I was also in a no-service area a lot of the time,” where the phone would not work, he said.

Before dark, Roden, 64, finally got through to his wife, Pat, on the phone and told her that he was not going to make it to the point in Big Tujunga Canyon, north of Sunland, where she was to pick him up, but would try to hike to a road or a U. S. Forest Service station.

Deputy R. A. Ellis said the call, however, inadvertently set the sheriff’s mountain rescue team into motion when Roden’s wife called forest rangers, who in turn called the Sheriff’s Department.

Ellis said deputies tried to call Roden on the cellular phone but couldn’t get through. The rescue team was just leaving the station and a sheriff’s helicopter had begun searching the slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains when Roden called his wife again--this time from the pay phone at a ranger station where he had hitched a ride after making his way out of the forest.

On Tuesday, Roden said he was sore from a planned 12-mile hike that turned out to be more than 20 miles. As for the phone, he was undecided on whether it will become the mainstay of his hiking equipment.

“I don’t think a cellular phone will ever replace a map, but I would recommend it,” he said. “I’m glad I had it with me.”