Lend GPS Units to Hikers

* Nearly every day there is a news story about hikers who get lost in one of the national forests and who become the subject of search-and-rescue operations. Why not offer inexpensive, portable Global Positioning System units that could be cheaply rented, or even lent, to forest visitors? Make the GPS units available at ranger stations. Hikers could find their own way out of the forests. The savings in money and manpower expended on forest rescues would quickly pay for the program, and lives would be saved.

MICHAEL B. STONE

Seal Beach