Cell phone

From Trail-Finder -- Dedicated to getting you outside

The last thing you should ever do in backcountry is break out a cell phone and call up your friends. So why carry one? Two good reasons to carry a cell phone, ideally turned off until you need it:

• When you get to the end of the trail, call for pickup.
• If you have an emergency.

There's a couple other possible reasons, as well.

• Your phone has a built-in GPS. This would be a great reason to carry a phone, except most cell-phone based GPS's just aren't that good yet.
• There's a critical situation going on and, without a phone, you can't get outside at all.