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Leave a Trip Plan: The Ten Minutes That Get You Found
If nobody knows where you went or when you are due back, nobody is coming. A trip plan plus one person who has agreed to act on silence is the cheapest safety system there is.
In short
Before you leave, send one reliable person a trip plan: who is going, the route and entry and exit points, your start time, your expected return, and an agreed check-in deadline. That person must explicitly agree to raise the alarm if you miss it. Also record your car, your emergency contacts and the local rescue number, and tell them exactly what to do when the deadline passes.
Search and rescue does not begin with a helicopter. It begins with someone noticing you are late and knowing who to call. Everything before that is preparation you can do in ten minutes.
What the plan has to contain
- Who: names, group size, a leader or contact number.
- Where: destination, route, entry and exit trailheads, and the alternative route if the main one fails.
- When: departure time, expected return, and — the part people forget — a hard check-in deadline.
- What you carry: tent, sleeping bag, stove, satellite communicator, medications. What you have on you decides how long you can wait for help.
- The vehicle: where it is parked, the plate number, a driver's phone.
- Contacts: the person at home, plus local rescue and police numbers.
How to hand it over
- Send it to a person, not to a group chat. Someone has to own it.
- Get an explicit yes: they must agree to call for help when the deadline passes.
- Use a template such as AdventureSmart's Trip Plan, or write it twice — a phone note and a paper copy.
- Message before you start and after you finish. If you get signal mid-route, update the plan rather than staying silent.
- Fix the rule in advance, in plain words: "If you have not heard from me by 8 p.m. on Saturday, call X, then call mountain rescue."
Communications
- No signal in the mountains is normal, not a failure. Phone plus offline map plus power bank is the floor.
- On long or remote routes, carry a satellite communicator or PLB, and learn to send the preset messages before you need them.
- Cold kills batteries. Keep the phone against your body.
- Store rescue, insurance-assistance and next-of-kin numbers offline — screenshot or note, not a browser bookmark.
The pre-departure check
- Weather window: not just rain, but wind, temperature drop, thunderstorms and visibility.
- Permits, closures, fire bans, protected-area rules: use the local official notice, and keep a screenshot.
- Transport: last bus, last cable car, shuttle times. Missing one turns a day hike into a night walk.
- Insurance: does it actually cover hiking, mountaineering and helicopter rescue? Read the exclusions.
- Plan B: where you go if the weather fails, where you retreat if someone cannot continue, and who makes that call.
Common mistakes
- "I told a friend" — but the friend has no route and no return time.
- Posting on social media and calling it a plan.
- An approximate return time with no alarm rule attached.
- Discovering at the trailhead that the area is closed or requires a permit.