Technology can be a good thing but it can also lead people astray. Hence, a warning out West regarding using GPS in certain areas:

Travelers in the western U.S. should not rely solely on technology such as GPS for navigation, authorities said, after a Canadian couple were lost in the Nevada wilderness for 48 days.

Albert Chretien, 59, and his wife Rita Chretien, 56, sought a shorter route between Boise, Idaho and Jackpot, Nevada during a road trip from British Columbia to Las Vegas…

Sheriff’s offices in remote, high-elevation parts of Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming report the past two years have brought a rise in the number of GPS-guided travelers driving off marked and paved highways and into trouble.

The spike has prompted Death Valley National Park in California to caution on its web site that “GPS navigation to sites to remote locations like Death Valley are notoriously unreliable.”

When two roads diverge in Western lands, take the one more traveled, authorities said.

Perhaps this could be read as a warning about over-reliance on technology: it is not infallible.You can occasionally find stories of people driving into retention ponds or crashing into things because the GPS told them to turn. At the same time, how bad are these GPS maps that people can get lost so easily? This would seem to be bad news for GPS makers if they don’t cover certain areas very well. Could a GPS maker ever have any liability for any of these unpleasant occurrences? Additionally, I wonder how many GPS owners also carry around a map of some kind in their vehicle or on their person.

More broadly, this is a reminder that one doesn’t have to travel very far to leave the comforts of the modern world and get lost in nature.