Avalanch rescue beacon signal?

My wife was on a hiking trip in Georgia at Mt Kazbeg. (5050m, 16500ft). She weared a Fenix 6x Pro and she had my gpsmap 86i, (the devices wasn't paired).

Close to the peak there was an avalanch. In a few minutes later she has an avalanch alert on the watch with a question to need assistant. (I think above 5000m there isn't any mobile service, so it can't came accross phone.)

The question is, how is it working? I didn't find any manual about this feature.Is there a beacon signal from any satelite rescue device? Or is it came accross the inreach device? Is it a "public" beacon, so everybody can call for rescue in the range?

Thanks for the answers.

0 twolpert over 2 years ago

Pretty sure it must have been via cell phone, assuming the watch is paired with her phone and the phone was on. The watch and 86i aren't going to talk to one another unless paired.

In any case, there is no service which transmits alerts like that to iR devices. Garmin deliberately prohibits unsolicited messages to iR devices. This is a spam prevention tactic since you pay for every message to device. An unintended side effect is to prevent alerts like this, which would be really, really useful to iR subscribers.

0 Norbonca over 2 years ago in reply to twolpert

I`m almost sure that there is no cell phone service on 5000 meter and especially no internet and roaming, but if this rescue beacon service isn`t exist at all, I don`t have any other idea.