These two landscape gardners went a little too light on their South American hiking trip. Ended up "living off river water, seeds, spiders and the meat of two turtles." Evidently they did not loose any gear, they just did not bring enough in the first place (navigation equipment, signal/illumination, etc). #1 lesson according to them? Take a sat-phone.
In that dense jungle no doubt I would have constanly been lost between GPS hits, but to some extent you have to plan for those difficulties. SUL means SUL for the worst expected conditions, IMO. I would love to see these gentleman's gear list.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070408/ts_afp/franceguianamissing_070408181705
mmm…, spider meat.