In my first years of solo trips I did not carry a rescue beacon. This was dumb and irresponsible. There are two key reasons why you should get an InReach: - Search and rescue (SAR) teams regularly spend days or weeks searching for lost persons. It is extremely hard to find people when they are not literally on the trail. Even just 20 meters from the trail, SAR might not see a person. Some lost persons have never been found. With an InReach, this problem entirely goes away. - If something happens and the owner is incapacitated, then he may not be able to operate the devide to call for help. The InReach leaves a trail of breadcrumbs that will give a rescue team the ability to find you, even if you did not activate an SOS (this is an argument for an InReach over a PLB) Make sure to keep the InReach on your body, particularly when you put your backpack down. At Mount St. Helens a person recently died after falling through a cornice at the crater. He was still alive after his fall, but his InReach was in his backpack and he was not able to call for help.