Before They Go

The single highest-leverage thing you can do as an emergency contact is have a real conversation with your adventurer before the trip. Not a forwarded itinerary email, not a text with a Google Maps pin, an actual conversation. Twenty minutes is usually enough. The conversation does two things at once: it gets you the information you'll need if something goes wrong, and it builds shared understanding about what counts as "wrong" in the first place. Almost every problem that shows up in this role can be traced back to that conversation either not happening or happening too vaguely. This article covers what to ask, what to write down, and what you don't need to know.

If you've already read Being an Emergency Contact, you have the mental model. This article is the practical follow-up — what the conversation actually looks like.

What You Actually Need to Know

The information below is what makes the difference between a calm response and a confused one when something does go wrong. If your adventurer is sending you a trip plan email or a shared link, check that these pieces are there. If they're not, ask for them.

The trip basics

Six pieces of trip-level information, none of them deep. Get these and you have most of what you'll ever need to give a dispatcher:

• Where they're going — general area is fine ("the Wind River Range in Wyoming" or "Mount Adams via the South Spur" is plenty; you don't need a detailed map).
• When the trip starts and when they expect to be back.
• What time zone they're operating in, if different from yours.
• Whether they're solo or with a group, and if it's a group, who.
• The starting trailhead, and the ending trailhead if different.

The communication plan

When you should expect to hear from them, and through what channel. Cell phone? Satellite messenger (Garmin inReach, SPOT, ZOLEO)? A shared tracking dashboard? Some combination? Knowing the channel matters because if their cell phone goes silent but they have a satellite device, the satellite device is what would actually fail in a serious scenario. If they're using more than one channel, ask which one is the primary.

Ask specifically when check-ins are expected and what kind. "Daily at the end of each hiking day" is different from "when I have signal" is different from "only at the trailhead at the end." There's no right answer, but you need to know what to expect so you can recognize when an expectation has been missed.

The overdue definition

This is the question that gets skipped most often, and it's the most important one. At what point does your adventurer want you to escalate? Not "when do you think you should worry," not a vague "if you don't hear from me for a while" — an actual time. "If I'm not back by 6 PM Sunday and you haven't heard from me, that's the trigger." Or "if I miss the noon Saturday check-in and you haven't heard anything by 4 PM, start escalating."

This number matters because it removes the most painful judgment call from your shoulders. Without it, you're guessing at when to act. With it, your adventurer has explicitly given you permission to act when the threshold is crossed — which is the permission contacts are usually waiting for.

The escalation chain

Who to call if the overdue trigger is hit. The right answer is rarely just "call 911" — the right answer is "call 911 and ask to be connected to the sheriff's office in [specific county], because that's the agency with SAR jurisdiction over where I'll be." Backcountry SAR in the US is run by county sheriffs in most western states and by state agencies in some others. Knowing the right jurisdiction ahead of time prevents the cascading-handoff delay that happens when 911 has to figure out who to route the call to.

Ask your adventurer to tell you specifically: which county is the trip in, and what's the non-emergency sheriff's number for that county? The non-emergency number is what you'd use if you're unsure whether the situation is a true emergency yet. The 911 number is for when you're sure. Both are useful to have ahead of time.

Also ask: is there a primary outdoor partner of theirs you should call before or instead of authorities? Sometimes the right first call is to a person who knows the adventurer and the area, not directly to law enforcement. Sometimes it isn't. Your adventurer should tell you which.

Medical information

Any conditions, current medications, allergies (especially to medications), and blood type if they know it. This is the information rescuers will ask for, and you'll be the one passing it to them. You don't need a detailed medical history — you need the short list of things that would change how responders treat them. Diabetes, asthma, anaphylaxis risks, blood thinners, recent surgeries. Five to ten seconds of recall on each item is enough.

Who else they've notified

Often the adventurer has named more than one emergency contact, or has told other people about the trip without naming them as contacts. Knowing who else has information helps coordinate the response and prevents confusion. Ask: who else knows about this trip, and is anyone else serving as a co-contact alongside me? If there is a co-contact, get their phone number so you can compare notes if needed.

What You Don't Need to Know

The contact role often feels intimidating because people assume they need to understand the trip the way the adventurer does. They don't. The following aren't part of your job, and you can skip them entirely:

• The gear list. A 30-liter pack vs. a 65-liter pack doesn't affect any decision you'll make. Skip it.

• The detailed route. Every turn, every junction, every camp location, every elevation change — not yours to track. Searchers will work with whatever route information the adventurer left behind, and they have specialized tools for that. Your job is to know the general area and the start/end points well enough to convey them clearly: "somewhere in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness" isn't enough; "starting at Maroon Lake trailhead, doing the Four Pass Loop counterclockwise, ending back at Maroon Lake on Sunday" is plenty.

• The technical considerations. Class 3 vs. class 4 terrain, avalanche conditions, crevasse rescue plans, river-crossing strategies — none of it is yours to evaluate. The adventurer makes the field calls; you make the communication calls. Two roles, no overlap.

• Their philosophy of risk. Cautious or bold, the role you've been given is the same. You aren't there to evaluate their judgment; you're there to do a specific, bounded job.

How to Store the Information

Whatever format works for you. The constraint is that the information has to be findable in five seconds when you need it, including when you're stressed and unable to think clearly. A few options:

A note in your phone dedicated to this trip, with a consistent title like "[Adventurer name] - [trip name] - emergency info." Easy to make, easy to find, easy to update for the next trip.

A printed sheet on your fridge or in your wallet if you don't like phone-only storage. Useful redundancy for people who worry about phone batteries dying at exactly the wrong moment.

A shared digital trip plan if your adventurer uses a platform that provides one. This is the format that's most reliable because the adventurer is the one maintaining it, the information stays current automatically, and you can pull it up from any device that has a browser.

If You Can't Have the Conversation in Person

In person or by phone is best because follow-up questions happen naturally. Text and email work but tend to lose the back-and-forth that surfaces the things neither of you thought to mention. If you have to do this remotely, a few things help:

Send a structured request. "Before your trip, can you send me: trip dates, general route, expected return time, the time you want me to escalate if I haven't heard from you, the county the trip is in, your medical info, and anyone else who has trip information." That gives them a list to respond to rather than an open-ended ask.

Ask follow-up questions if anything is vague. "What does 'a few days' mean — Sunday or Tuesday?" "When you say 'I'll text when I can,' how often is that realistically going to be?" The answers don't need to be precise to the minute, but they need to be specific enough that you'll recognize when a window has been missed.

Confirm receipt of the information so they know you got it and you both have it. "I have everything I need, thanks — I'll be here if anything comes up."

Updating the Conversation for New Trips

The conversation isn't a one-time thing. Each trip has its own basics, its own overdue trigger, its own jurisdiction. If your adventurer goes out frequently, the conversation gets shorter over time because the general framework is already in place — you mostly just need the trip-specific updates. The high-frequency version can be a quick text exchange: "Trip is Wind Rivers Wednesday through Sunday, escalation trigger is 8 PM Monday if you haven't heard from me, Sublette County, everything else same as last time." That's enough if the foundation has already been laid.

For first-time contacts or for trips that differ significantly from previous ones (new area, longer duration, different group, technical objective), do the full conversation again. The marginal twenty minutes is cheap insurance.

A Final Thought

People sometimes feel awkward asking these questions, as if it's intrusive or pessimistic to ask their adventurer to specify when to call SAR. It isn't. The adventurer named you as their emergency contact because they wanted you to do this exact job. The conversation is part of the job. Most adventurers actively appreciate the contact who asks the specific questions, because it removes ambiguity for both sides.

If the conversation happens once and goes well, the rest of the trip tends to take care of itself. The check-ins land when expected, you go about your life, and the trip ends with a "back safe" message. On the rare occasion that something does go wrong, you'll have everything you need to do your job calmly and well.

Once you've had the conversation, the next article worth reading is Recognizing Normal vs. Concerning. That's the calibration piece that prevents most of the anxiety contacts experience during the trip itself.