BANGOR – Had Donn Fendler lost his way on Mount Katahdin today instead of 65 years ago, he may well have simply dialed for help on his cell phone and provided rescuers with coordinates read from his waterproof GPS unit.

Dead batteries? Perhaps, but no problem if he had his portable solar battery charging unit tucked into his backpack, complete with a built-in 100-ounce water reservoir.

In 1939, however, hiking wasn’t nearly the sport it is today, and 12-year-old Fendler, who had set off with friends and family for a last-minute day hike up to the state’s tallest peak, was equipped with nothing more than the sneakers on his feet, a pair of jeans and a brown lamb’s wool-lined jacket.

When he emerged nine days later and 25 pounds lighter, the jacket was all he had left.

Thanks in large part to developments in military equipment and technology, outdoor gear and search and rescue techniques have been revolutionized. In the past five years, the rate of advancement in both areas continues to amaze those in the business.

Just one year ago, it became legal in the United States to purchase personal locator beacons, downsized versions of those mandated for use on planes and boats.

A lost hunter armed with the pocket-sized device could simply set off a signal that is beamed to a satellite, then to Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. The signal would provide rescuers with the exact coordinates of the person lost or in trouble.

Despite all the high-tech safety equipment, wardens with the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife warn that outdoor activities of any kind still involve some level of risk.

Last year, there were 40 search and rescue operations in Baxter State Park and three fatalities, according to Buzz Caverly, longtime park director.

Statewide, the DIF&W receives about 300 reports annually of missing people. While cell phones have helped immensely, the number of people such as snowmobilers, hikers and ATV riders using the woods has increased substantially, veteran Game Warden Pat Dorian said.

Wardens also are seeing a marked increase in the number of distraught people with mental illness who intentionally head to the woods to harm themselves, and also in the growing number of Alzheimer’s patients who wander away.

Technology has improved safety, but the tried-and-true tips, such as wearing bright clothing, telling someone where you are going and when you are going to return and carrying simple items such as a compass and a flashlight, still are today’s best tips, officials said.

Dogs and copters

Just a month shy of the 65th anniversary of Fendler’s mountain adventure, three very experienced mountain climbers from Quebec resorted to the same method last month that Fendler used all of those years ago to find civilization.

They followed a stream.

“I’m telling you there is still a place for Scouting and those lessons learned,” Caverly said during a rare break in his hectic summer schedule. “Donn Fendler remembered that lesson, and it took nine days, but that stream led him out of there, and it worked 65 years later for those hikers from Quebec.”

The search for Fendler in 1939 was one of the largest searches the state had ever seen.

“More than 300 National Guardsmen, mountain climbers, police and volunteers toiled up and down the mountainside in an exhausting search which had uncovered not a single clue,” a reporter wrote at the time.

But with limited methods of communication and little suitable gear, there was not much the searchers could do other than comb the area on foot.

Today there are 19 volunteer search and rescue teams throughout the state that include dog teams and equestrian teams. There are cadaver dogs, air scent dogs and tracking dogs.

At the end of the Vietnam War, Huey helicopters, which had been used so heavily there, were distributed to military units across the country, including the Maine Army Guard’s 112th Medical Company in Bangor.

“The big bonus with the Huey helicopter, other than its obvious role in searching for lost people, was its hoist ability,” said Col. David Smith of the 112th. “For the first time there was a way other than carrying someone down the mountain to evacuate them to safety.”

Today the unit uses Black Hawk helicopters that are renowned for their ability to withstand windy conditions so common on the mountainous terrain.

Smith said that the 112th helps out in Baxter State Park searches six to 10 times a year. The use of the helicopters and an overhaul of an archaic radio system, both of which occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s, transformed search and rescue operations in the park, Caverly said.

Also around the same time, Gov. Percival Baxter – who over time purchased the more than 200,000 acres that now are Baxter State Park – died, leaving a $7 million trust that allowed for vast improvements in training and gear for park staff.

If Fendler were lost today

When Fendler went missing 65 years ago, hundreds of searchers pounded over boulders for days in search of the scrawny 12-year-old boy. His age made the search a priority.

Today if he were lost on that same mountain, or anywhere else, the search for him would again be a priority because he is 77.

If Fendler were lost now, Kevin Adam, a young game warden with a knack for mapping and computers, would sit in front of a laptop, obtained through a Homeland Security grant, and plug into a computer program a laundry list of facts about the missing man.

His height, weight, age, mental condition, physical condition, gender, gear he had with him, and a host of other big and small details regarding the weather and the terrain would be entered into the program.

The computer then would provide statistical data to wardens that would direct them in their search. The route he most likely would take and how far he likely would travel all would be provided to searchers.

“It gives us a pretty good idea of where to start and how far to expand our search,” Adam said during a visit to DIF&W headquarters in Greenville.

Then well-organized searchers with GPS units would head out into the woods to specified coordinates, established for them by Adam. The information from those GPS systems then would be downloaded onto the laptop and a series of red lines overlapping a contoured map of the area would show Adam exactly what areas had and had not been searched.

“It allows us to see the gaps,” he said.

“I’m convinced that if Donn Fendler got lost out there today, we would find him in two or three days at the outset,” Caverly said.

The park director still doesn’t have much use for cell phones on the mountain.

“I don’t want people calling Aunt Martha from the top telling her how pretty the view is,” he said.

But he grudgingly acknowledged their helpfulness in finding injured or sick hikers. Caverly recalled how the first year he worked at the park he made 23 trips up the side of Mount Katahdin in one month looking for park visitors who might have been lost, “and 18 of them were after dark.”