Glad to hear everything worked out and all is well.  Things can go sour real quick some times, being in remote places just compounds things.

A couple of things that instantly came to my mind were ham radios and Calstar.  To get a ham radio license is really easy.  Very nice and compact hand held ham radios can be purchased for well under $200.  Take a tumble while alone, heck just turn an ankle really bad, and it can get serious quick without somebody to hoof it out for help.  Ham radios are cheap insurance.

There are a ton of free practice tests online and testing locations/times pop up in this area regularly.

Tests  Tests  Tests

Actual test

Calstar

With chopper rides costing 10's of thousands of dollars and generally not covered by most peoples insurance policies, $50/family is a no brainer.  Group memberships are even cheaper at $35/group of 15+  $30/group 150+