Ever been lost?

[Zip]

Never been really lost. Had to spend a night out cause I couldn't quite find my truck. Was on a preseason scouting trip and parked by the only stream in the area, according to the topo map. Went what I call "full dress rehearsal" -- pack, mini stove, freeze dried vittles, sleeping bag, no tent, gun and ammo, etc. -- to test my conditioning.

Well, thanks to a pretty good winter, the spring melt filled a ravine with a "creek" that I kept following downhill until I was deep in a canyon and running outta daylight. No truck? Where could it be if there's only one creek in the area and I'm on that creek? Too dark to take a compass reading (pre-GPS days). Found a flat boulder, made a pine needle bed for my sleeping bag and cooked supper. Had a candle lantern for light and when I blew it out the night sky was a sight to behold. Woke up the next day with a scrub jay warbling in the tree above me. Took a few back azimuths and plotted a route out to the bridge my truck was parked next to. Took less than an hour to hike out so I wasn't really "lost", just a mite turned around. All's well that ends well. :wink: On the hike out I bumped into a fat forkie who looked at me like "whazzup, is that your truck over yonder?" :haha:

 

[necchi]

Yup, went into Minnesota thick without a compass reading before I stepped off the logging trail when Grouse hunting once. It was a heavy overcast day too, no sun to be seen.
I knew was surrounded, logging trail, power line and 2 roads enclosed the 2 sections of land I was on, but got turned around real quick after hunting down that one an only grouse with no dog.
All we could do was walk a straight line (not easy too do if you've ever been in MN swamp an Nothern woods) and finally hit the power line,(not where I wanted to be) but it was a three mile walk "around" to get back to the truck. No way was we gonna walk back in there, it was on gettin dark afore we got back.

Lesson learned, always take along a compass and read it before going into strange or "new too you" woods.

 

[brassell31]

Absolutely, and more than once (my sense of direction is pitiful), though I've never had to spend the night out. Quite frankly, I kind of enjoy it, it's ended up for me being the best way to get to know new territory, you know, wandering around in it. Once I've been "lost" in a new area , I usually never get lost there again. I always carry 2 compasses, one in my pack, one around my neck, and a good topo map of the area. Sometimes I just forget to look at them often enough. Once, when hunting with one of my sons, I told him we were going to hunt North of camp and showed him with my compass where North was. Apparently a bad sense of direction is not genetic, because twenty minutes later he was asking me why we were going South now. Another time while hunting with a buddy I shot an elk about an hour before dark, and by the time we finished field dressing and quartering it, things were getting pretty dark and both of us had left our headlamps in camp, which was only a 1/2 mile away. We ended up walking up the wrong draw to get back to camp, and it was one of those moonless nights in a dark pine forest where you can't see your hand in front of you face. We ended up using the night light on my watch to shine on my compass to get our bearings and to keep from getting a branch in the eye.
A word on GPS receivers. They do not work in thick woods, or in snow blizzards. Don't ask me how I know.

 

[jethro224]

Never really lost... just missplaced for a time. :wink:

 

[gearheart]

Pretty good idea where I was so not really lost. Definitely had trouble with the where I wanted to be part on a few occasions though. :haha: :haha:

 

[vern faulkner]

My hunting friends swear that I have elevated "getting lost" into an art form. I've been lost in nearly every state that I've ever hunted in, as documented by several sheriff departments and a number of National Park Rangers. Any more, my survival equipment consists of a flashlight and a magazine. Gives me something to do till they come and find me. It ain't my fault if they keep moving mountains, rivers, logging roads, and the magnetic north pole around without informing the hunting public. Someone has even gone to the extent of moving my Jeep several miles from where I had parked it.

Vern
PS: My most reoccurring thought: WHERE THE HELL AM I"

 

[wvbuckbuster]

Got turned around once while making a silent drive for a friend. After it was all said and done he asked me why I kept going and didn't stop the first time I came by him :hmm: Dan.

 

[hoochiepapa]

My dad was THE mountain man. He could walk through the woods and never make a sound, never roll a rock, or snap a twig. We talked about getting lost one time, and he said he'd never been lost, just turned around.

 

[trent/OH]

When I was 18 I got turned around on an afternoon hunt at a new state park. I fired my .22 into the air 3 times as a distress call. That's when I realized how quiet a .22 is.
I recognized a creek leading to the new reservoir, followed it back to my car. I wasn't in danger, but I had to be back at high school for practice that evening, so I was more pressed for time than pressed for getting found.

 

[rabjr]

Never lost....now stuck is another matter. :haha:

 

[pa woods roamer]

My Brother is lost in the Woods poster Boy! He once put on a Drive to push out a small piece of Wood, 80 Acres at the most. It is bordered by a large Stream on 3 sides and a set of RR Tracks on the other. One hour later He came stumbling out with a panic look on His face. His Hair was all mussed up and He was sweating up a Storm!!

 

[S.Kenton]

Got lost around the Big Bay Michigan/ Marquette area back in the late 80's.My Grandpa had a cabin there.I was around 17 or 18 yrs old and deer season was in . I was young and stubborn He went his way and even though he told me to go with him..I went mine. I found a nice logging trail that had Deer tracks all up and down it.. sat there till a nice buck came along. I shot the buck and he ran. I blood trailed for a bit..then realized in my excitment of the trail that I had not marked any landmarks along the way...The day started about 6 am.. and ended at about 9pm with Grandpa finding me and my buck,with his Jeep and a welcomed flashlight.. :grin:

 

[paulvallandigham]

I have never really been "Lost", but I have been confused about the direction I was going, when I didn't check my compass. I kept looking at scenery, until it dawned on me it would be faster if I just read my own TRACKS and followed them back to my car.

I was trying for a "short-cut", because my knee had swollen up so that my pant leg was stretched by it, and it was throbbing with every step. Actually, when I did work my way out, I had to climb across a deep cut-bank, and in doing so, put the swollen knee into wet, COLD Grass. The swelling reduced almost instantaneously, after sending a bolt of lightning to my brain. OUCH! It felt like my knee was on fire, the contrast of the cold ground to my knee was so great.

So, I was actually able to walk on that bad leg better for having gotten " turned around", and I learned how to get that swelling down quickly, the next time it happened. :shocked2: :rotf:

I routinely follow my own footprints back to where I know where I am, now. Have been doing it, and teaching it to others for years.

The human boot print may not be easy for some people to see standing up, and looking down, but if you get down on your hands and knees, and look at the ground between you and your source of light, you will easily see the long shadows cast from the walls of a track from debris and turf lifted up by the compression of your footprint in the softer ground. On hard surfaces, you will see discoloration, disturbance, or "bruising" of rocks where you walked over them.

Once you know how to use your source of light, seeing those tracks is not difficult at all. Start by holding your head turned to the side- "side-heading"-- and above the ground enough that you start looking at the ground at about a 5 degree angle. Raise your head if you don't see shadows, disturbance, discoloration, or bruising at that angle, to increase the angle.

Always put your source of light- the sun in daylight, flashlights, headlights, etc. during the night--- on the other side of the ground you seek to search for tracks.

If you think this is impossible, compare a footprint from your own shoe or boot, to that of the largest deer you have ever seen. I teach hunters who want to be able to scout and stalk deer and elk, by first teaching them to follow their own footprints. The basic skills learned doing this are easily transferred to tracking deer. NO, they are not the SAME. People are alternating Bi-ped walkers. Deer are alternating, indirect registering Quadro-ped walkers. But, being mammals, you can use the same observations concerning pitch angle,& straddle with both species to identify the sex of the animal. With humans, you can also use the shape of the foot to determine sex. Determining eye dominance is the same for both. That means you can tell if the deer or person favors his right or left eye, and corresponding side when walking.

You should already know which is your dominant eye and side of your body. Mammals have bi-lateral symmetry. Identifying and following your own footsteps should not ever be that difficult.

I have followed my own boot prints back hours after going out into a blizzard, where the only remaining tracks were in low areas protected by some obstruction from the winds. I have also seen those winds move my old tracks several feet down wind of where I walked and left the tracks originally. The new tracks were bigger "blobs", but reflected my same gait pattern.

There is No reason to ever get "Lost", if you simply learn to see and read your own footprints. :hmm: :hatsoff:

 

[Stumpkiller]

I was out deer hunting (with a m/l, in fact) on a large tract of state lands I had beed to a couple times before. During the day a blizzard came up and I decided it was time to bug out. I decided to return to the truck by a diagonal through some pines that the CCC had planted - basically a green 2,000 acre desert of nothing but 50 year old spruce trees in even rows. At one point I passed a shot-up bucket that was hanging from a limb for a second time. "Oh fu . . . dge", tought I. It had taken me an hour to go in a big circle. I had about another hour of daylight, and the snow was enough that even under the trees my original path was hard to spot - and my tracks only went in a circle anyhow.

No sun visible, but I did have a compass (usually too late to look at when you're already lost). I knew generally where the CCC trees were, generally where my truck was, and knew that the road I came in on was along the Eastern side of the state lands. I set myself a heading towards the South-East and, after an hour or so, came out on the road below where I had parked. The sun was well set by the time I got back to the truck. Poopie tuckered tired. It has been my habit to keep a thermos of coffee in the truck for the ride home - and hot coffee never tasted so good.

Probably I should have stopped and settled in when I first realized I was lost. I could have ended up still lost, tired and sweaty, and had no shelter or light to work with. (I did have a small flashlight). That blizzard lasted a full day and dumped over a foot of snow.

I can attest the adrenaline jolt that hits you when you first realize you are lost is a bad feeling. That is the only time I ever was truly astounded that I was totally wrong in my wanderings. I'm usually pretty good about having an idea of where I am and the general cardinal compass points around me. The blizzard made the whole sky a neutral gray (what could be seen through the trees) and, for lack of sun, I was flying blind in a place I'd never been. Luckily I had studied a topo map (though I didn't have a map with me - shame).

 

[paulvallandigham]

The one advantage that trees planted in rows have is that you can find the north side of the trees by looking for the moss. They will all be the same. That is not always the case in deep forests, where even the south side of trees may be shaded enough to let moss grow.

In blizzards, grab a branch off a tree- even if you have to break one off-- to use as a "broom" to brush the snow off your old tracks. Go one step at a time, so that you maintain continuity of your footprints. I have shown this technique to people older than me who have lived in "snow country" all their lives. They are always shocked to see its possible to do. I have only read of one Tracker using this technique to find the bodies of a couple of men lost out in the mountains. He found the bodies when there was still snow on the ground, brushing the snow off the track impressions underneath. They were able to retrieve the bodies before decomposition set in. It meant a lot to the families who survived. The bodies were covered with enough snow to keep the scavengers from getting to the bodies.

 

[Goldhunter]

Hmmm... been fearsome confused for an hour or two, but I ain't never been lost!

:grin:

 

[longcruise]

I once sat on a high mountainside and watched the sun set in the east. :shocked2: By around 10PM the universe had righted itself and camp was located. :haha:

 

[hoochiepapa]

That kind of view is addicting.

 

[Southarkrob]

Never been really lost...been turned around for a couple of hours.. it is hard to get lost where I hunt...if you walk long enough you will turn up somewhere... the last time I got turned around was a couple of years ago and I shot a buck and had to wade some water to find it. I thought the trail and the UTV was one way and took off dragging it and soon realized I was going in the wrong direction. We have overgrown clearcuts that most of the deer head for when shot...tough to get thru them. My hunting buddies laugh because I keep a roll of tp or paper towels in my pack..when I shoot one now...I can backtrack my way out.

 

[oletymepreacher]

Having the gift of perfect sense of direction, I admit to getting turned around on an elk hunt.

We came into camp with perfect short sleeve weather. Set up the tent complete with bunk beds, several space heaters, all connected to a 100 pound tank. Getting up in the morning, I find that Mel, my hunting partner, was sick.Way too much Yukon Jack, actually all of it.

Getting outside, there was three feet of snow and it was still snowing. Climbing the mountain in this surprise blizzard, I finally got to where the elk were. A cow ( I am an unashamed meat hunter) came through and stood broadside at maybe 15 yards. Trigger finger wouldn't fit into the trigger guard, so I pulled off the glove, and accidently dropped it. That was all Mrs. elk needed to spook.

A few hours later, it was time to get back to camp to see how Mel was doing, not that I needed to dry off and soak up some of that heat. Taking out the compass, I thought it was wrong and started to go in the opposite direction. After another hour or so, I found boot tracks. Great thinks I, Mel is up here, I just have to follow his tracks and see how he is doing. Somewhere along the way I had a nature call. Then, there were two sets of tracks. Now who else is tracking Mel? Mel is good elk hunter and everyone knows that, and following him is a good idea. I start to hurry up. Then the marking in the snow where the nature call came in.

Time to obey the compass. Got back to camp in record time.