Ever been totally lost and still denied it?

huntingisfun

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This year I was deer hunting with my 12 year old son. We left camp pretty early one morning and I had a specific place in mind I wanted to be at first light. We took the planned route, but I decided to avoid one opening in case there were deer out. I went too far off to the side and totally missed the ridge I was looking for. We continued on the path I thought we were supposed to be on. At first light, we came to an opening and there was a 4 point buck standing 100 yards away. My son got buck fever and missed.We continued on and hiked up a hill to get to where I thought I wanted to be. When we were up there, I was thinking how crazy it was because it looked just like where we had come up the trail a few days earlier. My son said we were right back by camp. I denied it, although it did look familiar. We kept going and got to this spot in the trail where my horse had fallen a few days earlier. At that point I knew my son was right and I was wrong, but I still didn't want to admit it. I was so sang mad at myself that I just couldn't handle being that dumb. Finally I admitted it and we walked back to camp. My friend stayed in camp that morning because he wanted to sleep in. He said we scared the crap out of him because we were less than 100 yards from camp when my son shot at that deer. How funny and ironic would it have been if he shot a deer that close to camp and I would have hauled it miles in the wrong direction. My son still makes fun of me for that one. I will never live it down.
 
I’m home watching “Bull” on TV so I suppose that means that my “Lost” wasn’t permanent ...but it was humbling at the time.
Overcast and deep pines don’t fit well with me, evidently.
Well... and there was some time spent in a blizzard that was unpleasant.
And then there was the time...... you get the picture. Lol

Zeke
 
I’m home watching “Bull” on TV so I suppose that means that my “Lost” wasn’t permanent ...but it was humbling at the time.
Overcast and deep pines don’t fit well with me, evidently.
Well... and there was some time spent in a blizzard that was unpleasant.
And then there was the time...... you get the picture. Lol

Zeke
I'm with you Zeke. Been confused several times, but so far has always worked out. ?
 
This year I was deer hunting with my 12 year old son. We left camp pretty early one morning and I had a specific place in mind I wanted to be at first light. We took the planned route, but I decided to avoid one opening in case there were deer out. I went too far off to the side and totally missed the ridge I was looking for. We continued on the path I thought we were supposed to be on. At first light, we came to an opening and there was a 4 point buck standing 100 yards away. My son got buck fever and missed.We continued on and hiked up a hill to get to where I thought I wanted to be. When we were up there, I was thinking how crazy it was because it looked just like where we had come up the trail a few days earlier. My son said we were right back by camp. I denied it, although it did look familiar. We kept going and got to this spot in the trail where my horse had fallen a few days earlier. At that point I knew my son was right and I was wrong, but I still didn't want to admit it. I was so sang mad at myself that I just couldn't handle being that dumb. Finally I admitted it and we walked back to camp. My friend stayed in camp that morning because he wanted to sleep in. He said we scared the crap out of him because we were less than 100 yards from camp when my son shot at that deer. How funny and ironic would it have been if he shot a deer that close to camp and I would have hauled it miles in the wrong direction. My son still makes fun of me for that one. I will never live it down.
I'm lost all the time with while driving the truck just ask my wife. She is always asking are you lost? I say hell no I just don't know where I am exactly right now but give me few minutes I'll figure it out......
 
I have had 2 times in my life that I have really needed a compass, once while hunting and once while riding my snowmobile. Made it out both times but it’s an uncomfortable feeling.
 
The only time I've been lost was on my first deer hunt in the Adirondacks when I was 18 yrs. old, more than 60 yrs. ago.

A friend and I drove there in the middle of the night from NJ, parked along the major highway and walked into the woods at dawn. I was the only one with a license & gun. We followed a game trail for a while, kicked out a small buck and decided to try & follow its tracks. That proved fruitless. About 10 a.m., it clouded up & began to drizzle, then rain hard. We weren't prepared for that, so we decided to head back to the car. We knew we had to go east. Problem was we had no compass & no sun to guide us. We continued on anyway, walking for about 2 hrs. without hitting the road.

We eventually came upon what appeared to be a well-used hiking trail; we decided to follow it. Unfortunately, we went the wrong way. About 1/2 hr. later we ran into another hunter headed in the opposite direction. Of course, he was a local and knew he was headed the right way to the road. We went along with him, but when we got to the road, I had no idea if my car was to the left or to the right. I guessed right and was right. The guy gave us a lift; we were close to 5 miles south of where we had parked.
 
I lost my ATV on the mountain years ago. I had hiked up high on a peak. When I descended I ended up downhill and on a different trail. It took 3 tries to find it and just as it was getting dark. It was a good 5 miles to the road from that trail.
It was so nice to have water to drink and a Snickers bar in the atv bag.
 
I was on a elk hunt in Western Wyoming around 30 years ago with a couple of buddies. We hired a guy to drop us into the wilderness around 8 miles off of the nearest road. We also rented 3 horses from him to hunt off of, and when we were finished hunting we were to tarp our camp up and ride out and then he would go in and pack our stuff out.
Our camp was about a half mile off of the primitive trail we rode in on. We woke up the morning of the 5th day and found almost of 2 feet of snow on the ground and decided we should tarp up the camp and get out of there. I kind of had a sick feeling that we wouldn't be able to find the trail again to get out of there but we saddled up the horses and headed out. Luckily we made our way through the forest back to our pickup. That was the worst feeling in my many years of hunting of being lost.
 
If you have to walk a few miles through aspens in the dark, all those aspens look the same in a headlamp! Luckily I stumbled on a trail and turned the right way. Could have been a long night in the woods!
 
Our guide in BC got lost in the fog a few years ago. We couldn't see more than 50 yds ahead of us. He kept leading us in the wrong direction and he insisted he was right. Fortunately my son had a GPS map on his InReach. We finally convinced the guide to let us use the GPS to get us back to camp.
Then it got dark and we were in GRIZ country packing fresh mountain goat meat! Three long hours later we stumbled into camp. I never want to do that again!
 
If you haven't spent at least a few nights out in the woods "unexpectantly", then you have never been truly lost. Getting comfortable with that situation can make you a much better woodsman in the long run.
Bill
 
Temporarily misplaced, but never lost???

We were grouse hunting here in Western Wa in high school. Got dark and kept getting cliffed. We finally realized my dog was the smartest member of our party and followed him right back to the truck.
 
A few times. Never was I hopelessly lost. Most times, I could hear the highway a few miles away so I knew I could hook up with it and backtrack, but never wanted to walk that far. One time was funny. It was very foggy and I couldn’t keep my direction. I knew to follow a wash to get back to the truck. The wash turns into multiple different washes and it’s only figured out after a long walk, so you try it again and again. Finally I see the truck and it must have been 150 yards through an opening in the fog. I felt a lot better and headed straight for it. It never showed up. I somehow got back to it hours later, I’m sure it was luck.
 
The absolute worst is flat ground in really bad fog, in flat light where you can't see the sun!! Been there, done that - didn't want the tee shirt to remind me!!!


Did that hunting the mud flats on GSL. Ended up just laying down for couple hours. It finally burned off, which is good cuz I was headed to Nevada
 
It's only happened a couple of times. During the most recent time I "thought" I knew where I was and when I saw my buddy near me I got upset that he didn't stick to the plan and was trying to get in front of me during our push. He was on the far side of a 3 man push and I was on the opposite side with my son in the middle. Somehow I had slowed down and wound up clear on the other side of the group and had it not been for me seeing my partner I would have kept going into never never land. I would have bet him a million dollars that I was on the right track and he was the one that screwed up until he showed me his GPS. I bought a GPS after that and don't leave home without it.
 
My bro has a family favorite line, we were lost in the desert and he said " I'm not lost, I just don't know where I'm at".
 
I am terrible with directions and regularly get lost while hunting. Thank heavens for my brother-in-law and On-X maps!
 
Before GPS's and onX I was lost a time or 2 every year. Once my GPS got lost and sent me almost 3 miles in the wrong direction. I ran into a couple landmarks I had been to before so I got turned around and found the truck. Still using the same GPS and it's never done that again.
 
If you haven't spent at least a few nights out in the woods "unexpectantly", then you have never been truly lost. Getting comfortable with that situation can make you a much better woodsman in the long run.
Bill
I suppose you're right Bill. I've had a couple late nights but never had to spend the night...yet.

A couple years ago, my wife shot an elk and she was dead-set on just us packing it out (3 trips) in spite of the fact that one of our daughters and son-in-law were in camp.
We didn't actually get lost but the blizzard was so bad that we lost my white truck for a while!
We managed to find the road and dropped our first load. She went down the road and I went up and found the truck in short order. Fired it up, honked to stop her and went and retrieved her.
We took the GPS for the second/third trip and it worked out much better.

Zeke
 
This year I was deer hunting with my 12 year old son. We left camp pretty early one morning and I had a specific place in mind I wanted to be at first light. We took the planned route, but I decided to avoid one opening in case there were deer out. I went too far off to the side and totally missed the ridge I was looking for. We continued on the path I thought we were supposed to be on. At first light, we came to an opening and there was a 4 point buck standing 100 yards away. My son got buck fever and missed.We continued on and hiked up a hill to get to where I thought I wanted to be. When we were up there, I was thinking how crazy it was because it looked just like where we had come up the trail a few days earlier. My son said we were right back by camp. I denied it, although it did look familiar. We kept going and got to this spot in the trail where my horse had fallen a few days earlier. At that point I knew my son was right and I was wrong, but I still didn't want to admit it. I was so sang mad at myself that I just couldn't handle being that dumb. Finally I admitted it and we walked back to camp. My friend stayed in camp that morning because he wanted to sleep in. He said we scared the crap out of him because we were less than 100 yards from camp when my son shot at that deer. How funny and ironic would it have been if he shot a deer that close to camp and I would have hauled it miles in the wrong direction. My son still makes fun of me for that one. I will never live it down.
Never been lost in the hills to the point I couldn’t find my way back, but have gotten miserably lost in Manila, Philippines. I was more terrified being lost there surrounded by millions of people than I ever would have been back in the States all by myself in the hills.
 
About 25 years ago, I spent one night on the trail, so to speak. It was on a lion hunt with a pack of dogs. This is a column I wrote about that experience.

Copyright by Tony Mandile


ONE-DOG NIGHT

Thirty years have passed since my first venture into Arizona's great outdoors. During that time I've One experience I never had was getting lost. Oh, I had times when I was slightly "turned around," but none where I had absolutely no clue as to my location. Consequently, I've never spent a night away from my main camp unless it was intentional -- with at least a basic supply of necessities. Like most of us probably do, though, I frequently wondered how I'd handle it.

My late grandfather indoctrinated me early about the perils of being unprepared if it becomes necessary to spend the night away from camp. So I committed myself to carrying matches, an extra candy bar or two and water in areas where it is scarce. Under the right circumstances a person can live many days without food or water other than in the hot desert. So the candy and water were simply feel-good conveniences. But the matches seemed the most important to me.

We often read stories about people getting lost and dying. These accounts continually upset me,especially when the victim had spent only a night or two in the woods. I always wondered how someone becomes a casualty in such a short time. Yet it happens too many times every year. Most folks who get lost die of hypothermia, the medical name for exposure. Characterized by a rapid lowering of one's body temperature and uncontrollable shivering, it soon causes disorientation and a loss of energy. Death is the final consequence. Hypothermia frequently follows panic, a common occurrence when a person becomes lost. Of course, it's very disheartening because the tragedy can be avoided if a person keeps his head on straight.

About five years ago on a lion hunt with Joe Mitchell in the Mazatzal Wilderness Area near Rye, I finally found out what's it like to spend a night in the wilderness alone without any food, water or equipment.

Luckily, I knew where I was all the time. But my camera, a .357 handgun, matches, a candy bar and a light rain jacket made up my meager supplies. About the only panic I had came with the realization of having only three cigarettes. I knew I had to ration them to make it through the night and part of the next morning.

Mitchell and I had cut a hot track early that morning and stayed on it for six hours. Eventually, that track crossed another set. The dogs, confused by the second track, split into two groups. So I trailed one bunch, while the guide followed the other. At sunset, my group of dogs were nowhere to be seen. I dropped off the ridge into the canyon where Mitchell had been about an hour earlier. He was gone, too.

Realizing it was at least a five hour walk to camp and thinking I could make it before midnight, I stumbled through the darkness along the meandering trail. It was a bad decision.

I lost the trail three different times when it crossed the stream bed, got smacked in the face by an unseen branch and had more than one prickly pear cactus deposit its spines in my shins. I decided hiking in the dark without any moonlight was not my thing.

Thoughts flowed readily, but panic was not one of them. Instead, everything I had read or been taught about this kind of situation came to mind.

I began looking for a protected place on the trail with enough nearby firewood to get me through the night. Such a place existed only a few yards up the trail. A downed tree, though rotten and and a bit damp, offered plenty of firewood, and the light from my cigarette lighter revealed enough dry kindling nearby to sustain the wet wood. After building a fire ring out of rocks on some level ground, I gathered enough small wood to get a blaze started, broke the rotten log into smaller pieces and stacked them outside the fire ring. As the pieces dried from the heat of the fire, I would have a continuous supply of larger chunks to burn.

The warmth from the flames quickly countered the chill from the March evening. Hungry and weary from hiking around the up-&-down wilderness all day, I ate half of my candy bar and saved the rest for breakfast. I then cleared a "bed" next to the fire within easy reach of the drying wood. With my rolled up daypack tucked beneath my head, I snuggled up beside the now blazing fire.

A few minutes later, a noise that sounded like something walking through dry leaves came from the blackness. Just as I reached for my handgun, one of Mitchell 's hounds wandered into the light of the fire, and I let out a sigh of relief.

"Here, Jake," I called.

The hound moved warily toward me, then stopped ten feet away and laid down on a bed of fallen leaves.

"Suit yourself," I said, thinking it was nice to have company anyway.

I tried sleeping again, but worried about Joe and what he would think. No doubt he might imagine the worst. Just then, the sound of rustling leaves made me look over my shoulder.

Jake, with head lowered, cautiously crept to where I lay, circled once and then lowered himself to the ground and pushed up against my back. Providing a bit of body heat for each other, my canine buddy and I went to sleep.

Over the next 11 or 12 hours, I woke often to rekindle the flames with a fresh supply of the dead tree. And each time, I lay back down, Jake wiggled his body closer to mine.

The next morning, after a five-hour, uphill hike, Jake and I reached the main road. I immediately heard the whine of an ATV. As the three-wheeler came around a bend, the driver spotted me and
stopped.

"Are you Tony?" he asked.

"Yes."

He then told me he was Mitchell’s dad and had arrived the previous night. "Joe called me and said you might be lost. He drove down to Rye this morning because he thought you might come out that way.

Did you have a bad night?

"Well, I could use a cigarette and a sandwich. But other than that, I'm fine. I spent the night with a warm fire in front of me and a warm dog behind me."

The man smiled. "Oh, you had a one-dog night, huh?"
----- 30 -----
 
Only time I really got turned around was whitetail hunting went maybe a mile from the truck, no fog or this and that but was genuinely lost for about two hours getting turned around, headlamp battery died Etc but finally made it back. Of all the crazy 10-12 mile Day hikes and pack ins I have done in bad conditions and low light. That day got me and like others have said it’s not a good feeling when it hits you.
 
Yep one time in Cork Ireland. My bride and I were driving around looking at old churches. I had not seen the sun in a week. I could tell you up and down but no other direction, She on the other hand gave me directions and had us going back to Blarney in about 10 minutes.
 
Been lost several times but luckily I have never had to spend the night. My worst one was when a buddy killed a bull just before dark. We were only 400 yards or so from the truck. I hiked back to the truck to get the pack boards. I marked my way using pink trail ribbon knowing it would be pitch black while we packed meat. On our first load we couldn't find the ribbons with our mini mag lights but because we were so close to the truck we just marched along knowing the road wasn't very far. Every skid road we followed was a dead end. We had a compass but did not know which way to go. We decided to pick a direction and walk that way 400 yards. If we did not hit the road we would go back and pick a new direction. Trouble was we were packing 115 lb packs and my buddy was wore out. We decided to ditch the packs on a stump in a clearing. The first direction we picked was right and we found the pickup. We were close the whole time just walking parallel to the road. Funny part was I had marked the pickup with my GPS but it was at the kill sight in my day pack. Who could possibly get lost in 400 yards with a ribbon trail? Yup
 
Back in the 80’s an old friend of mine drove a few of us down into the New River Gorge (WV) to camp out on the Old New River Gorge Bridge. Ten years later I’m the old friend and take some other young bucks down there to camp out again. It was pitch black half-way down and was taking longer than I though it should. I started feeling lost but kept advancing downward and got to the bridge. In the morning I had to choose whether the sun rose in the west, my truck had independently crossed the river while we slept, or if we had come down the opposite side of the canyon.
 
The cops were,actually amazed I made it out.without the aid of body bag.and the coroner
No.joke being white and getting lost in that part of NYC normally turns out bad
 
Around new years 1989 I climbed Mt. Quandry near Breckenridge. Blizzard came in and got lost lost on the descent. It got dark and didn't know I was moving West away from the highway during the night above the North face. Small powder snow avalanches would knock me off my feet but the worst part of those was the rocks in the snow that would batter me in the avalanches. Finally one swept me off, but I dropped only 30 ft, and landed in powder so deep that I had to 'swim' to make my way out of the deep pile of powder at the base of the cliff face. Down on the valley floor I followed the boy scout rule - follow the running water downstream. At sunrise it was 4 below and I had made it most of the way down the valley toward the direction of the highway. I could see rescue teams on the other side of the valley probing the deep snow for my body. My throat was too raw to shout to them and I couldn't cross the stream. Eventually emerged at the highway. Lost the tips of two fingers to frostbite.
 

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