Lost in the Woods?

Anyone ever find them selves lost in the woods or else where in the great outdoors? This came up in conversation at my sons boyscout meeting last night. Seems that some of the boys really like the survival man series on TV and with their skills training in scouts are wanting to put it to the test.

I have been briefly lost and it was interesting. It was while deer hunting and there had been a heavy snow the night before. The trees where very weighted down with this snow and walking threw a area I had hunted a hundred times got turned around. It was when I stopped, looked around and and relized that nothing looked familiar that a brief moment of panic hit me. With a logging trail with in a 1/4 mile on every side of me and fresh track to follow my self back out I really wasnt in much troubled and easily found my way out.
It was that first moment of feeling lost and slight panic that mostly sticks in my mind and makes it easy to see how someone could quickly find themselves in trouble.

Anyone ever get truly lost in the woods?

I’ve been turned around a few times. Once taking until after dark and a ride from a stranger back to my car but never had to spend an unexpected night in the woods.

Did you get that lost or panic feeling at all Mike? Mine was brief and only had to quickly go over the situation with myself but even that surprised me.

I have been tangled up before in Northern WI. trying to cross a bog and tamarack filled wet land and also did not make it out until well after dark. It was the short cut that turned into one heck of a walk about. If a person lets the panic feeling take over I see how easy it could be for things to turn for the worse.
After a chat with myself it was evident the compass had to be used just to stay on a straight heading. The truck was parked on a logging road that ran North and South and I knew I was on the West side of it. When I hit that logging road I popped out by a small muskrat marsh that I knew very well. It was all I could do to keep from laying down and kissing the earth I recognized.
I was still a good ways from coming out to the truck but I’ll never forget how great it felt to be walking on a road again, better yet was headlights coming at me with a couple buddy’s driving the road looking for me

Of course I acted like it was no big deal

I get lost on the internet frequently. That’s the same thing?

About 25 yrs ago at our deer camp in northern WI I got a bit turned around. I was the hotshot college kid at the time. Shot a coyote from a ground blind about 2pm on day after Turkey day. Walked out about 60 yds to where he was and saw big spray of blood and said he isn’t going far. So started tracking. About 2 miles later after up and down ravines and crossing the creek I was doing circles in the tag alders. It was a bit after 4 and snowing pretty hard. Told the coyote he won and reached for my compass to shoot a direct route back. Umm yeah it was in my blind with my pack. Wasn’t panicked but knew I was screwed up. I got across the creek and back on a big flat but was dark by then. I knew where I was but it was about a 1/2 mile walk straight SE and I had no compass. So keeping the ravine and creek to my left I basically followed the edge all the way around and knew I would find my blind in the big popples. Nope, went right by it in the dark and snow and actually walked into a tree stand that was being built. Then I knew exactly where I was and backtracked to the blind and got my pack and compass. From the tree stand I had a good 45 min walk following a snowmobile trail. About half way in I heard 3 shots from camp and I answered with one. They never heard me with the snow and tree cover. I was just rounding the corner to the cabin when they were coming out on snowmobiles to look for me. One guy had heard my shot at 2pm and they figured I had a big buck down. It was still snowing hard. I was covered in snow and sweat and it was just before 8pm.

Since then I have learned. I carry a compass around my neck on a lanyard. Every morning at breakfast I ask people where they are hunting. As one of the senior members now I like to keep track of the kids. The big woods are a bit different than farm country.

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Did you get that lost or panic feeling at all Mike? Mine was brief and only had to quickly go over the situation with myself but even that surprised me.

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Yea. I had that. Pretty strange sensation but it passed fast. Same feeling for a very short time when I ran out of gas in the middle of Miss by Hastings a couple years ago.

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I get lost on the internet frequently. That’s the same thing?

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You are lost now Brian. The Catfish forum is a few pages down.

I remember in southern Iowa we were deer hunting and it was getting twards the end of the day. So we decided to head back to the camp site and confidently started in the direction we thought would take us back. This timber we were hunting was alot of hills that weren’t big and maybe 50′ tall but there was alot of them and the timber was thick. The hills all looked the same and the cedars all looked the same and because we couldn’t find anything to home in on we finially knew we were lost. I climbed a near by tree high enough to see a light way off in the distance. I got my bearing and climbed down and headed twards the light. We got to the light and it was a yard light on a farm.

We knocked on the door and an old fella came to the door holding a violin and I looked inside and there was two of his buddies also holding a violin. Anyway after asking directions back to the farm we hunted out of we found out what we had done is made a couple wrong turns in the timber and thats when I climbed the tree. He said ya Toms place is about 3 miles as a crow flies and gave us directions back down a couple gravel roads. We never paniced but knew it would probably be awhile until we got back to camp. We laughed and blamed it on eachother after we headed back down the road. I found that its important to always keep track of where your at and don’t rely on just one certain thing because you can get to a point where things all look the same making hard to find your way back. Take a compass and return the opposite direction on the compass you came in and remember landmarks, creeks, a lone dead tree and which way the limbs are faceing, etc.

Check out the book Lost in the Wild: Danger and Survival in the North Woods. You might be able to find it at the local libraries. It tells two parallel stories. One was a guide in Quetico who fell and knocked himself out while bushwhacking and looking for a portage. His group sort of left him and he spent several nights trying to find his way. The other story is a hiker who got lost hiking the Pow Wow Trail in the BWCA which last year was totally consumed by the Pagami Creek fire. He took a wrong turn, lost the trail, and made several misteps losing gear, his map, and had to sleep several nights outside in near freezing temps before being rescued. It’s a good read about how a few misteps can lead to really bad consequences and how the northwoods can be almost totally unforgiving.

Lost in the Wild: Danger and Survival in the North Woods

I have a poor sense of direction. I can get lost in a plowed corn field.

We had a guy get lost once overnight in the Northern Wisconsin woods at our hunting cabin. They had planes and dogs and all kinds of search people out and about before they found his tracks long miles from where anyone could walk. He hadn’t been taught how to use a compass or which direction he should go. He had one on him but told the rescuers he couldn’t trust it because every time he turned around the needle would move the next night it got down to 30 below outside and he would have frozen to death for sure.

I also got lost trying to do night land nav course in Virginia one time. My pace man was an idiot and I was a bigger idiot for believing he knew how far we had gone. We found our way back the next morning by intersection on some known landmarks we could see. Getting truely lost is easy to do and it is life threatening if you don’t have proper gear with you.

Thanks for the link to that book. I seen the hiker speak a few years back at a convention. Think he was going for a quick hike and ended up spending a few days. Then it snowed.

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I can get lost in a plowed corn field.

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I once got plowed in a lost corn field. Does that count

I spent the night once in Namadji, bog, tired, found a semi-dry spot and had a fire. Felt tons better come day light, got it together and was out in 2 hours. No one even missed me. An old timer once told me that if you walk straight, there is no where in MN and WI that you can walk more than an hour and not find civilization, be it a road or trail or cabin. I’m a slow learner and it took me two.

I just read some interesting survival articles in Field & Stream at the Dentist yesterday. These types of stories were some of my favorite reading material as a kid.

I got lost in the Black Hills one time and freaked a bit. I was told to walk down hill the whole drive. I was seeing some deer and tried still hunting up the hill ahead of them. Couldn’t get close, when I “lost it” I walked right out over the top of the one of the steepest spots in that canyon. I came to a road and sat my butt down. Waited for an hour or so before one of our crew found me. Got a good talkin’ to by a couple of the older boys in the crew.

I got turned around out west elk hunting one time but I never really felt lost. I knew what direction I needed to head to hit a road that was a mile or two away. I used logging roads when I could, kept moving in the same general direction, and emerged on the road about 3/4 mile from the truck, in the dark. Funny thing was, I was not the last guy back to the truck. One of the other guys was actually lost.

You took my story Mike…Almost to a T! About 10 min. of panic and then concentrated on getting my rear out of the woods. Lost ,but moving in the right direction for about 2 hours in Itasca State Park.

I was with a group out east in the mountains that got LOST BIG TIME the clown in the lead was so busy talking to the cute girl next to him that he overshot a cutoff in the trail by about 3 miles and when he didnt find the cabin by nightfall he freaked out and got the whole group scared, I had that moment of panic but then I just took over and used my skills to make a shelter because we didnt have any tents just 2 12X12 tarps. we all had to spend the night outside but it turned into one of the best nights on the trip in the coolest shelter I have ever made and I was put in charge of navigation the rest of the trip.

Back in the late 60’s & early 70’s I lived in the Black Hills (Rockerville, SD.) Every once in a while I’d be out deer hunting (alone) in almost my back yard and it’d start to snow heavily. No wind, no sun, all noise was muffled by the snow falling straight down. I can see how a guy can lose it in conditions like that. Totally blots out all sense of direction and location.- – jerr

My Grandpa used to tell me when I’d ask him if he knew where we were, “Son, you are never lost if you don’t mind where you are at.”

Growing up in some pretty big woods of NW WI, I’ve gotten turned around a lot, didn’t come out exactly where I thought I would, one time I even had to sit down and either wait for the clouds to clear or wait for the train to pass. Point is, if you don’t mind where you are at, no sweat, relax, enjoy what you have up against you, and do your best to get out of the situation. I typically don’t carry a compass unless I’m in a totally new chunk of woods and/or its cloudy.

With MANY canoe trips under my belt – being “lost” is something that happens on big lakes. Many times we have thought we were in the right bay etc to find the portage, but NOPE we were off. Is that being LOST??? On one portage I was following my brother and his son down a trail around a bog. Brother was carrying a 17′ WHITE canoe and I never thought I could loose him. As the portage trail got smaller and we had been walking awhile I looked up and NO canoe in front of me. My canoe partner was behind me carrying our WHITE canoe. We stopped and talked about what to do. I always carry my compass on my neck so we stopped and took a reading as we knew which direction the lake was. We started bushwacking which is very hard with packs and a canoe. It finally got so thick he could not get our canoe through the trees. My partner put the canoe straight up in the air with the white hull showing and he stayed with the canoe while I said I would just go a bit further to find the lake and come back. Not was not the best plan as I DID find the lake and my brother was paddling the shore looking for us, but guess what, NOW I can’t find my partner with the canoe. I also carry a whistle so I started blowing it, but the other guy did not have one. After heading back the way I came, I finally saw this big white thing sticking in the air and could hear him yelling. We all finally got together. Whole thing only took about an hour, but felt like a whole day. Lessons learned.

I’ve never been lost in the woods by accident but I have on purpose several times. Next to fishing one of my top interests is wilderness self reliance and bushcraft. I’m no expert but leave me in the woods with just a knife and the cloths on my back and I would survive and be happy in the process.

Take Care!
Kevin

Would imagine there is a big difference in reactions from someone that is used to being outdoors that gets lost and someone that is not that familiar with the outdoors (city folk). I see our scout leader talking to the kids about all the stuff you need for camping trips and it seems to have that city folk over tone. Im thinking more along the lines of a small tarp, knife, fishing pole and something to light a fire with. These guys are talking 50# packs to spend a night or 2 outdoors.

A couple of the activities it has been great to see my son do with scouts is spending a night outside alone with only a small tarp for shelter. Ended up being upper 30’s that night. Another one was spending the night sleeping inside a snow bank. I was able to do this one with him and it was pretty decent. With just a few blankets and a small candle it must of stayed 40 degrees in there as it was 10 below outside. Very cool.

All a guy needs to survive the outdoors will fit in an altoids tin. At least that is what F&S article said. Some cotton balls, chlorine tablets, fire striker, whistle and one other item I can’t recall.

Got lost tracking in heavy snow,wasnt paying attention at all,just concentrating on the blood trail.Once we found the deer we realized we didnt know where we were.The feeling of being lost in the dark and heavy snow was awful.We backtracked until we lost our own tracks.I thought I really knew this area,but with the dark and snow I was confused.Finally I pulled out the compass and headed south,finally hooking up with a logging road I knew.Our adventure began about 5pm and took 1am.just glad to get out

Welcome to the site Turkeynut.

I spent the night in the mountains of Montana about 15 years ago. Early in the morning we left the cabin and drove around to a meadow that was about 6 miles to the west and above our cabin.

The plan was to slowly walk the upper side of the mountain across and drop down to the cabin that afternoon once we reached the horse trail that went from the top down to the cabin.

About an hour before sunset I decided to start to make my way to the horse trail and drop back down. On the way to the trail I ran into a nice Bull Elk and two Cows cutting the side of the mountain. I could not get a perfect shot but had a good opening ahead of the Bull about 150 yards out, as he hit the opening I shot for the area just behind the front shoulders and off he went.

I checked where I had shot and found hair and blood a short distance away. With very little snow tracking was not the easiest but an Elk on the run leaves a decent trail anyway. Before I knew it the sun was setting and darkness was soon to follow. I was about an hour from camp and knew there was no way to get there before dark and my uncle that lived there said that it was best to not travel at night and risk falling or breaking a leg.

At that point I knew roughly where I was but decided to drop down the closest ravine along side of a creek. I found a nice area with a dead blow down and a soft spot next to the bank of the creek. Now it was almost dark so I started breaking up wood for a fire and dug out my space blanket. Sure was glad to have that to keep between me and the cold ground.

I quickly built up a small wall of wood and rock behind me to try and hold some of the heat from the fire in front of me and a small short wall of stone at the back side of the fire with a ring of rocks for the fire itself. I got a nice fire going and settled in for the night.

I sure didn’t get much sleep, it seemed as soon as I would start to dose off the fire would get low and I would get cold and wake up to put more wood on. Once morning came I hiked back up the ravine and picked up my tracking job. It was only another couple hundred yards to the Elk.

It was a night I will never forget.

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and one other item I can’t recall.

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Toilet paper?

-J.

Haha, that’s just a luxury item. Pant legs and socks and Tshirts will always work in a pinch.