Becoming disoriented in the woods

I'm sure some people are better at orienting in the woods than others. But it is obviously not just you who is challenged in this regard… evidence Hansel and Gretel story and the bread crumbs… a trick you might consider adopting… though it could be something other than bread crumbs… something you can pick up on your way back to camp.

Billy

It will happen to any and everyone under the right circumstances. A shot a deer perhaps 1.2 miles from the road in a little wooded area near home which I know well. By the time I had the deer cut up and in the pack it was fully dark and snowing. Rather than follow my tracks back out, I tried to take a shortcut which ended up in me walking dead north for 30 minutes when I should have been going west. Had to pull out the compass to sort myself out. I had almost no evidence to support my decision to walk that direction, but stuck with it out of laziness and haste.

Douglas Peacock, the friend of Edward Abbey and no slouch when it comes to off trail experience, wrote about going to a lake come evening to get water. Sure enough, shadows came down, and he couldn't find his tent for quite some time. I was glad to read this as I once did exactly the same thing. My tent 'disappeared' into my not very large camping site. I grew increasingly anxious and flummoxed over the 45 minutes that it took to find it!

Elliott,
As others have said, this happens to all of us in varying degrees. My take on this is that different folks take things in differently. One person might never get lost in the woods but cannot recall a single type of plant he saw, while another might be inventorying an amazing amount of flora and fauna along the way but would be completely lost if it werent for the trail signs.

Do you feel like you often "check out" when you walk, and start enjoying scenery?
Does the outdoor environment cause you to reflect on life or become deeply engrossed with your thoughts?
Are you particularly good at noticing small details but not as good at observing larger patterns or recognizing the big picture?

You said…

"I headed into the woods for a potty break, carefully noting a few large boulders on my way. The woods were somewhat dense and the ground sloped and uneven, with no clear path back to the campsite."

This paragraph says alot to me. what if you remembered it this way?..

I headed diagonally down hill and south-east about 30 yards for a potty break, carefully turning around to see how my path would look on the way back. There were boulders and dense trees but I had seen alot of that today so I ignored those. The ground sloped down to my right as I walked and there was a low saddle on the horizon at about my 2 o'clock.

I was following a blazed wilderness loop trail in the fall which was covered with fresh leaves. There were few distinct landmarks which were really just nondescript small streams. I was on the last leg of the loop on the 2nd day of a two day trip by myself. I had hiked much of the first day's mileage in the dark and rain. Due to the leaf-covered trails, I wandered off the main trail. I backtracked some, but still no trail. I finally just walked in the direction the trail should be, and found it.

I had already wasted so much time, and I was in a hurry to get back to the trailhead because I was meeting up with a group for another trip the next day. I continued down the trail without checking my direction of travel, happy to just relax and follow the blazes.

When I arrived at the trailhead several hours after I had estimated I should have, I was shocked to discover that I had just returned from the same direction I had started traveling in around the loop!

Many of us are too old for this now, but way back when, I was drafted into the U.S. Army, and after Basic Training I found myself in Advanced Infantry Training. They really drilled it into us about how to stay found. That is a lot easier than getting lost and then trying to find your way. Eventually, practice made perfect.

This got more important some months later when I found myself on the DMZ in Korea. I had to attend a few days of an Advanced Combat Training Academy. They got into the problems of land navigation. The DMZ had been a battleground for years, so it was almost completely devoid of landmarks, and it is very easy to get lost out there if you don't have your wits about you. It's OK to wander off a little east or a little west, and you won't get into too much trouble. However, you must know north from south. That much was critical. So, they taught us to practice "situational awareness." That means keeping tuned in for the direction of light in the sky, the prevailing wind direction, which way the birds are migrating, and all sorts of subtle clues like that. I don't know if that worked or not, but I came back alive.

In civilian life, I always found orienteering to be great fun. In those days before GPS, practicing all of that map and compass stuff seemed like it would help prevent getting lost in the woods. You might see if there is an orienteering club in your area.

–B.G.–

I got lost once on a night time potty break. Only one or two minutes from my shelter but it probably took 5 or 6 minutes to find my tent. It felt like 10 or 15. Very uneasy feeling. I could have yelled out to my hiking companions but I never got quite that desperate. Glad I have some distinguished company!

One of the 'greats' in Australian walking was Paddy Pallin. He wrote a book called 'Never Truly Lost'. But he did admit to be a bit confused for a day or two once or twice. Probably not original.

What works really well for night-time excursions is to leave a headlight glowing inside your tent. Not bright by any means, but when you stop and quietly focus for a moment, you can see the glow from a distance.

Cheers

Daniel Boone once said: "I've never been lost but I was bewildered a couple of times"

It's hardest in a forest with an overcast sky. That limits your ability to find clear landmarks…including the sun.

I've never been so lost that I couldn't find myself, but I have hiked to the top of a rise, only to discover that I was one mountain over from where I thought I was.

And my wife once got up in the middle of the night….and ten minutes later I had to shine a light on the tent and call her name before she could find her way back to it.

when this has happened to me, it's because I was tired or just not paying attention. Inevitably it happens not in the wilds but usually in campgrounds. somewhere there are a dozen backpackers who were probably really frustrated with me the night I wandered Little Yosemite Valley campsites with a headlamp looking for my hammock- I ran into someone else but unfortunately he was lost too. Together we shone lights in tent sites walking fast with chattering teeth until i did a 90 degree turn and nearly beheaded myself on my hammock suspension… it was very dark under those trees. In the morning I figured out there were not in fact ten orange tents, but one….

"Had to pull out the compass to sort myself out. I had almost no evidence to support my decision to walk that direction, but stuck with it out of laziness and haste."

An approach that has led too a most embarrassing result for me on two occasions. Like yourself, 90 degrees off course. But of course I knew the terrain so well that referring to a compass was unnecessary. A very humbling experience. There will be no
third time, needless to say.

I tend to have a pretty bad sense of direction in general. I've been lost a couple of times in the woods. I've had some experiences while lost, wherein i meditated with the intention of finding the right way, and it helped a lot.

I've gotten a bit off course many times (snow usually has a lot to do with it), but the times I've gotten off route enough for it to be a serious hazard or time suck without fail happened because I was too stubborn or rushed to stop and look at the darn map and compass. Minute wise, hour foolish.

Back in September I dropped my pack in the middle of a talus field to sneak over and get a closer look at a sheep, and of course after being engrossed with that for 30 minutes couldn't find my black pack at first. I'll build a little cairn or put it in a more obvious spot next time. Or try to remember to do so.

I have never been lost. I always know exactly where I am, right here! (Now how to get where I am going, that is a different question.) lol

My favorite lost story was one year coming down from Camp Muir in a whiteout. In general this is really not all that difficult, a couple of different compass headings to a couple of landmarks. As long as you stay on the heading you will do fine. Usually once you get to Panorama point it is pretty easy going.

Headed out from Muir one year with a climbing partner many years ago. Met three other climbers, one of whom was reputed to be a map and compass/orienteering wiz. (You all see where this is going don't you?)

After a number of hours of carefully picking our way down via compass I was a bit concerned to say the least, we should have hit Moon Rocks a long time before. I voiced my concerns, but was assured we were on the right track, just moving slowly. My concern turned to alarm when one of the party of three fell over small cliff. (Fortunately to aid in navigation we were all roped, saved him a much longer fall! We should not be near any cliffs!!!

At this point I finally spoke up again, and loudly! We had to be way off course to find any cliffs, and to continue at this point with no idea where we were was foolishness. We had two choices as far as I could see, hole up (literally it turned out) and wait for clearing or reverse our route back to Muir. As it was getting late, and the weather was even worse we dug a snow cave and set up my two man tent.

In the morning I took over the navigation chores. My skills were rudimentary, but at least relativly accurate. The weather was still bad, but there were occasional clear patches of blue sky above. While everyone struck camp, then impatiently waited I sat and waited for clearing skies that enabled me to find some landmarks. I would have preferred three, but settled for two, a sighting of the upper reaches of Rainier, and a sighting of the Tatoosh Range below gave me a good idea of where we were, just above the Nisqually Glacier! I was able to shoot a bearing and get us back on track.

What went wrong? Took me a bit of work at home with some time and the map to figure it out. (Some of you may have already guessed.) The navigation wiz set the declination to the west, not the east!

"I'll build a little cairn or put it in a more obvious spot next time. Or try to remember to do so."

Or maybe carry a swatch of UL red cloth that you could pull out and pull thru a compression cord on the pack?

I've noticed, since I was a child, that in most situations where I need to kept track of where I'm going (outside of backpacking) I will make an arbitrary decision about which way is north if I don't happen to already know.

OK, granted this sounds like a bad idea, but in a small-scale context where the ordinal points don't really matter it helps me keep track — e.g. let's call that end of the hay maze north! and then at least I can kept track of where I am in relation to that so-called North. micro-orientation.

This is not something I do deliberately – it's quasi subconscious, just how I'm wired. I don't know if it would work as well as a deliberate effort. But maybe deciding, or better yet actually knowing, OK I'm walking SE from my shelter, would help.

So that more or less boils down to what someone above suggested about what you observe.

But why is everyone walking so far to pee in the middle of the night?

You know that.

The times I've become disoriented I distinctly recall a very mild sense of panic setting in. That little nagging despair that if I don't find my way in the next few moments I am lost forever and will be sharing a cave with Sasquatch the rest of my life and my family and children will be telling stories about the day I went for a walk in the woods to take a leak…

And then I laugh at myself. I know I'm close so I sit to let the feeling subside. There's plenty of pretty trees to look at while that happens.

Works like a charm.

The funny thing was, the external pocket/compression panel on that pack is a blaze camo fabric for safety while hunting. Friggin thing blended into the orange lichen perfectly.

I always found orienteering to be great fun

+1

I thought I could navigate reasonably well until I tried orienteering. Holy smoke, 50yd accuracy simply doesn't cut it in the woods when you are looking for a little orange flag.

I got 'lost' hiking once in my youth. Your mind can play strange tricks until you realise that you might not be where you though you were.

I've had that happen at night a few times. I have a balance disorder and have to watch where my feet are going, especially at night. I often don't stop until just before dark, then setup my shelter, and start looking for a tree to hang my bear bag from. I'm looking where I'm stepping and not looking at landmarks. And I think I know how far I am from camp but I've found myself having to spend some time looking for it and a couple of times thought I was farther away and looked over to see my shelter only 30' away! I've been trying to get to camp earlier and now often get my rope up before pitching my shelter. Easier to pitch it in the dark than it is to search for a decent tree.

Earlier this year I started late on a Friday afternoon to head up to an area I know well but up a trail I'd never been on. Based on the distance, I had no doubts I'd get to where I wanted to camp by dark. I usually only bring my "backpacking dog" but brought my other dog, Kai, as well. The trails started off nice but we soon got into a massive blow down area and the trail was soon lost, or more accurately, hidden. It was in a drainage so it was obvious where I was heading but picking our way through the downed trees was difficult and time consuming. I had thought we'd just work our way through, regain the trail, and get to camp a little late. There was a lot of hitting dead ends and backtracking. After about 2 hours and no end in sight, I decided to give up and head back to the trailhead. I turn around and realize that nothing looks familiar and I'm going to have to work just as hard to find my way back. It would be a real challenge doing that in the dark, which it would be soon. But Kai starts off like she knows the way. And she does. She weaves us through the maze without hesitation and we make it back to the truck just as it gets dark. I guess she did it by smell. But however she did it, I was sure glad I brought her.

Twice when I've been in snow for several miles and a bit unsure if I was on route or the trail, I've followed coyote tracks that did in fact follow the trail. I'm guessing that the coyote just knew from experience that the trail would be easiest going.

Of course, I used other indicators and a map to help sort things out too.

"But why is everyone walking so far to pee in the middle of the night?"

That's what I'm wondering! I'm hardly all the way out of my tent.

I found last winter that one easy way to get lost is to assume that because this stream was fairly straight and "off to my left somewhere" does not necessarily help if it starts going straight "to the left" at any point out of sight. In my case I knew I couldn't miss it since it eventually hit the Mississippi river, but it definitely added a lot of time to my little snow shoe adventure. I think there's a name for that phenomenon, where our brains try to make landmarks seem consistently perpendicular or parallel.

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