Has anyone ever been lost?

[deafdave3]

Has anyone ever been (genuinely) lost in the wilderness? It doesn't matter what kind of wilderness it is; Arctic, tropical, sub-tropical, desert, Atchafalaya Basin (), humid, dry, anything..... at least overnight? How did you fare? What happened to lead this way?

I once was lost in the Texas Hill Country, but it was a horrible experience. Not something I want to remember... or happen again.

[kyratshooter]

I got lost in Cincinnati about a year ago. I made a wrong turn, went up Vine street and wound up in "Over the Rine"!

Scariest thing that has ever happened to me!

I managed to dodge the panhandlers, drug dealers, crackwhores, then it got bad. I came out the other side and found myself in the university section!

Liberals, college professors and yuppies!

I had nightmares for weeks!!!!

[WolfVanZandt]

Nope. I've been misplaced for a while though.

Actually, I've never been lost overnight but I have a regular at the SEHowl that requests that we get lost in the Sipsey Wilderness at least once before she goes home and we do our best to accommodate her.

[Echo2]

Got turned around in the Cranberry Glades in WV......around noon til 4 or so.....thought I was going to have to stay over night.

Knew my general location....and knew there was a service road due south from me about 2.5 to 3 miles....Terrain sucked though.

About to give up on finding the road when I saw a guys head bobbing and moving.....he was on a horse.....on the road.

Didn't catch up to him....but happy as hell to find the road.

I had a knife, Ruger MKII, and a small daypack....most gear was at camp...

Not panicked...just not looking forward to the suck factor of spending the night outside a nice sleeping bag.

Made it back to camp around sunset. The guys I was with had sent someone to the high ridge to look for smoke.

They figured that since they saw no smoke....I was either dead or on my way back........that a bunch of buddies for ya.

[Desert Rat!]

I have been lost in both San Francisco and Los Angeles other than that no, well maybe confused for a bit .

[Old GI]

Never lost; just "temporarily misoriented".

[hunter63]

Most of the Wisconsin area's I'm in are divided up every mile in a grid pattern........so it's hard to do, Colorado, the mountain is the mountain, Wyoming you can see 30 miles, Missouri was a little dicey being on the wrong ridge at dark.....Louisiana, brush so thick, you can't get very far off the road.....

So, no not really, although I have someone move my truck a few times....Oh yeah and almost ran out of gas driving around Lincoln County Forest in a blizzard once......

[deafdave3]

.....Louisiana, brush so thick, you can't get very far off the road......

Oh, I've been lost in the basin once for a few hours. Had my six year old daughter with me. Boy, she was pissed that I got us lost. She didn't talk to me for days after that. We eventually walked up to the Atchafalaya River and walked the length of it till we found a boat landing. I'm tellin' ya... the basin will eat you up if you not prepared for it.

[teemmah]

Been lost in Russia forest 2 months

[crashdive123]

Been lost in Russia forest 2 months

Oh goodness. You'll have to explain that one a bit more.......drove through your town earlier today.

[jfeatherjohn]

I can't really say that I ever didn't know where I was, but I have experienced not knowing exactly where I was going. Does that count?
Been stranded, though; I suppose that feels similiar.

[Highhawk1948]

Was lost in the White Mountains of New Hampshire for an afternoon and half the night. Snow on the ground and overcast. I kept finding my own tracks and really got turned around. I stayed in one place at dark. Glad my wife came looking for me and honked the horn several times so I could get a fix on it. Was 50 yards from the road. Just had the clothes on my back with a good goosedown jacket and a folding knife. Didn't panic, I've spent a lot of nighttimes in the woods, just mad at myself. Never have gone off road without a compass since and that was the winter 1995.

[gohammergo]

I've been lost for s short while. Hours. Not that a person could get really "lost" since there were roads on all four sides of me, but I was turned around and thought I knew my way back to the truck. Even though there was a road running north/south and I was east of that, and I knew that if I headed west I would hit that road. I checked the compass and it didn't "feel" right so I ignored it and kept walking and ending up nowhere. THEN I decided to trust it, and walked through a stand of trees about a hundred yards wide.... and stepped out on the road about fifty feet away from my truck. Sobering experience, but a teaching one too.

[WolfVanZandt]

I could tell stories, though (lot of 'em).

I had a cabin Howl on Fort Mountain in Georgia once. One of the other Howlers had gone up early and set up a campsite in one of the backcountry areas and kept it so we could go out and roast marshmallows by his fire - and, he had found a shortcut down to it from the road that it looped around. So one night we all loaded up and drove out to the spot where we could go through the woods to his site and it worked quite well, except......as we went down the hill I flipped on my flashlight and looked around and found that we were in a broads expanse of poison ivy. He allowed as it didn't matter since he was immune to it. Unfortunately, I was not. But we did make it to the campsite and roasted our marshmallows.

On the way back up, though, the road failed to materialize. You understand, I had just had a heart catheterization about a month before and my chest was beginning to burn rather ominously so I staked claim to the little piece of dirt I was on and sent the others ahead to find the shortest route up (and I do mean "up") to the road. They finally found it and I made it to the van without a serious coronary. (Actually, the van wasn't there where we came out and we had to scout around a little to find it.)

[Sarge47]

I was on this canoe trip with all of my guns in the bottom when several large 'gators hit the canoe sending me overboard and all of my guns to the bottom of the river. Then I was splashing around when I found myself surrounded by hungry 'gators. They headed right for me and I knew I couldn't escape. Right about then I wish I'd been lost in the woods instead of out there in the water.

[deafdave3]

...... Then I was splashing around when I found myself surrounded by hungry 'gators.....

When I was a child, I was taught that if that ever happened, be completely still and do not splash.

Yeah, right.

[canid]

Never lost; just "temporarily misoriented".

This--^

I'm sure everybody who has ever been lost and is still alive feels this way; it's something of a slippery slope. Still, I've never been seriously lost, but I have a horrible sense of direction.

[crashdive123]

In this thread http://www.wilderness-survival.net/f...ight=blue+tarp Sourdough was telling of a person lost/survival story when low and behold in post #34 that individual weighed in.

[Wildthang]

I was doing seismographic surveys on Redondo Peak in New Mexico, which is located in what the locals call Baca Land. The recorder was on the peak at 10,500 feet elevation, so we had to change reels on it every day. The day we got stranded up there was a clear sunny day but very windy. We drove to the recorder site, made sure all of the stations were being received, and put on a new reel. We sat in the truck for a few minutes and ate our lunch, smoked cigarettes, and shot the bull.
As we were going back down the road that wound down the mountain, we ran into a patch of snow that was at least 6 foot deep that was not there on the way in. The wind had picked up the fresh snow and blew it up the mountain and it collected right on the road in that spot. There was probably a 1/4 mile stretch that was coverd in deep snow.
We had a 3/4 ton 4X4 Ford, and tried to keep ramming our way through the snow until the front differential went out, and that was it, we were stuck.
We always carried emergency provisions, and had 2 almost full tanks of fuel in the truck, so we were in no immenant danger, but this was a place where nobody ever went, not even the pouchers!
After 3 nights on Redondo, I decided that I was going to walk out and find some help. It was probably 15 miles down the mountain because of the way the road wound around going down, so I knew I was in for a long hike. Once I reached the bottom of the mountain, I topped a hill and could see an oil rig that looked like it was around 5 miles away, but there was no road heading off in that direction. I decided to peel off the road and went cross country to reach the rig. I got lost several times in the woods because I didn't have a compass with me, so I would have to find high ground and get a view of the rig every chance I got. There were plenty of high spots I would find that did not have a clear visual line to the rig, so I did a lot of ups and downs trying to keep a heading. It took 2 days to find that rig, and I was exhausted by the time I found it. It was actually 10 or 15 miles from where I first spotted the oil rig, so judging distance in the mountains can be deceiving to say the least!
An oil rigger took me back to Jamos Springs where we were staying and I found a guy with a snow cat to take me back up the mountain to get Joe and the truck. I never went anywhere after that without a compass!

[Stiffy]

Got lost in the northern Black Hills while hunting as a teenager. Heavy snow developed after I left camp and I had not scouted the area in advance. I wandered around without a clue and after a few hours came across a four wheel drive road, then followed it back and made it home (to camp). I was completely unprepared, with only my rifle and a knife. Fortunately, I was dressed warm. The biggest lesson I learned from that is to not go into unfamiliar areas in the winter.