Lost in the woods 1972

You learned a great lesson that day and told a fine story today. I myself fell through the ice after fishing on Walloon lake. I was about 17 when it happened and was not really scared about it until two days later. I'm 78 now and afraid to go out on any water!

Spent my life on water, but when I moved to the coast I found a different natured beast. My vessels never leave shore without an abundance of water.

That doesn't qualify as being lost, just a little turned around. I've been in similar situations a couple of times

I used to coon hunt with my father when i was a kid. We would go to places we never hunted in the dark before. And on a coon hunt. You never know where the hounds will take you. My dad told me how to use the north star. And on cloudy nights. To make note of what side the mountain is on when heading in. Then to follow it back out with it opposite of the side it was on before.

I became a volunteer fireman in 1984. Since then I've been on three multi agency, multi day, missing persons manhunts.
Only one of the missing persons searches had a happy ending.

One remote evacuation of injured hunter, who fell from a treestand and broke his back.


My county is not very remote. It is pretty well populated. You don't really think of anyone getting too lost in this area, but it happens.

Hunting and fishing can be dangerous, especially when the weather turns bad.
Taking a few small precautions could be huge.

First time I ever went small game hunting with my dad when I was a kid, I got us pretty turned around. I was 12 or 13 at the time, just passed my hunter safety course. In that course, they drill into you how compasses work, and how important it is to not have and ferrous metal around to throw them off, you know, like gun barrels. Well, I made the classic mistake of holding a break action shotgun over my left arm, and using a compass in my right hand. And darned if always wasn't facing due East. We finally made it out to the road just about as the sun was going down. A couple of miles from where the truck was, but nothing tragic. Definitely never made that mistake twice

I sympathize with the helpless feeling of being lost and re-evaluating ones options.

While it was not hunting related, had to go to Puerto Rico for a work project. Flew into San Juan and rented a car to travel to the southern part of the island near Ponce. Road signs are not what they are in the U.S. Daylight was fading, found myself lost on a dirt road in a sugar cane field, fuel tank on "E", and a hurricane warnings for the next 48 hours. Can count from one to ten in Spanish and that's the extent of knowing the language in a foreign country. Parked the car, poured over a map and found a way out by shear luck.

Another lost experience, flew into San Paulo, Brazil and took a commuter flight west to my destination, bad weather prevented the plane from landing because the airport had no ability for instrument landing. Had to fly 300 miles further to land and then take a bus back to the original destination. I don't speak Portuguese, no phones, riding on a bus through the Brazilian jungle at night....not having control of where you're going or communicating with anyone that speaks the same language makes you wonder how you'll get out of it all. No one knew where I was for over eight hours....and I had no way to tell them. Only two of us on the bus when it finally stopped and was able to use a phone.

A compass is a very welcome companion when the fog rolls in. Unfortunately it seems many youths of today know little or nothing of that technology or how it can be used. Maybe the point of the op’s story was not about being lost, but to be more prepared.

The bare survival essentials can easily be
pocket carried, but for whatever reason
people in the 21st century are loathe to carry anything on their person besides their phone

H&R Glock said:

You learned a great lesson that day and told a fine story today. I myself fell through the ice after fishing on Walloon lake. I was about 17 when it happened and was not really scared about it until two days later. I'm 78 now and afraid to go out on any water!

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Don't blame you. Great looking Doxie you have BTW.

We have family land 200 acres of woods I'm comfortable Knowing it and land marks I bought a topo map of the area and carry 2 compasses.
The 4 Grand kids don't get a break. They get a compass, instruction, and are in charge of getting us in and out.
You know how cool it is when a 15 y/o Girl gets it right, despite my attempts to mislead then and hauls out her first deer!

Best comment, she ever made was, " G-pa reverse Azimuth much?

gps on your phone, and i think bushnell sales a smal gps unit for unger 100.00.

I have always had an innate sense of direction and distance, (Good thing the Artillery never found out, I'd have had a forced change in MOS!) here's a couple examples;
When we were on an FTX, the Repo Depot and the 7ths PSC played our OPFOR. A friend and I, on our own time, found their camp which was laid out like a laager, in a big circle. It was a short artillery shot away from our camp. I had guessed the direction from their nightly infiltration attempts. (I'd sit with a pair of PVS-5 and watch them come in, then light them up with the MILES) Serge and I went out the next day and found their camp while they were all at the Family Field Day, where the families could come out to our camp, eat, get helicopter rides, tour the camp, etc. We stole their CPT's shelter half, tucked neatly under his bunk, as proof we were there. We went back to the TOC and told the SF CPT I worked for about this, and he thought it would be fun to raid their camp. Unfortunately, he couldn't come with, (OD duty) but there was an E-5 that wanted to come, so we let him. (Big mistake) After we started out, even though Serge and I knew exactly where the camp was, Sgt. Stupid insisted in trying out his non-existent Night Land Nav skills out. About 600 yards from the actual camp, he insisted the camp was just over the next hill. (It was in fact over the hill after that...) So he got everybody ready for the big frontal assault , and they (Serge and I hung back and watched the spectacular charge at nothing) ran screaming and shooting at nothing. We kindly informed the Sgt. we would guide the group in from there. He agreed, (thinking we'd mess up worse than him! ) and we set up in a semicircle around their laager. (we didn't have enough people to ring them.) Surprisingly, our Charge of the Light-Headed Brigade hadn't tipped them off that we were there. Even the fumblenutz setting up didn't clue them in. They were acting so Condition White, I assumed it was a trap. (It wasn't, later on we found out they thought the shooting earlier was farther away than it was.) After we got in real close and still no detection, I low crawled into the middle of the laager, stood up, flipped the switch to full, opened up and spun in a circle, and dropped to the ground and low crawled out without anything more but the the 'hiss' sound near misses make on the MILES system. I got back out to the perimeter and joined in on picking off the OPFOR troops, until their 1SG called cease fire. Serge had dashed into their TOC, and taken the CPT captive. We were all engaging in a lively AAR exchange, with the 1SG insisting we did not get into his perimeter, in his best Drill Sgt. voice. I respectfully disagrees, telling him what I'd done to initiate action. Just then, Serge come out, rifle barrel at the CPT's back. (The 1SG had his back to this) I said, " Hey CPT K, tell the first sergeant that we got inside his perimeter!" The CPT confirmed it, and Top blew up at his people, almost all Ranger/Airborne patch holders.
Some of the best fun I had when I was in.

and an actual hunting one:

Dad and I were duck hunting on Lake Lizzie, in NW MN. The lake is divided into a blue water lake, and a brown water slough by a narrow pass on the SE corner of the open part of the lake.
There was heavy fog when we started out, and and I was the appointed motor for the day. (Oars) He kept running us in circles (dad appointed himself navigator) and I told him that, to no avail, and him getting madder by the moment. I told him were were 500 yards straight out from our campsite. When the fog started lifting right about the time we should have been finishing setting decoys, that's exactly where we were, and to my surprise, my Dad admitted he was wrong. I told him "Don't ever doubt my abilities again". He hasn't since.

I breezed through Land Nav training in ROTC, Basic and ARTEPs, without actually having to use the map, except as an initial reference.

I've tracked deer for miles through areas I'd never been before and never been lost. I wish I could say it's a skill, but it's just there. Nice thing to have.

I've got quite a few similar stories. If you don't get a little twisted up from time to time you must not like to explore new territory. Or this:

entropy said:

I have always had an innate sense of direction and distance

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My Dad was like that. Unfortunately I didn't inherit that trait!

I always had a great sense of direction orientation but it failed me once. Could have been real serious. I grew up hunting in the Midwest and later hunted in the mountains where you can always see your landmarks. First time hunting far north Minnesota where you can’t see much more than 25 yards in most places. I had hiked into 12k acres of wilderness. When it got late and temp was dropping I headed back. I carried a compass and had checked waypoints but I didn’t trust the compass because of high iron content in the boulders and it didn’t agree with my “sense”. Compass was right I was wrong. Finally sorted myself out and made it back to camp with a tired flashlight beam on the last of its last battery and the other hunters organizing a search for me.

eastbank said:

gps on your phone, and i think bushnell sales a smal gps unit for unger 100.00.

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And batteries never die..?

yes they do, but i never had one do it when needed. i always put a new one in when i start deer season and pack a extra one for the bushnell. i have had cell phones for 7-8 years now and never had a battery go bad and they have been track phones(use them a year and toss them). i used a gps to find a zebra i shot in boswana and couldn,t get to retrive in untill after dark .

I get turned around a lot at night since I seem to have night blindness. If it happens early in the morning, no sweat. I just sit down and wait for daylight BUT if it happens in the evening, I get pretty spooked. I don't want to spend the night with gators and snakes.

@entropy
That was hilarious! Good on you!

I was good at finding and harassing the OPFORS
Loved it when the LT or Capt would call a few of us to his TAC OPS CENTER and say,
"Men, you are now a recon squad." "Go find them"

Lots of stories, but the funniest one is finding 2 PFC's on a listening post.
Got thier radio,call signs, and codes. It was on their R flank our left.
Used their radio to call his higher higher and say we got massive movement in front of us.
Then called my boss who once we told him they shifted to strenthen Their R flank He got his boss to hit their left flank.
We won.

I worked as a surveyor for 40 years. People laugh when I tell them I was truly lost once in a Juniper forest in N. AZ south of the Grand Canyon. Fortunately I knew how to use the sun and time of day to get a decent bearing. I also had a topo map with the some landmarks and contours on it. I was looking for a section corner but I was distracted by an archeological site I stumbled across. After that I made sure I had a compass and a topo map. This was before handheld GPS was a thing. Once I had that I always marked the trucks position before I wandered off into the great unknown. I tried to find the site several times after that but was unsuccessful. I don't think anyone knew it's location. It may still be unknown.

I've taken survival classes and desert survival classes B4 GPS. Not to mention boy scouts. Always have a TOPO map and a compass. Worst place to get lost is the desert.
“There is fear in being lost, but if the place being lost is beautiful, then there is fear in being found!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

Good thread with hunting season coming up. People go where they might be not used to being.

We muzzle loader hunted in Pa at a place called Cogley. My uncles always told me not to cross a particular crick. If we did and we got turned around we could have a 25 mile walk to find the next road.
That was in January and was usually around 5 below zero when the sun went down. We all carried an over night pack with lots of matches, fire starting stuff, and extra food and some water. They always told us that if we get lost and know we're spending the night to not waste our time trying to find our way out, but to use that time to gather fire wood, find a water source, and build a good sized fire before the sun went down and hunker down for the night.
We would take paper snuff cans, cut strips of corrugated box board and roll them up inside the snuff cans. Then dump them full of melted candle wax.
Pull the end in the center up for a wick and use them to start fires. They will burn for quite a while.
I'm glad I still have mine, I never had to use them.

We did have an incident in Pa where a local who new the woods in his area very well was visiting a neighbor about a quarter mile away and was on foot. The weather turned that night and it started snowing hard, and his friends wanted to drive him home but he wouldn't hear of it.
He got turned around in the woods and didn't make it home.

They found him the next morning froze to a tree where he was sitting at the base of it, he must not have been able to go any further.

It's easy to get turned around, especially when it starts snowing, snow will completely change the land scape.

Nice story, great ending!

Never been "that" lost, and I'm not a survivalist who runs around cavorting in the depths of the wilderness.

However, I believe there are two important factors to remember under these circumstances:

1. Remain calm. Panicking doesn't help and wastes time/energy.
2. THINK. People are often smarter than they credit themselves. There are a LOT of little things that can help when lost.

I remember once upon a time, back in the early/mid 70's when I was about 9-10 years old, watching an episode of Shazam! one Saturday morning during cartoons when Billy Batson was lost in the desert with another character. Unable to utter "Shazam" in his presence and thus save the day, Billy figured out how to tell which direction was East in mid-day by planting a stick in the ground and aiming it at the sun. In a few minutes, the stick's shadow appeared and pointed towards the East, saving them hours of time in the desert heat.

It's small things like this that make a big difference...simply understanding a little bit about how the world works around us. How insulation works, which translates into understanding leaves can be used to keep one from suffering excessive cold at night. How landmarks on one side during a hike means they should be on the opposite side during the return. Small things make a big difference.