Have you ever been REALLY lost out in the woods?

[Outwest]

I most always know where I am at.
It's just sometimes I am not sure where I started.

John

[KHALVERSON]

bewildred a couple times
lost once

got drug into an unfamilar area by a couple buddies on a so called for sure short blood trail
no compass
wandered around for a couple hours till we came to the road and then walked a mile back to the truck

[Izzy]

Not personally but one of the most entertaining things Ive ever seen was one of my cousinns running frantically down an Adirondack Mt. (Sawyer Mt.) scared out of his wits.  The look on his face after I laughed out loud as he passed me was priceless. That sucker still hasnt forgiven me 25 years later but its worth the laughs to this day. Then theres the story of my other cousin in the South Carolina swamps that I aint telling, he'd be crushed right out his woodsman persona.          

[Gump21Bravo]

Got turned around quite a few times while walking in the mountains of Afghanistan. landmarks, terrain features and a compass solved the problem.

With a little extra motivation from the Taliban... we were home by dark.

Craig

[Terry Lightle]

yep!

[joe ashton]

A good mountaineer never gets lost, however, from time to time, they may get confused.  You should always be prepared for LONG PERIODS OF CONFUSION!

I've been confused twice for a couple of hours each. Never for an extended time.  God bless

[Sam McMichael]

Turned around for a while a couple of times but nothing serious.

[Hud]

Not lost, but sometimes I couldn't see either. I got caught in heavy fog, once, in the Blue Mountains (SE WA) hunting elk. It was impossible to see more than a couple feet, but I was on a trail headed down a ridge and back to camp. Walking slowly through a group of trees, I found myself in the middle of a dozen or so elk, bedded along the same trail. They couldn't see either and obviously were caught on the trail when the fog hit the valley. When they got up and started running, they left a trail of broken limbs and small trees in their wake. Several ran by close enought to touch.  

I have been caught out after dark, and in heavy snow fall, and each time I knew, how to find my way back to camp, or the truck. If I am in unfamiliar area, I make a point of getting back early, and always take a flash light, head lamb, and batteries. Emergency items are always with me, if I am far from camp.

[KSdan]

Turned around. . . stranded for the night in CO rockies elk hunting.  Found my way out in AM.

[JAG]

I spent a WEEK, ONE NIGHT, in the woods!          

[Sixby]

Two times in blizzard white outs. God delivered me safely. Once many years ago in the Blue Mountains of Oregon in am area I had never hunted before. Again God delivered me when I crossed an old trail and recognized a rock in the trail that I had seen when I walked in in the morning. that was a bad one because I was soaked to the skin and it turned off cold. My matches were soaked and I was getting hypothermic.

At that time I was not used to hunting in the west with such large areas with no roads. I was used to hunting by landmarks and did not carry a compass. From that time foreward I do not leave the truck without a survival pack and a good compass and fire making materials.

God bless you all, Steve

[ron w]

Originally posted by Converml:
Nothing overnight but the New York isn't Montana or Alaska      

I have not been lost...confused maybe. But don't you think for one minute that you can't get lost in the Adirondacks of New York. Behind my camp to the north it's 30 miles to the next road. I have bumped into guys that have been walking the wrong way for 2 days, had to help them out to the road and then give them a ride back to their car.

[BWD]

Yep, coon hunting.

[Hoyt]

I was chin deep in a slough with water hyacinths bumping my nose, off the St. John's River on a new moon night. Sliding one foot ahead of the other to try and find shallow water and a way out.

Couldn't see my hand in front of my face. If that counts as lost, I have been once.

[threeunder]

Been temporarily misplaced a couple of times.  But, thankfully, never truly lost.
Ken

[MAGICMAN]

Got turned around on some new property I was scouting. Didn't take a compass or light!!!( big mistake) I felt like Gillian on a small tour turned into late into the night. I couldn't see the sun due to tree canopy. Got worried and had my buddy come & honk his horn at the road to get a general direction. Finally popped out on the road LATE that night about 1/2 mile from the truck. I'll have to admit I was pretty worried the whole time!

[mrjsl]

I spent the night in the swamp one night coon hunting. I wasn't really lost, but my truck was. The truck with the bag on the hood that had my compass in it.

[BowMIke]

Twice.
Once a group of us searched all over the Ontario woods for a bear that had been arrowed, when we finally located it we had several different ideas on which way the road was located. We finally hit the road and only had to walk a couple miles to find or vehicles.

Second time.  I shot a nice bear in Ontario, could see it fall from my treestand and heard the death moan. While taking pictures and admiring the bear it got dark and I thought I would just cut over to hit the trail I had entered on and save some backtracking to the stand sight. Well, several hundred yards later I realized I hadn't hit the trail. So I decided the smart thing to do would be to just wait for my fellow bear hunters to check out why I hadn't shown up. I sat on a log for an hour or so, until they arrived and I could see there flashlights.
I knew if I  couldn't find the road there were no other roads. So setting down was spooky, but the safest thing to do.

[RkyMtn Joe]

Many years ago as a boy of about 8 years of age, my dad started teaching me to use a compass.  We would go into the Hatchee Bottoms in West Tennessee at night, and then navigate with the compass.  He told me many times that it was a temtation sometimes to not trust the thing, but I should always believe in it.

Many years later out on the high Plains of Kansas in a white-out, I was tempted to mistrust my compass but thankfully I remember my dad's warning.  It delivered me safely to the road and my vehicle although I truly believed saftey was in the opposite direction.

I've been "turned around" numerous times over the years but my faithful old compass kept me from straying.

Joe

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Once upon a time, we were hunting some seriously steep country on the Oregon coast for elk and had a very long night. it was an evening hunt into a small meadow surrounded by shear cliffs on 3 sides. There were game trails coming into the small clearing from all 3 sides, but if you got off those trails you were toast.

The meadow was only about a half mile from the logging road where we left our quads. We had spotted elk coming and going through this meadow right before dark for 3 day in a row from a look out across the canyon. So we decided to go into the area in the late afternoon and set up an ambush.

There were two of us set up way out on the point near the edge of the cliff, and as the sun started dropping over the ridge, we could hear the elk coming a long way off making their way up those rocky goat trails ..... unfortunately we had a fog bank come in ahead of the elk herd. I'm talking about fog so thick you couldn't see 10 feet ahead of you in daylight. right about dark i saw about 6 elk pass in front of me at 20 yards, and could barely see their hoofs. it was pretty exciting until it got full dark. A flash light in thick fog blinds you worse than not using one at all sometimes, so it was slow moving as i back tracked the way i thought I'd come in. one minute the trail was at my feet, and the next it was gone completely.... i could hear my partner cussing and stumbling around not far off saying he couldn't find the dad burn trail. We finally met up in the meadow where it flattened out and built a small fire. 38 degrees and fog can get you in trouble in a hurry, but falling off a cliff at night will get you dead.

It was a long night trying to stay warm, but we stayed put. The fog didn't lift till 10 am the next morning before we could make our way back to the trail we came in on.

So i guess were weren't lost in a sense.... but it certainly feels like it, when the world disappears on you.   kirk