You Ever Get Turned Around In The Woods?

[noharleyyet]

Once, briefly, after sundown while elk hunting...unsettling feeling. Have a good friend who still deals with apprehension from having to be S&R'd in the Weminuche Wilderness over a decade ago.

 

[Gerald Martin]

I have never been lost. The trail on the other hand, has sometimes not been where it was supposed to be…

 

[GrantK]

I've walked some circles in heavy fog, always an interesting moment when you cut your own track, I also had the very disconcerting experience of thinking I was walking west on a ridge for about an hour in fog before it got light, visibility of about 5 feet with a headlamp, only to have the sun come up directly in front of me...

 

[Dougfirtree]

I can totally relate. I've become very confident in my sense of where I am, but there's a flat section of forest where I've been hunting for the last couple of seasons and it is a reality-bending vortex. There's one small area where sometimes I literally have to walk through it looking at my phone, or compass to keep from circling. It's a surreal and unsettling feeling. I call it the Withywindle Valley (which any serious Tolkien fan will understand).

 

[Oak]

Anyone have any stories of times they got turned around in the woods?

Yes, I have experienced it twice, and both times were situations almost identical to yours.

The first time I was 16 and hunting deer with my step-dad in the Mt Zirkel Wilderness in September. We spent the morning hiking through some pretty non-descript subalpine forest with scattered openings. It was foggy and snowy with low visibility and at some point we decided we were wasting our time and we needed to head for the truck. In this case, I knew my step-dad was not walking in the right direction, but I just followed until we ran into our own tracks. He looked at me, pretty concerned, and I told him I knew he was walking in a circle and pointed in the direction of the truck. He told me to lead and we went straight to it.

The second time was maybe 15 years ago. A friend and I were deer hunting and had hiked down through a relatively open lodgepole forest to some sagebrush parks. We worked our way around the edges and pretty soon the weather rolled in. It started snowing and got really foggy. We could only see maybe 50-60 yards at the most. We decided to catch a ridge and head back up the very gentle slope to the road a mile or so above to where the truck was parked.

We walked through the lodgepole for a while and suddenly cut some very fresh human tracks in the snow. Two sets. Ours. Neither one of us could believe it. I dug my GPS out of my pack and started using it to navigate back to the road. As you said, it felt like we were fighting the GPS. We kept veering to the left of the line we needed to take. It sounds ridiculous, but we literally had to walk in what felt like a right hand circle in order to walk straight up the ridge to the road. Very disconcerting.

 

[Nameless Range]

It sounds ridiculous, but we literally had to walk in what felt like a right hand circle in order to walk straight up the ridge to the road. Very disconcerting.

This is the part that was really unbelievable and almost kind of gives me the heebie-jeebies.

We basically did two loops here, and while doing so were under the impression we were walking in a generally straight direction.

Weird.

 

[Oak]

Were you walking clockwise or counter? Do people walk in the other direction in the southern hemisphere?

 

[RyGuy]

I’ve had this happen, twice! I also consider myself to be good at finding my way to and fro. Usually I don’t need a gps or map or anything even if I’ve never been somewhere before.
Once, a couple of my buddies and I got “stuck” in a small ag field while antelope hunting. It was super foggy and we walked around in circles in this little field for a long time. What was interesting is that I seemed to want to circle to the left, my one buddy always circled to the right. Depending on who was “leading us the heck outa there” determined what direction of circle we were going.
Eventually we had to use a compass to maintain one consistent direction

 

[Redman]

Prior to GPS I paid more attention to my map and compass and didn't argue with it.
In 2015 I had my GPS and was hunting in an area that I had archery hunted many times and knew it like the back of my hand. Well it was rifle season and there was knee deep snow. I headed to a spot I knew and ran into a rock wall that I had never been to before. Huh who put that there?? I will just head towards the creek....who moved the creek? OK I will pull out my GPS. Wel that thing is obviously wrong and has no clue where camp is...what a piece of junk. No worries I have my compass and it knows camp is North! What the freaking compass is wrong too!! Ok follow my tracks back....ohhhh but wait the down pour of snow has erased them. Well I know this place no worries....hummm nothing looks familiar. Ok let's try the GPS again....nope it is still wrong but let's see where it takes us and at least the wife will have a good lawsuit on Garmin when and if they find my remains next spring. Hummm that looks like someone has the same tent as I do...maybe they can tell me where I am at. Well crap the GPS and compass were spot on and not wrong after all! Very very humbling experience and once I realized it and looked at my tracks on the GPS it all made sense.

 

[Stocker]

My first elk hunt when I was 14. I split up from my uncle in some dark timber, I got to chasing a herd of elk, next thing I knew I was doing circles. Being a flatlander and using visual points for navigation I finally just started to head uphill to get a view. Finally made it back to camp about an hour after dark. I don’t remember being scared so much as I thought my uncle would be pissed I got lost. Turns out he was relieved he didn’t have to call my mom and say he lost me.

 

[LopeHunter]

Twice have thought was in a straight line to the destination and "crossed my tracks" as some of you have.

First time was a rifle deer hunt near Mt. Hood where I needed to hike 2 miles to get to where would backpack camp. I parked the truck and figured in about 40 minutes I would bust out of the timber and the last part of the hike was mostly open meadow. After 50 minutes of deadfall, ravines and a creek that looked like would kill me if I tried to cross, I stopped to have a drink of water. A buddy insisted I take his GPS with me so I have marked the truck as parked. I fired up the GPS and it said I was 80 yards from the truck. Ha! I was ready to prove how bad GPS was in big timber so humored myself to followed the track to "the truck" and when the tailgate was visible though some blackberry vines I almost crapped myself. I had also gone in a big loop. Lesson learned.

Years later I have my own GPS and was archery hunting for elk just south of Flagstaff. I hunt until dark so was walking back to the truck. Fired up the GPS, started busting a straight line for the 1.5 miles to the truck. Stopped after about 20 minutes to recheck the GPS and I was way off track. I did not think I had drifted much but there is scrub oak and prickly things so I guess my gut instinct on direction was off kilter that evening. I began hiking. Checked GPS again. Crap, way off and had only walked about 20 minutes more. As I was holding the GPS, it spun. I was in the midst of some iron-bearing rock apparently. Had never seen that. I knew I was within a mile or two of a major road and that was to my west. I listened and could hear a semitruck passing to my right so knew that was west and I needed to go south. I picked a star for reckoning as was now black as coal on a moonless night and I arrived at the truck in about 70 minutes. I had turned a 40 minute hike into almost 2 hours of hiking. Another lesson learned.

 

[Deleted member 52098]

Never out west... well not since I was a kid, but the MA woods are very humbling.

This crap is so hard to move through you find yourself doing circles in under 50 yards.

View attachment 246206

This is a fact. Used to go for runs when I would visit my mom out there and I would get lost all the time. Everything looks the same and the forests are thick... until they suddenly end and you're in a subdivision you had no idea was there

 

[trb]

I am usually pretty solid with direction, but recently hiking through a thick fog bank I realized how reliant I have become on peaks and ridges to orient given that I live in CO.

 

[MNElkNut]

This is the part that was really unbelievable and almost kind of gives me the heebie-jeebies.

We basically did two loops here, and while doing so were under the impression we were walking in a generally straight direction.

Weird.


View attachment 246215

Interesting that you made a number of very sharp turns. Were you aware that you were making sharp turns or not? If not, that had to be a major surprise. The one just north of the white star where you make a sharp left turn just inside the the timber and then a fairly sharp right turn, then a left, then right, then left is interesting.

 

[jbseamus83]

I was about 17 and hunting a buddy's property in TX where I grew up. I had only hunted the place one other time with him, but I was solo on this day. I was trying to still hunt. I had no gps or compass (not that I would have known at the time how to use it accurately). I knew they had cattle fences on their property, so crossing a fence wasn't too bothersome to me. A couple hours into my hunting I see a REALLY nice buck. I'm trying to set up for a shot. Then, I see a truck rolling through the other end of the field. It is green and has a TPWD sticker on the side. It was at that moment that I realized I might not be on my buddy's property anymore. Being young and dumb I hit the ground and hid. The truck moved on past. I attempted to head back in the direction I had come from hoping that I would find the house. However, I ended up hitting a highway. There was a ranch house across the road, so I went over to it and left my rifle by a tree in the yard and went and knocked on the door. I had no idea whose house it was. An older lady answered and I explained I had been hunting and lost track of where I was and asked if she could point me in the right direction. She asked where I needed to get to and I told her the family's name on whose land I was supposed to me on. She chuckled and let me know I had ended up several miles away. She loaded me up in her car and drove me back to their house.
When I told my buddy about what happened, he shook his head at me and let me know that the land I almost shot the buck on belonged to the local game warden. If I had shot that deer, It would have been by trespassing and poaching on the game warden's land...

 

[Nameless Range]

Interesting that you made a number of very sharp turns. Were you aware that you were making sharp turns or not? If not, that had to be a major surprise. The one just north of the white star where you make a sharp left turn just inside the the timber and then a fairly sharp right turn, then a left, then right, then left is interesting.

Mostly I think those sharp turns were just going around features - piles of deadfall, wet spots, etc - always under the impression though, that we were correcting for it after the avoidance.

Ha! I really have no excuses other than it was bad orienteering and I am still baffled.

 

[BuzzH]

Henry Frapp : Hmmm... been fearsome confused for a month or two, but I ain't never been lost!

 

[Fencepost]

Got lost about 4 or 5 years ago. Elk hunting with a buddy in the swan Valley. He knew the area and I didn't. Started from the truck 5 am. we get into this series of rolling hills and water spots. I had onx so did he. We split up. an hour or so later I jump a little swamp stream deal though I was gonna land on land but that was not the case .bloop bloop bloop... there goes my phone out my bino harness in the drink. Well there goes that GPS. HTH do I get out of here. Start looking around nothing looked familiar to me. It started to get dark . I got nervous . Wet cold didn't know where I was had gotten myself turned around didn't really know which direction I went..made fire then it got dark. And damn quiet. Then all of a sudden I see headlights and hear a truck start. Holy sh!/. I was lost withing a few hundred yards of the truck . I make it back to the truck buddy was warming it up and said where in the hell did you go. My response was I'm not really sure dude but I made it back.. he never knew I misplaced my brain that day.

 

[Bambistew]

I've got turned around in the dark a few times. Navigating in the brush/woods is pretty tough without an aid.

Just this fall, after I shot my moose (or was looking for blood in the dark). I pointed myself towards the crest of the ridge and dove into the willows. After about 30 min and not making it across the 200 yard swath, i pulled out my gps, and found that I was paralleling the stream vs crossing it, and had walked nearly 500 yards through the brush and wasn't even half way across the willow patch.

A long time ago, we were tracking some moose in the snow/fog, and on the return trip back to the road, crossed our tracks going out. That was spooky. Had we kept going we would have been a long ways from the truck. We were heading down the wrong side of the ridgeline. No GPS, just internal compass in an area we'd spent countless days in.

 

[Dust Rider]

Have been turned around in the fog, clouds and snow. No longer boat in crappy weather. Don’t hunt in low visibility anymore. Really wanted to go out yesterday in the snow storm to see if elk were getting pushed around yet but instead loaded the wood stove, drank bloody Mary’s and watched football. It is not fun getting disoriented in an area you are supposed to know.