Lost
Is it me, or is this the funniest thing you’ve ever seen? Two women got lost for six days in the woods despite having a compass and a map. Six days!
My favorite quote is this one:
Rangers estimate the women logged at least 20 miles before they were picked up by a helicopter crew outside the northeastern side of the 9,400-square-mile park, Fister said.
In 6 days, they walked a total of 20 miles? While lost? That’s barely over an hour of walking a day. What did they do with the other 15 they were awake? You can infer from the article that they didn’t bother to spend any of them finding food.
“There were steep hills, so we had to get away from them and there was this high brush we had to push through,” she said. “I cried a little bit, but not much.”
I’m no survival expert, but I would think the first thing you’d want to do when you’re lost is go to an area of high elevation, where you can see the land around you and possibly be spotted by a search helicopter. Also, wouldn’t this thought (assuming you’re capable of those) go through your head as you were pushing through high brush? “Hmm, judging from the lack of scratches and torn clothing, I don’t think I went through any thickets on the way here. Perhaps I should turn around and go back the way I came from.”
Flantz, who plans to return to work on Saturday, said she’s not giving up on outdoor adventures — but next time she’ll be better prepared.
I’m sorry, but if a compass and a map aren’t enough, you really can’t be better prepared. Maybe you could bring a GPS and use it to smash open walnuts.
June 30, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Hm. So, “[t]here were steep hills” and “high brush” in an area that “includes dense alder and willow” and you've mistaken one river from another (where the terrain may very well match what your map says). You can't see land marks (points of elevation). How exactly will a compass help you?
So 20 miles may not be that bad. Also, standard advice if lost in the bush is not to wander too far (else you'll walk out of the area the search and rescue team thinks you're in). The other standard advice is to follow rivers downstream..
June 30, 2008 at 6:57 pm
A compass would help you even if you didn't know where you were and with no map, provided you knew about how long you had walked since you left shelter. Presumably they left the lodge on a trail, and probably knew in which direction the trail they took was going. It was supposed to be a short walk. So, if they got lost, they could stop (they wouldn't be too far away from home) and make wherever they were a base point. Go exploring in one direction for an hour or so , then use the compass to ensure they got back to the base point if that direction proved fruitless. Go exploring in the other direction, rinse, repeat. If they're only a few miles away from the lodge, that should get them home pretty quickly.
You don't even really need a compass for that, just leave a trail of broken tree limbs to enable you to find your way back like the native Americans did. Just keep searching out from the base point and returning.
June 30, 2008 at 10:01 pm
It's pretty ridiculous if you can figure out how to get lost with a map AND a compass.
I like the idea of using the GPS to crack open walnuts. Good stuff.
June 30, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Maybe. But here's the thing about being lost – you don't plan to be. So you spend the first part of your “lostness” thinking you're not lost and thus trashing around in various directions (that you're not keeping track of, cause you think you're not lost) trying to align the environment around you with the (mental or from a map) environment you're expecting. Once you realize you're lost, you have no f***ing idea where you are (combinatorial problem really).
Now if you can identify elevation points around you then you're better of, but a compass is only good if you can use it to identify something in the distance and walk towards it; if you're trashing around with no visibility beyond a few tens of feet you'd have to stare at your compass all the time to make use of it.
Now don't get me wrong, having a map and a compass is a great idea, and your plan to spiral out of a base camp is also a good one, but I think until you've been properly lost it's harsh to make fun – after all, they did survive 6 days in the bush. Lots of people don't make it past 48 hours..
July 1, 2008 at 3:19 pm
6 days survival in the bush definitely means they found water, and did something right.
I also think this comment is very harsh, and not very knowlegible. 20 miles an hour? Maybe if you're an elite half-marathon runner on a road. In rough terain, that's at least a hard day's walk. If you're a few miles from something recognizable, it's hard to cover a circle with a few miles radius if you don't have a lot of visibility.
I hike a lot in the wilderness, never been really lost with a map and compas, but I've seen people take a back-bearing
July 1, 2008 at 4:11 pm
einarvollset and Carolyn are too empathetic with the dolts in the article, I'm thinking they've also been lost while hiking (even in contrast to Carolyn's claim otherwise).
I've spent 99% of my life in urban or suburban areas, yet all the times I've been hiking on vacation (including at the same Denali National mentioned in the article), I've never come close to getting lost. In fact, I'd go as far to say, unless you go completely off grid/into unmapped or poorly mapped areas, you can't get lost unless you're just plain stupid.
July 1, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Your math is as bad (or should I say unknowlegible) as your English. I said one hour per day, and there were 6 days. 20/6 is just over 3 miles per day.
July 11, 2008 at 12:20 pm
WOW. That's pretty sad. When our military so generously provided us with map training, we learned to actually look at that map. When we go on training exercises, the vast majority of guys don't even use the compass, it takes too long. All you need is the map and landmarks shown on the map, it isn't difficult. America's school system is failing at teaching people how to think, as opposed to memorizing.