Did You Survive?

[Gondor]

Lets talk about the real stuff for a moment. Has any of you ever been lost and did you rely on your survival stuff and skills?

[Barney]

I guess I never found myself in a situation where I can say that my life was depending on the skills and gear, but I definitely was in some sticky situations.

[SallyA]

The most I've ever been lost is when I walked through the woods in the back of our house from one corner of our 4 acres to the other. It's a good thing I knew to look for the clearing for the road that I was walking to.

I wouldn't trust myself to be able to find my way if I got lost in a bigger woods. I'd have to have a compass and be sure before I went in the woods that I knew which direction I needed to go to get back. It's so easy to get turned around.

[Adam]

The only time I've ever gotten close to being lost was when I was 15 in Missouri and just moved onto our 5 acre spread. It lasted for about an hour.

[Stoker]

Good question. I too would like to hear a real life account of a close call like that. With the compass I have, it's a bit hard to get lost.

[wildmonger]

Yes, I've gotten lost! An old bugger like me. Many times!
Once, on the high plateau in Norway, my map blew off the back of my pack, and my compass said -Go West! Fine! Except that a raging northern river blocked my path. So I followed the river downstream. Logical, n'cest pas?
I followed that widening river for three whole days without food, and no way to get across into the reindeer tundra without a boat.
Swim it you say? I TRIED that, and nearly got swept into a glacier lake by a raging current - after wading a half mile of thigh-deep rapids. Try swimming with a forty pound pack on your back.
Yep, I waded all the way back, now totally depressed and starting to panic. Nothing to do except follow the river right on out to the fjords. Right! Except the fjords were in the opposite direction from which I was going. That dang river lead me towards Sweden!
About another hundred miles!
So finally, half-starving, bedraggled and limping, I rounded yet another rocky, overgrown bluff and blooie! Someone had left a mountain hut there for me, stocked with provisions, and I only had to break in to get them. Please don't tell the hiking club leaders though, I beg you.
I left a tenner for the food, repaired the window damage, and grabbed a tiny leaky skiff to float across that accursed river. That nearly killed me, as the boards needed to soak about a week to close up, and I needed only fifteen minutes more to get me to the other side. As fast as I baled with my stetson, that tub filled up faster. The oak boards I'd carved as rough paddles dug into my flesh, but I set a new record hitting the opposite shore. Now, at last on the far side, I was only three more days walking to a gigantic arctic lake which had some motor boat activity on the other side. That meant civilization!
Would have been fine, except for that sudden snow storm in the middle of the night which covered up any semblance of trail, and launched me into a mountain range bordering the deepest valley in the country! But that's another story.