Ever Been Lost in the Woods? My Story.
#1
10-25-2010, 07:43 PM
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Texarkana, TX/Conway, AR
Posts: 2,847
Ever Been Lost in the Woods? My Story.
I mean really lost. This a long story, grab some popcorn. Hopefully it's worth the read. You heear about people being lost in the wilderness for days, but never think it could happen to you. Even though this wasn't as bad, you figure out how easy it could happen.
This past weekend I had Fall Break from school. We get half a week and then the weekend out. I take a trip back to my hometown since I haven't been there for a little over a month. When I get into town I go straight to my best friend's house, we shoot the **** for a little while and then make plans to go hog hunting later that night, and not looking for fat chicks hog hunting. Since I haven't been home to see my parents yet, I drive the one mile to their house. No one is there so I change clothes, put on boots, grab a flashlight, and write a note "Came home, but going hog hunting with Mike. -Matt"
We take the jeep about twenty miles out of town to the most podunk area, miles and miles of dirt roads and barely cleared trails. We park about 100 yards away from a lake, drink a beer, of course. We get out of the jeep, he is carrying the rifle, I'm carrying the flashlight. We head out on the right side of the road following a dried creek bed. We followed it for probably 30-45 minutes, finding no hogs. We never wen't too far from the road, so we just walked in the general direction that we knew it should be in. We turn off the flashlight and see a clearing in the trees lit by the moonlight after walking a short time. We find the road no problem. We start folling the road back to the jeep. We never see the jeep or know how far we are from it when we see a reflective thumb-tack sized pin on a tree. We know it is a signal to the hunter that placed it there where to enter the woods to find a deer stand or something. We go trapsing into the woods to find the deer stand. We find another pin and another deeper and deeper into the woods, all the while still looking for a hog to shoot. We start to notice that the reflective pins are beginning to have no rhyme or reason.
After following the pins for about an hour, and deciding that they don't lead to anything since we were finding so many and no stands, we turn back. One the way in the pins went in what seemed like a pronounced zig-zag. We want to get out of the woods as fast as possible, so we head straight to where we think the road is. We walk for a while, and use the same technique as before, turn the flashlights off look for a clearing in the tops of the trees. We think we are heading towards it, but it turns out were walking towards the lake. Both of us have pretty good senses of direction, but were in unfamiliar woods at night. We stop and think about what direction we went in and for how long. That's when we figure out that neither of us grabbed our cell phones out of the car, if we even had service, we don't have any kind of compass or anything other than the rifle, flashlights, and a pocket knife. Also, no one knows where we went hunting, only that we did.
We head in a diagonal away from the lake towards what we think is in the direction of the road. We walk and walk, never find it. So at this point we were and hour deep into the woods, and a hour walking around the woods trying to find our way out. We stop and try to get our bearings, figure out our directions. We start walking again in the direction we think is best, as far as we can tell. We find a beer can hung on a tree limb, figuring that it denotes a trail or deer stand, we take a look at it. It's a damn Natural lite can that looks like it's been there for over a decade. We take a look around and finally find another reflective pin. We walk over towards it and low-n-behold a deer stand! At that point we knew that there had to be a trail or something. Even if the stand had been there a couple of seasons we fianlly had something more than a tiny relective pin in a tree. But we see a few pins more and start to follow them. We start to consider the likelyhood of being there till dawn, when people would come look for us, and when we should start drinking our ****. My buddy had cut his finger pretty bad earlier in the day, which was still bleeding, so we agreed that we would eat his finger if it came down to it, LOL.
Since it's been a few hours and still haven't found our way out, we start thinking a little deeper as we follow one pin after another. We start to break the tops of saplings to help us recognize where we've been in case we make a circle or need to follow our way back. We take sticks and lay arrows out on the groun of where we've been. My buddy decides that we need to mark some trees with something. All we have are our shirts, and mine is black. He cuts the sleeves off his shirt and into strips to tie around trees to help us see where we've been. After a while, we come to two trees one has two reflective pins, the other had one and seems like a fork in a trail, if there was one. We follow to the left which we think is the direction we need to be heading. We fins another deer stand, we see more pins, follow for a while and find a third deer stand, but no more reflective pins. This whole stint we've been breaking the limbs and making arrows, hoping that we were on out way out and wouldn't need them. Wrong. We make an educated guess that since we can't find no more pins, that the third deer stand was the last one.
We start following our way back to the first stand, which isn't even easy to do in the dark. We were also trying to conserve battery power at this point using the flashlights as little as possible, so it was easy to miss landmarks and things. After a while we make it back to the first stand. Think for a while and search for any pins that might lead us out. We walk past the stand and look back, hoping to back trace the pins. We find one, walk a little further, find one, trying to guess what direction to walk until we find another pin and not make a circle. After a while of doing this, we find a semi-beaten path. We are still finding reflctive pins on the opposite sides of trees so we continue to follow them. Probably thirty minutes of following this trail. The pins start to get fewer and farther between but the trail itself gets more defined. We are soon just following the trail. We follow for a while and then suddenly find a road, who knows if it's even the one we came in on. We follow it for a while and FINALLY see the Jeep.
Several hours lost in the woods if a fun time of you make it out before people know your lost. This was the first time either of us had seriously been lost in the woods, to the point that we thought we might be spending the night and next morning or more. The dark, unfamiliar woods can be dangerous.
This past weekend I had Fall Break from school. We get half a week and then the weekend out. I take a trip back to my hometown since I haven't been there for a little over a month. When I get into town I go straight to my best friend's house, we shoot the **** for a little while and then make plans to go hog hunting later that night, and not looking for fat chicks hog hunting. Since I haven't been home to see my parents yet, I drive the one mile to their house. No one is there so I change clothes, put on boots, grab a flashlight, and write a note "Came home, but going hog hunting with Mike. -Matt"
We take the jeep about twenty miles out of town to the most podunk area, miles and miles of dirt roads and barely cleared trails. We park about 100 yards away from a lake, drink a beer, of course. We get out of the jeep, he is carrying the rifle, I'm carrying the flashlight. We head out on the right side of the road following a dried creek bed. We followed it for probably 30-45 minutes, finding no hogs. We never wen't too far from the road, so we just walked in the general direction that we knew it should be in. We turn off the flashlight and see a clearing in the trees lit by the moonlight after walking a short time. We find the road no problem. We start folling the road back to the jeep. We never see the jeep or know how far we are from it when we see a reflective thumb-tack sized pin on a tree. We know it is a signal to the hunter that placed it there where to enter the woods to find a deer stand or something. We go trapsing into the woods to find the deer stand. We find another pin and another deeper and deeper into the woods, all the while still looking for a hog to shoot. We start to notice that the reflective pins are beginning to have no rhyme or reason.
After following the pins for about an hour, and deciding that they don't lead to anything since we were finding so many and no stands, we turn back. One the way in the pins went in what seemed like a pronounced zig-zag. We want to get out of the woods as fast as possible, so we head straight to where we think the road is. We walk for a while, and use the same technique as before, turn the flashlights off look for a clearing in the tops of the trees. We think we are heading towards it, but it turns out were walking towards the lake. Both of us have pretty good senses of direction, but were in unfamiliar woods at night. We stop and think about what direction we went in and for how long. That's when we figure out that neither of us grabbed our cell phones out of the car, if we even had service, we don't have any kind of compass or anything other than the rifle, flashlights, and a pocket knife. Also, no one knows where we went hunting, only that we did.
We head in a diagonal away from the lake towards what we think is in the direction of the road. We walk and walk, never find it. So at this point we were and hour deep into the woods, and a hour walking around the woods trying to find our way out. We stop and try to get our bearings, figure out our directions. We start walking again in the direction we think is best, as far as we can tell. We find a beer can hung on a tree limb, figuring that it denotes a trail or deer stand, we take a look at it. It's a damn Natural lite can that looks like it's been there for over a decade. We take a look around and finally find another reflective pin. We walk over towards it and low-n-behold a deer stand! At that point we knew that there had to be a trail or something. Even if the stand had been there a couple of seasons we fianlly had something more than a tiny relective pin in a tree. But we see a few pins more and start to follow them. We start to consider the likelyhood of being there till dawn, when people would come look for us, and when we should start drinking our ****. My buddy had cut his finger pretty bad earlier in the day, which was still bleeding, so we agreed that we would eat his finger if it came down to it, LOL.
Since it's been a few hours and still haven't found our way out, we start thinking a little deeper as we follow one pin after another. We start to break the tops of saplings to help us recognize where we've been in case we make a circle or need to follow our way back. We take sticks and lay arrows out on the groun of where we've been. My buddy decides that we need to mark some trees with something. All we have are our shirts, and mine is black. He cuts the sleeves off his shirt and into strips to tie around trees to help us see where we've been. After a while, we come to two trees one has two reflective pins, the other had one and seems like a fork in a trail, if there was one. We follow to the left which we think is the direction we need to be heading. We fins another deer stand, we see more pins, follow for a while and find a third deer stand, but no more reflective pins. This whole stint we've been breaking the limbs and making arrows, hoping that we were on out way out and wouldn't need them. Wrong. We make an educated guess that since we can't find no more pins, that the third deer stand was the last one.
We start following our way back to the first stand, which isn't even easy to do in the dark. We were also trying to conserve battery power at this point using the flashlights as little as possible, so it was easy to miss landmarks and things. After a while we make it back to the first stand. Think for a while and search for any pins that might lead us out. We walk past the stand and look back, hoping to back trace the pins. We find one, walk a little further, find one, trying to guess what direction to walk until we find another pin and not make a circle. After a while of doing this, we find a semi-beaten path. We are still finding reflctive pins on the opposite sides of trees so we continue to follow them. Probably thirty minutes of following this trail. The pins start to get fewer and farther between but the trail itself gets more defined. We are soon just following the trail. We follow for a while and then suddenly find a road, who knows if it's even the one we came in on. We follow it for a while and FINALLY see the Jeep.
Several hours lost in the woods if a fun time of you make it out before people know your lost. This was the first time either of us had seriously been lost in the woods, to the point that we thought we might be spending the night and next morning or more. The dark, unfamiliar woods can be dangerous.
#3
10-25-2010, 08:26 PM
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Texarkana, TX/Conway, AR
Posts: 2,847
It was fun, after we made it out. While we were lost we were cracking jokes about needing a search party and making a shelter and just living out in the woods for a few days. But honestly, we were worried about how long it would take us to find our way out. We knew we would, just didn't know how long it would take.
#5
10-26-2010, 07:58 AM
I've been to where I was considering long term plans. Never really "lost" per sé but I sure had no idea where I was at the time. My family has a rule, if you're not 3 days overdue, they don't worry. Guys tend to do stuff like track game 10 miles and have to stay a day or 2 to steak it out.
In any case, yeah a few times. The worst one was pretty recently, last year. Lost in a swamp, surrounded by 50ft tall levees. Clouds, rain, night approaching, crappy cell reception at best. Went about 4 miles the wrong way through the swap, on foot. That sucked. Hard. Then, got myself all hemmed up in reeds and timber in the swamp so I couldn't go forward or back. Finally got out of that with some circus freak acts of flexy and jumpy, and into 75yrds of thick-*** blackberry bramble which led to certain freedom (the base of a levee) and blood loss. Crawled through the mud and bramble on my belly dragging my gun, fell into a ditch of water face first, walked up the levee and found out i was just exactly as far from my car as I could be and still be where I was. 2 hours of walking later and I got to my car, shot the words "**** y'all" into the dirt with my .22 semi-auto rifle and promptly left. Never panic. Just do what you gotta do to make it to the next obstacle. Adapt, improvise, overcome.
Prior to that I had been genuinely turned around in the Mojave a few times, the worst of which was for 3 days (family was pissed) and up in the Cascades a few times. Never really worried about being so much lost as late. As in "the late r3dn3ck".
In any case, yeah a few times. The worst one was pretty recently, last year. Lost in a swamp, surrounded by 50ft tall levees. Clouds, rain, night approaching, crappy cell reception at best. Went about 4 miles the wrong way through the swap, on foot. That sucked. Hard. Then, got myself all hemmed up in reeds and timber in the swamp so I couldn't go forward or back. Finally got out of that with some circus freak acts of flexy and jumpy, and into 75yrds of thick-*** blackberry bramble which led to certain freedom (the base of a levee) and blood loss. Crawled through the mud and bramble on my belly dragging my gun, fell into a ditch of water face first, walked up the levee and found out i was just exactly as far from my car as I could be and still be where I was. 2 hours of walking later and I got to my car, shot the words "**** y'all" into the dirt with my .22 semi-auto rifle and promptly left. Never panic. Just do what you gotta do to make it to the next obstacle. Adapt, improvise, overcome.
Prior to that I had been genuinely turned around in the Mojave a few times, the worst of which was for 3 days (family was pissed) and up in the Cascades a few times. Never really worried about being so much lost as late. As in "the late r3dn3ck".
#8
10-26-2010, 02:01 PM
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Texarkana, TX/Conway, AR
Posts: 2,847
R3d, you had it a lot worse than we did. Damn, that sounds like some rough times.
We talked about that. We saw some deer, but didn't want to shoot anything. If we did shoot something we'd have left it and came back for it after we found our way out.
I wish I could have blammed it on the drinking. We don't mix drugs and guns too much, one beer at the jeep was it, and then two celebration beers when we got back.
I wish I could have blammed it on the drinking. We don't mix drugs and guns too much, one beer at the jeep was it, and then two celebration beers when we got back.
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