Good Laugh on me

[Hombre]

Last week we went to spend some time at our cabin in Broken Bow, and spend a little family time in general. The time was great, spent some time just sitting on the deck, riding the Side-by-Side, and in general hanging with family. On Saturday my dad and I were just getting back from lunch and I told him I was going to try and walk through the back of the property and see how short it was to hit the new Casino they're building.

I took off into the woods and figured it'd be a fairly short trip. You kind of need to head South West to hit the casino ground, and straight south is national forrest. After walking for quite a while I figured i wasn't going to hit the casino and decided I better head back. I started back and came across the first creek I crossed when going out. Then I came across another creek, about 6 foot wide. I hadn't crossed this one going out. I figured i was off track so I took out my phone and realized I only had 4% left. I called my dad and asked him to go out back and whistle. He use to always call us home when we were kids with that whistle and when you heard it you started running home. He went out, whistled, but I heard nothing. He asked if I was lost and I told him I'll find my way home, but I only have 4% left so I was turning off my phone.

I knew if I headed North I should hit cabins, if I went East I'd hit the lake, and West I'd hit the highway. So I headed off on what I thought was North. I walked for quite a ways without seeing anything. I've been turned around before in the woods and something that always surprises me is the way your mind will tell you to turn and go the other way, you're going the wrong way. I stayed the course and after what seemed like forever saw a cabin. It wasn't mine, and it wasn't a rental. The cabin had a Don't Tread on Me flag and No trespassing. I didn't feel like I had a lot of choice so I made it through the yard as quick as possible, with no incident.

Now I was in a neighborhood, and relieved. I only had to make it to a road I knew. After winding my way through the neighborhood I came out by the lake. I was about 3 miles from my cabin...just a bit of track! My next thought was I need to get ahold of my dad. I didn't want him to go looking for me or call someone to look for me. I powered up my phone, but an update hit and killed the last 4%. So, out of shape, I started running/Walking to get there as soon as possible.

I finally made it to the cabin and headed inside. I expected my dad to yell "is that you" but I didn't hear anything. My first thought was oh shit he went looking for me. I went downstairs to make sure he wasn't down there and there he sat in a recliner sleeping. He woke up briefly and said "I'm having a good nap". Guess he wasn't that worried.

Overall I made some really poor choices. I went out in pretty thick woods, had no water, no phone or compass or really anything that prepared me if I did get turned around. Live and learn I suppose.

[Thumper]

At the doctor now and not much time to post. Let’s just say, been there, done that and I felt totally stupid afterwards. Like you, it was basically in my own back yard. Similar to you, I eventually came out onto a deserted, 2-lane, paved road, but still had no idea wheee I was or even which direction I needed to go. It was also in the days before cell phones.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Back when Ali was going through proton radiation up in Missouri we were headed home one day and we decided to go for ashort hike in the woods. So we went up to a state park, found a short trail and took off. I got us hopelessly lost and neither of us had thought to bring a phone. that is a sin, or should be. We walked for likefour hours before we got back to the truck. She was worn out, right after a treatment, and I felt horrible for it! She wasa good sport though, a tired one!
Getting lost is a lot easier than it sounds!

BKb

[Hombre]

It is easy to get lost. You forget that when you get into an area that's heavy forest there are no real landmarks you can see. And, you're right going out without a phone should be a sin.

[Bwana]

Phones are a good idea but out here in the less civilized world, we don't always have cell coverage.

I did something similar years ago. It was during deer season and somehow we ended up at my in-laws, in an area I had never been before. Someone wounded a buck, scratched its leg is all, and I was hell bent on not letting a wounded deer get away. I and my youngest b-i-l set(he was in junior high) off on the trail that led us over hill and dale and into a LARGE cattail slough. I sorted out the tracks which eventually lead us to a gravel road. Neither of us had clue ONE where we were other than a fair bit north of where we started. Luckily a pickup came along and asked if we needed a ride back to the pickup our party had left for us back at the slough. Our party had seen the buck exit the slough and decided instead of waiting for us to find our way out, they went after the buck and left us a vehicle that we never saw. Still amazes me how that happened, but glad that gent stopped to give us a ride.

[Chicken Dinner]

I’m not afraid to admit that I don’t have a very good natural sense of direction. Been “turned around” a few times in the woods as a result. Over the years, I’ve learned I really have to work at it and pay attention and it helps.


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[Big Skyz]

I've only ever been lost once. It was a serious situation in the mountains far from anything. Thankfully as I was walking down a two-track well after dark two drunk guys in a Jeep CJ5 found me, and knew where the lake was, that I was camped by. We rolled into my camp around 1am, just as the rest of my party was getting ready to form a search party, and call for search and rescue. I was 16 years old when this happened and I've never been lost since. From that moment on I always look for landmarks or have a way to map out where I am. I'm just glad I don't live where you flat lander's live or I'd get lost for sure without anything to use as landmarks.

[Thumper]

Yessir B/S, after a while, all those trees start to look the same. What sucks is when you think you’re walking a straight line, then an hour later, you cross your own tracks! Yep, the time above was my only time I felt really lost, but knew I wasn’t hopelessly lost as it wasn’t really a vast wilderness and I knew I’d find a house and/or a road eventually. Of course, if you walk in circles, you may not find either one!

[BarryBobPosthole]

Back in the 80’s I had a deer camp in the same spot in the Ouachita Mountains (of True Grit fame) for about ten years running. itwas a great camp and a great spot to hunt. We hunted on some leased land we called the Ponderosa and man it was beautiful.
Anyway, one of the gals at work asked if her husband could come hunt with us and we said sure, come on. Another newbie to our camp was another work friend from New Jersey. We dry camped on a finger ridge near the top of a mountain and typically just hunted the oak flats on the tops of the finger ridges that spread out from there. Easy peasy. Get turned around, go up hill. The very first day they showed up I took them out for the evening hunt and put them both on good spots right by a fence for reference and told them I’d meet them at dark only about a quarter away from where they were. Literally it wasn’t a half hour later and nowhere even near dusk that the husband dude startedyelling and screaming. He’d not moved, but I guess he got scared or something and then imagined he was lost and just got hysterical. The New Jersey guy found him and walked him back to camp.
It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. I would have never have thought it was even possible for that to happen.
He didn’t even last opening weekend before he found an excuse to bug out for home. The rest of guys in camp didn’t want to talk about it they were so embarassed for him.

BKB

[Big Skyz]

BKB, I've never heard of anything like that, but nothing surprises me anymore.

[Thumper]

I wonder if the wife asked you to take him along so you and the guys might "toughen him up" a bit? It sure sounds like there was some sort of problem there. That's one of the weirdest one's I've heard.

That said, I really respect your group regarding your last sentence:

The rest of guys in camp didn’t want to talk about it they were so embarrassed for him.

Did the wife ever mention anything about it at work afterwards?

[BarryBobPosthole]

Oh we gave her major grief about it. To her credit she divorced that guy a few years later.
One of the best memories from that camp was my friend from NJ getting his first deer. a little spike if I remember, but it didn’t matter. Now that kid was a city boy who was a gamer. Itwas his first time in the outdoors in Oklahoma.
I lost track of that guy in the 90’s. He moved to Texas, and well….

BKb