View Full Version : The Perils of Certainty - Great article on Backpackinglight.com
Hope I don't get sued for quoting a small snippet from an article on BPL about how assuming something can cause a lot of problems.
What caught my eye in this story is that the author used an example from his own life to make a point.
He and a friend went on a hike in a familiar area and took (what they thought) was a small detour. They crossed a bridge named after someone and remarked that the same person had another bridge named after them in the same area (how cool is that?). They were so sure they were going in the right direction that it didn't even dawn on them to think that it was VERY unlikely the same guy would have 2 bridges named after him.
I did the same thing and lost almost a full day of hiking the BMT. The BMT goes right by a fire tower. I went by the fire tower and 6 hours later I hiked by another fire tower. I thought it was odd but didn't stop to think about it. Turns out I made a wrong turn at a trail intersection and had walked a big 12 mile loop!!!!
Excerpt: (and if it wrong to quote it, please delete)
The lesson to learn here is that what really matters most, beyond having the right gear and knowledge of how to use it, is that that some decisions are based on assumptions. Some of these may be true and some you may merely believe to be true. Those assumptions, especially those that you are absolutely sure of, form the basis of your thought processes, and if they are flawed, then your actions are bound to be flawed too.
(correction: I didn't walk a 12 mile loop exactly.. I took a wrong turn, looped back to the BMT, and hiked the BMT in the wrong direction all the way from the river back to GA 60.)
I wanted to sit down and cry..
Rocket Jones
06-30-2012, 11:18
Good reminder. This is why, even on well marked, familiar trails, I take a map. More importantly, once in a while I look at it and figure out where I am. It's a habit I learned from a disheartening experience much like yours.
Coffee Rules!
06-30-2012, 11:19
Oh, that had to suck in a huge way.
hikerboy57
06-30-2012, 11:21
always a good idea to look behind you and check your landmark get your bearings from where you just came
don't feel sorry for him. the way he walks that took him, like, 2 hours out of his way.
It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so.
Will Rogers (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/willrogers385286.html)
Wise Old Owl
06-30-2012, 13:32
Yea that does suck.... But I am curious, at some point, would you not notice the sun was in the wrong part of the sky? Forget all the electronic stuff for a moment and perhaps its slightly cloudy - I still take in or notice the shadow directions to prevent me from getting confused. I stopped my wife one time from driving down a street in the wrong direction because the sun was in the west and we were not heading in the general direction.
Wise Old Owl
06-30-2012, 13:50
http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/images/icons/icon1.png People really do walk in circles... Sensitive Trail Subject
10-k you posted this Jan 2011
Without a doubt I've found having a compass with me on the AT useful more than once.
The time that sticks out most though is leaving Tri Corner Knob shelter in GSMNP in the middle of a sleet storm and not being able to see 100 yards in front of me.
As I walked I started questioning myself about the direction I was going - I'd walk by something and swear I had seen it before. It wasn't too long before I had convinced myself that I was walking back the direction I had already came and was getting ready to turn around.
Then I remembered I had my compass. I pulled it out, looked at the map to see which way I was supposed to be headed and instantly knew I had been going the right way.
Had I not had my compass I believe I would have turned around and walked all the way back to the shelter....
I've had this kind of disorientation happen a few times and a quick look at my compass takes care of it.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/bl...les-2009-08-20 (http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=do-people-really-walk-in-circles-2009-08-20)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32494981...ience-science/ (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32494981/ns/technology_and_science-science/)
hikerboy57
06-30-2012, 13:53
Yea that does suck.... But I am curious, at some point, would you not notice the sun was in the wrong part of the sky? Forget all the electronic stuff for a moment and perhaps its slightly cloudy - I still take in or notice the shadow directions to prevent me from getting confused. I stopped my wife one time from driving down a street in the wrong direction because the sun was in the west and we were not heading in the general direction.
this just happened to me last week when i was dayhiking in the gunks, took a rest stop, got up and started walking about 5 minutes when i realized the sun was in front instead of behind. iwas pretty happy i figured this out quickly as it was an out and back hike, and i was supposed to be headed back instead of further out. but sometimes if youre in the woods and its just partly cloudy, it can be tricky.
Wise Old Owl
06-30-2012, 13:59
Sorry about the bold-ing 10-k I found your earlier post thoughtful and the pasting failed.
http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/images/icons/icon1.png
10-k you posted this Jan 2011
<story about the compass in GSMNP>
That's the point of the article!
In the park, I *thought* I might be going in the wrong direction and felt the need to check.
On the BMT I was *sure* I was going in the right direction and didn't feel the need to check.
Going on autopilot can get you in trouble....
Wise Old Owl
06-30-2012, 14:05
cool...........
MuddyWaters
06-30-2012, 20:17
Reminds me of the passage from Brysons Book about Chicken John:
"Is it true you once walked 3 days in the wrong direction?"
"Two and a half days to be precise. Luckily on the third day I came to a town and I said to a feller, "Excuse me young feller, Where is this?
And he said "Why its Damascus Virginia sir!". And I thought well, thats mighty strange because I was in a place with the very same name just 3 days ago. "And then I recognized the fire station"
rocketsocks
06-30-2012, 20:25
Reminds me of the passage from Brysons Book about Chicken John:
"Is it true you once walked 3 days in the wrong direction?"
"Two and a half days to be precise. Luckily on the third day I came to a town and I said to a feller, "Excuse me young feller, Where is this?
And he said "Why its Damascus Virginia sir!". And I thought well, thats mighty strange because I was in a place with the very same name just 3 days ago. "And then I recognized the fire station"Exactly how does it happen John?"Well if i knew that,I guess I wouldn't get lost"
rocketsocks
06-30-2012, 20:32
That's the point of the article!
In the park, I *thought* I might be going in the wrong direction and felt the need to check.
On the BMT I was *sure* I was going in the right direction and didn't feel the need to check.
Going on autopilot can get you in trouble....Trusting ones gauges is a learned trait,submariners,pilots,and yes boilermen do this all the time.It's difficult to shut down our own ego's,but the gauges don't lie,trust em!
On the PCT in a hot psuedo-desert section, after a rest break, I got up and walked back the direction I came from. I only realized my mistake when the trail switchback above itself 10 minutes latter. You see, I had bothered to looked at my maps earlier and realized that I shouldn't be climbing so soon after descending. Thats when I noticed my shoe tracks on the trail coming towards me. I had been getting up before dawn to beat the heat and I guess I was really tired as I've never done that before. If I hadn't read my maps that morning, I could have gone for hours. Then there was the time near Lake Tahoe where I didn't read my maps before leaving town in the afternoon and in our hurry to get some miles in before camping missed a trail junction and didn't even realize it until mid morning the next day when non of the encountered trail junction were on my maps; at least I was able to find a way back to the trail without backtracking thanks to one junction finally showing up on the edge of my maps.
Snowleopard
07-01-2012, 12:12
Originally Posted by 10-K http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/images/Eloquent/buttons/viewpost-right.png (http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?p=1305422#post1305422)...
Then I remembered I had my compass. I pulled it out, looked at the map to see which way I was supposed to be headed and instantly knew I had been going the right way.
Had I not had my compass I believe I would have turned around and walked all the way back to the shelter....
I've had this kind of disorientation happen a few times and a quick look at my compass takes care of it.
Really lost is when you convince yourself that the compass is broken and the map is wrong.
Sometimes I get this uncomfortable feeling that something is not quite right, not that I think I'm lost, just that it feels odd. That's when it's time for map and compass.
Kerosene
07-02-2012, 10:06
You see, I had bothered to looked at my maps earlier and realized that I shouldn't be climbing so soon after descending. ... If I hadn't read my maps that morning, I could have gone for hours. Then there was the time near Lake Tahoe where I didn't read my maps before leaving town in the afternoon and in our hurry to get some miles in before camping missed a trail junction and didn't even realize it until mid morning the next day when non of the encountered trail junction were on my maps; at least I was able to find a way back to the trail without backtracking thanks to one junction finally showing up on the edge of my maps.So, you're touting the advantage of carrying a map (and perhaps a guidebook)? Sacrilege! I, too, have been saved mis-steps by scanning my maps/guidebook for what's ahead. I've also used them when "slightly confused" to get back on track.
So, you're touting the advantage of carrying a map (and perhaps a guidebook)? Sacrilege! I, too, have been saved mis-steps by scanning my maps/guidebook for what's ahead. I've also used them when "slightly confused" to get back on track.
Me too.. Where the AT and LT split in Vermont I was hiking the AT and went up the LT by mistake (both blazed with white blazes..). Before too long I came to a shelter and I remembered from looking at my map that morning that the next AT shelter was several more miles north. Checked my map and saw that I was on the LT.
(correction: I didn't walk a 12 mile loop exactly.. I took a wrong turn, looped back to the BMT, and hiked the BMT in the wrong direction all the way from the river back to GA 60.)
I wanted to sit down and cry..
Quoting a snippet, most likely, is fair use and ok.
I had a day like yours, 10-K, had a map and compass, even, with a friend, both of us good with navigation.
Was a hot day in August 2010 on the New England Trail, Metacomet section north of West Peak. The narrow proper trail, NOBO, was poorly marked where is diverts off the very well trod, wide, old trail, which continues on for miles northward and which still has numerous faint blue blazes on it. Following the blazes as we went on this gentle, well-graded descending section, we blew right past the junction. Shortly after, both old and new trail cross a gas pipeline.
We noticed the drop-off in blue blazes right after the pipeline. I hiked back to the other size of the pipeline for recon, but not far enough by about 100 yards, and saw some blue blazes on the way, so figured, "we're still on the trail, it's just not as well marked as before." We noticed, as we continued, that we were still on the ridgeline, where the map - which was fairly cursory, not a detailed topo map - showed the trail descending off to the east. We thought, for sure, that at some point we'd diverge east, kept seeing occasional faint blue blazes, and kept on.
We hiked a good two miles or so NNE where we should've gone two miles NE. At a certain point, we knew we were on the wrong path, but I also knew that the old trail reached a road which would get us back to Car 2 eventually. We finally reached a high-power transmission line cut with a good path on it. It was a shorter, direct path to the road coming out closer to our car, so we took that to someone's short driveway. The owner met us there and was nice and understanding - we weren't the first this had happened to. It was 0.4 on the road to our car, he advised, correctly. It made a tough hike on a hot day even tougher for a couple of fat newbie hikers. But it tested our resourcefulness, and we did pass. We were pretty low on water by the time we got to the car, though.
Was a hot day in August 2010 on the New England Trail, Metacomet section north of West Peak. The narrow proper trail, NOBO, was poorly marked where is diverts off the very well trod, wide, old trail, which continues on for miles northward and which still has numerous faint blue blazes on it. Following the blazes as we went on this gentle, well-graded descending section, we blew right past the junction. Shortly after, both old and new trail cross a gas pipeline.
Incidentally, I was so curious and annoyed about this situation that I hiked, SOBO, in 2011 the part of the trail we had missed that day. When I got to the junction, I noted that the stacked double blazes indicating the turn are a good 30 yards uptrail from the junction, at a spot where the trail turns right and then left, so the blazes' "right turn" designation could easily be read as just referring to the bend in the trail, as is common for the blazing on that stretch of trail. The dumb thing was that the divergence is right at a big tree which would be perfect for a pair of stacked blue blazes in each direction.
I took some corrective measures, erecting a small cairn at the junction and putting a good sized log across the old trail just north of the junction. Also e-mailed Connecticut Forest and Parks Assn to advise them of this blazing issue, which they said they would address. Haven't been back to the scene of the crime since, so not sure if it's been fixed. It's pretty well the only time I've been lost on trail so far, fingers crossed.
Moved to the "General" forums.
"Me too.. Where the AT and LT split in Vermont I was hiking the AT and went up the LT by mistake (both blazed with white blazes..)."
I did exactly the same thing. The white blaze for the AT was down the trail a bit and in the shade, whereas the one for the LT was close and obvious. Trained for about a hundred miles by that time that the LT and AT were the same, and trained since Springer to follow white blazes ... when I got to an unexpected road I figured out what had happened, and did some map recon to try to decide whether to retrace or try another way to get back. Retracing is generally best.
Last week on a long bike trip Google maps on my smartphone led me to a road that just stopped. Options to backtrack and arrive well after dark, or cut across half mile of field and stream crossings and barbed wire fences and arrive just somewhat after sunset. Tough choices.
The one of these I recall best is going through a lot of snow and brush in an early spring backpacking trip, following a stream. At some point when the brush and blowdowns had been pretty bad for a while I noticed that the stream was now flowing in the opposite direction. Always a bad sign, unless perhaps you're a figure in an Escher painting.
After a couple of experiences like y'all have had, I've become fairly pedantic about looking at my map at unsigned intersections. A couple of years ago I was hiking the Art Loeb trail with a friend. We got to a fork. I stopped to pull out the map, but my friend was absolutely certain which fork to take. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. We proceeded steeply downhill for a while... Yeah, we had taken the wrong path. At that point I insisted on consulting the map and using it to navigate back to the trail.
Maps and compasses rule!
After a couple of experiences like y'all have had, I've become fairly pedantic about looking at my map at unsigned intersections. A couple of years ago I was hiking the Art Loeb trail with a friend. We got to a fork. I stopped to pull out the map, but my friend was absolutely certain which fork to take. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. We proceeded steeply downhill for a while... Yeah, we had taken the wrong path. At that point I insisted on consulting the map and using it to navigate back to the trail.
Maps and compasses rule!
Let me guess... Shining Rock Gap?
I did make it through SRG ok but I did go the wrong way for about 10 minutes on the ALT... Realized I was walking downhill and was supposed to be going uphill and figured it out pretty quick...
Definitely pays to have an idea of where you are and to study the trail ahead in advance.
I did get a bit lost one other time, come to think of it, and lack of a map played a role. I was ascending the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail on May 12, a very windy, though relatively warm day. At about 4800', a quarter mile from the Lakes of the Clouds hut, the trail, southward/uphill bound, finally turns west away from the last of the many branches of the Ammo River it follows. There's a quarter-mile-from-the-hut no camping sign there, but it was not anchored in its proper place and, wherever it was, it was not readily apparent to me as I reached that spot. There being snow on the ground above 4000', including some significant leftover pack and drifts at 4800', and the trail often being quite poorly marked, I followed the foot-tracks others had left in front of me. Before long, two things happened - I saw the hut, so there was HOPE! of getting out of the vicious and somewhat scary winds, and the tracks ran out.
I had to make a call, and was unaided by either the nice AMC Presidential Range map I own or the detailed trail description in my copy of The 4000-Footers of the White Mountains (left the copies I'd made at home - great timing, on the hardest trail I've yet done, on a very windy day with lots of snow and ice on trail; Awesome!).
The call I made was to keep going up rather than to backtrack. I soon had to do an awkward scramble through heavy brush and boulders and postholed fairly mightily a few times in mid-thigh-high drifts and deep, softening moss - felt awful about that, but what could I do? - and got blown over a time or two in the wind, but I did make it to the hut behind which I was happy to hide.
On the way down, I found the missing 1/4 mile sign and placed it in a more visible space about 5-10 feet over from where it was lying, face down, right at the spot where I had diverted left, rather than the right which the trail followed. It was an adventure, I can say that for sure. Made even harder the most difficult hike I've yet done. Glad I got through it OK, and ever more anal about remembering my maps and trail descriptions when headed to new trail.
Clarification: I meant to say I moved the sign *right to* the spot where I diverted away from the trail. It was off to the right around the bend in the proper trail.
I think anyone who hikes a lot is going to get turned around and have a few stories.
The thing to remember is that as long as you're on a trail you're not "lost" - you're just not where you think you are. "Lost" is when you get off the trail and are wandering around in the woods - bushwhacking or whatever.
Rule #1: Don't get off the trail unless you know what you're doing for sure for sure.
Rule #1: Don't get off the trail unless you know what you're doing for sure for sure.
I'm starting to get where I feel confident attempting this in difficult, new terrain. Haven't really tried it yet - other than my unintentional Ammo adventure- though I have done so in familiar territory. Do think I will try it in tough new terrain before long though, though probably on established bushwhacking routes to start with.
hikerboy57
07-05-2012, 16:44
I think anyone who hikes a lot is going to get turned around and have a few stories.
The thing to remember is that as long as you're on a trail you're not "lost" - you're just not where you think you are. "Lost" is when you get off the trail and are wandering around in the woods - bushwhacking or whatever.
Rule #1: Don't get off the trail unless you know what you're doing for sure for sure.
great advice! I love having harriman state park close to me , as its a great place for me to test my map skills. i bushwack all the time, and the cool thing about the park is its got so many trails and wood roads, that i can get "lost" and i know if i just walk in almost any direction and ill hit an intersecting trail or road within a mile tops.
but your basic premise is what can cause a problem- the certainty that you know exactly where you are when in reality you dont. and this can happen even if you're proficient with map and compass.
After a couple of experiences like y'all have had, I've become fairly pedantic about looking at my map at unsigned intersections. A couple of years ago I was hiking the Art Loeb trail with a friend. We got to a fork. I stopped to pull out the map, but my friend was absolutely certain which fork to take. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. We proceeded steeply downhill for a while... Yeah, we had taken the wrong path. At that point I insisted on consulting the map and using it to navigate back to the trail.
Maps and compasses rule!
Let me guess... Shining Rock Gap?
I did make it through SRG ok but I did go the wrong way for about 10 minutes on the ALT... Realized I was walking downhill and was supposed to be going uphill and figured it out pretty quick...
Definitely pays to have an idea of where you are and to study the trail ahead in advance.
I found an idiot proof picture on the internet of the trail intersection at Shining rock gap. It had arrows pointing to where each trail went.
Kerosene
07-06-2012, 10:17
10-K brings up a good point about getting off-trail. Unless someone else has a pretty good idea of where you are -- and you stick to that general area -- getting off-trail by just a few hundred yards will make it much, much more difficult for a search & rescue party to find you should you get lost or incapacitated. Think about it: you just increased the search area from a well traveled, fairly linear path to potentially dozens of square miles, just by moving out of vision and earshot of the main corridor.
Now, I'm not proposing that folks give up bushwhacking; just make sure that someone has a general sense of where you are so the cavalry can rapidly locate you should something unfortunate occur. For an impromptu excursion, even a short note in a shelter register or left by the side of the trail (assuming you come back to clean it up) might be sufficient. Those who don't take basic precautions become candidates for a Darwin Award (http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/).
While hiking the BMT in '08, there were a number of times where I was on unblazed trail and not sure that I was following the correct trail after an unmarked trail junction and had to walk for miles before coming to a place that seemed to match my maps (coming off Hemp Top going north comes to mind). Although I was never truely lost, I can see how easily it can happen when you enter autopilot mode.
One event where I did take the wrong trail on a small section of the CDT through the Bob was actually partially due to the map marking the junction in the wrong place, a well worn game trail that I mistook for the junction, and my need to quickly find a place to camp to get out of the cold and rain. I hiked a couple of miles past the junction without realizing it and set up camp in a nice meadow. When I woke the next morning to a foot of snow on the ground, I decided that I wasn't packing the appropriate gear to handle the new conditions and turned around to head back to the trail head that I started from. As I past the trail junction that I should have turned at the previous day, I realized that the snow actually saved me from getting too far down a trail that I did not want to take. I'm sure that I would have eventually figured out that the trail that I was on was not following the same terrane as the CDT, but it would have been miles and hours lost before that happened.