View Full Version : Getting lost
Gorgiewave
08-28-2013, 07:42
The closest I've ever been to the Appalachian Trail is the airport at Bangor, Maine. So I have a question: how easy is it to get lost? I know there are white blazes, but are they every 100 yards or how are they spaced? I have a compass and know how to use it more or less, though I don't have any detailed maps yet.
I wish I could just go and live in the wilderness and never come back to jobs, bills, computers, TV or smog.
BirdBrain
08-28-2013, 08:12
It is not that easy to get lost, but some do. They did not go in with the thought of getting lost, but it happens. There are places you won't see a White Blaze for quite some distance. There are times I get lost in the scenery and realize I have not looked for a White Blaze in miles. The trail is fairly worn. It is possible to walk onto a worn trail that is not the AT. My advice: Get the maps, learn how to use them, and then go hiking with the maps and a compass. It is rare to get lost, but you don't want to be that rare person and not have a plan.
Well, it depends on where you're hiking but as a rule you'd have to work to get lost.
First off, if you're nervous about getting lost pick out a well travelled section of trail for your first hike. You could start a separate thread asking for suggestions.
Second - never get off a trail and head into the woods. As long as you're on some trail you can turn around or whatever and you'll eventually wind up somewhere, even if it's not where you want to be.
As long as you're on a trail you're not "lost".
Seatbelt
08-28-2013, 08:16
The closest I've ever been to the Appalachian Trail is the airport at Bangor, Maine. So I have a question: how easy is it to get lost? I know there are white blazes, but are they every 100 yards or how are they spaced? I have a compass and know how to use it more or less, though I don't have any detailed maps yet.
I wish I could just go and live in the wilderness and never come back to jobs, bills, computers, TV or smog.
Right there with you on that last statement!!!! As for getting lost, it CAN happen but doesn't need to--just pay attention and follow the path in front of you--making sure there are blazes every now and then. The easiest time to get lost is in foggy or bad weather--snow-covered trai, etc.
Much easier than it should be to get lost. the clubs and other interested entities along the trail have been reducing the blazing on purpose. They think that overblazing is unsightly and unnecessary so they send out maintainers fix the problem. Over zealous people go to far. It's worse in the North. Each club ignores the established guidelines in there own way by the leeway granted by the ATC. Rather than hard and fast rules they have loose language. If we had hard and fast rules that the clubs followed the problem would go away. What is a "wilderness area" anyway? The clubs won't even acknowledge that it is a problem and there answer "we don't need no stink'in blazes" Davy Crockett didn't need them. To that, I say, What about the missing Hiker in Maine?
hikerboy57
08-28-2013, 09:21
Just pay attention and you won't get lost
BobTheBuilder
08-28-2013, 09:51
I've gotten temporarily lost a few times. Once you realize you haven't seen a blaze in a while, the time to backtrack is more aggravating than anything else.
Two things in particular have caught me. The first is when the trail has been following an old logging road for a while and then dives off to one side. Miss that turn and you can follow the logging road for quite a while. The other is when the trail enters a clearing where several trails intersect. I have become convinced that some trail maintainers enjoy making hikers go 1/4 mile down the trail before placing a blaze. Annoying because it can take 15 minutes of trying one trail and then backtracking to the clearing to try another one.
Still, I have never been seriously lost on the AT.
FarmerChef
08-28-2013, 09:55
The closest I've ever been to the Appalachian Trail is the airport at Bangor, Maine. So I have a question: how easy is it to get lost? I know there are white blazes, but are they every 100 yards or how are they spaced? I have a compass and know how to use it more or less, though I don't have any detailed maps yet.
I wish I could just go and live in the wilderness and never come back to jobs, bills, computers, TV or smog.
Much of the trail is well worn path with reasonable amounts of white blazes to keep you pointed in the right direction. Of course, there are other well worn paths that intersect the trail and it pays to pay attention and use sound hiking/orienteering techniques to make sure you're on the right trail. A map and compass are two essential pieces of gear in my book but there are some who say that the trail is so well delineated that a simple guide like AWOL or Sly's is all you need. I'll let you decide though I will caution that if you are lost knowing how to use a topographical map and a compass can save your life even if you don't need to use it the other 99% of the time.
Aside from the map and compass, having a guide like AWOL or Sly's (or both!) can be a big help with tips for tricky sections and knowing which way to turn at a road to get to services.
I've been "lost" a couple of times on the trail where enough other hikers missed a turn but these have been short-lived and always ended well because I used good orienteering practices and turned around well before it became a more significant problem. And, if it helps, I trust my older children enough to let them hike out of sight ahead of my wife and I most of the time. After a while, we developed a "sense" of the trail and can often pick out the right trail in a nest of other ones just because we've been on the AT enough to know it. It's not really that bad out there :)
Another Kevin
08-28-2013, 10:01
Much easier than it should be to get lost. the clubs and other interested entities along the trail have been reducing the blazing on purpose. They think that overblazing is unsightly and unnecessary so they send out maintainers fix the problem. Over zealous people go to far. It's worse in the North. Each club ignores the established guidelines in there own way by the leeway granted by the ATC. Rather than hard and fast rules they have loose language. If we had hard and fast rules that the clubs followed the problem would go away. What is a "wilderness area" anyway? The clubs won't even acknowledge that it is a problem and there answer "we don't need no stink'in blazes" Davy Crockett didn't need them. To that, I say, What about the missing Hiker in Maine?
And I answer, People go missing in the city every day, too. The Trail is a remarkably safe place. (And I'm pretty sure that I'm closer than you to people going missing while hiking. My stepfather lost his father that way at a young age. But I don't make my decisions based on that.)
The leeway is there for a purpose. Harriman needs its frequent blazing and it's "don't stray from established trails" rules. (They look the other way at hikers using unmaintained trails and abandoned roads, by the way, if it appears you know what you're doing. I've spoken with a ranger while coming off an unmaintained trail and not been scolded.) Maine isn't overrun with suburbanites, and doesn't have a confusing maze of intersecting trails. In places where the trail is obvious, a blaze every five minutes of walking or so is enough.
Painting over blazes is most often done for relocations, not because the trail is "overblazed". (As a sometime trail maintainer, I can hardly imagine being willing to waste the time doing something silly like that, when there are considerably more important jobs to be done.) Sometimes you'll hit a stretch where another trail that shared treadway with the AT has been relocated, and you'll see its blazes painted over. I know of one club that's had considerable infighting over straight double blazes vs. Garveys and whether or not to double-blaze obvious switchbacks, but nobody sane actually goes out and modifies the blazing in the field as long as it's not out-and-out misleading. They just argue about it endlessly at club meetings and on line.
I know you have an axe to grind about the trail maintenance clubs - and you say that they don't represent hikers. I say, "at worst they don't represent Moldy."
And "get over it."
And "don't hijack threads."
Now for the original poster... You sound as if you haven't done much hiking. The AT is a pretty friendly place. If you start somewhere that's got a lot of hiker traffic, such as the Green Mountains, the Taconics, Harriman, the Blue Ridge, ... (lots of places meet that description), you'll be fine. Don't just jump off to the Whites or Maine without experience. Which you'll gain by hiking those less-challenging places. Newbie northbounders do fine (once you rule out the vast number of newbies who give it up in the first month because hiking really wasn't for them).
When you get "lost" by not paying attention, you'll at worst be on another trail. Either you backtrack to the AT, or you follow the mistaken trail where it leads, because all trails go somewhere. You carry map and compass to decide among those options. (I carry map and compass so that I can vary trail hiking with bushwhacking, but this is an A-T forum, so I won't discuss that.)
Most hikers who "died while being lost in the woods" are hikers who had a stroke or heart attack on-trail (or a short distance off-trail using a cathole or something), or who had a stroke, lost cognitive function, and wandered. If I'm going to drop dead of a cardiovascular event, I might just as well do it in the woods as in town.
While the AT is about as easy to follow as a trail can be, hikers who are new to it get confused quite often. Some much more often than others. A couple of my fellow '06 SOBOs were incredibly navigationally challenged, and spent a lot of time either crashing around confused or sitting on the Trail staring at their Data Books, wondering where they were. They'd start off the day ahead of me, and end up way behind me, having made some blunder that sometimes took them miles out of their way.
Usually one isn't truly lost, but just misdirected. It's annoying, tiring, and sometimes upsetting, but it's part of the learning process. Misdirected becomes lost when panic sets in...I don't know where I am...I'd better take a shortcut to get back where I'm supposed to be...
Blazes are irregularly spaced. In some places you can see from one blaze to the next. In others you can go for many minutes without seeing one.
The AT takes many turns, frequently off a larger woods road or even paved road onto a smaller path. Inattentive hikers can miss those turns. Often the trail clubs lay logs or sticks across the larger or straight false path, but the novice hiker will just step over those and keep going.
In high-traffic areas, there are unmarked social paths in addition to the main Trail.
And in some places the AT has been rerouted. If you miss the turn onto the new trail you might end up finding white blazes that didn't get painted over along the old trail, which is really confusing.
In Pennsylvania the boundaries of hunting areas are marked with white paint that looks very much like AT blazes.
And most common of all...very rarely is the direction of travel marked. It's quite easy to get going the wrong direction. Hours later you arrive at some clearly incorrect place, like the shelter you slept at last night or the summit of a mountain you've already climbed.
Weather-man
08-28-2013, 10:23
I think you'd have to work at getting lost on the AT, at least the sections I've been on. What I have seen is "reverse blazing"....not exactly lost but getting up in the morning, breaking camp or leave the shelter and pick up the trail in the reverse direction. I think the real issue with the AT is that it is generally so well worn and well marked that folks get sort of complacent.
edit: I see Marta beat me to it ref wrong way on the AT!
capehiker
08-28-2013, 10:59
I haven't gotten lost but I have gotten turned around. This always happened after getting off trail and into the woods to relieve myself. I'd walk for a minute and then realize I spaced out.
I've missed blazes while section hiking. The key is to stay calm and backtrack until you find a blaze. Then look around you and discover where the next blaze really is. In my case I either took a wrong turn or turned when I shouldn't have. It has cost me up to an hour in some cases. But I found my way back to the trail eventually.
miassis dragon
08-28-2013, 12:24
Not all who wander are lost...:banana
joshuasdad
08-28-2013, 12:55
I've been off trail a few times, but not really lost. The least harrowing was following the wrong white blazes heading SOBO in the town of Dalton, MA. Just pulled up the AT Companion on the smartphone and figured out how to get back to the trail.
The reroute north of Clarendon, VT heading up Killington was difficult to follow after the hurricane, and I was walking in the stream, walking on dirt roads, etc. just trying to find where the trail returned to normal.
I have also lost the trail in snow/ice (followed old trail, instead of reroute in Central VA; headed up overlook instead of heading down trail near Vernon, CT).
Rhododendrons make the trail hard to follow sometimes, especially in the dark. North of Pearisburg, VA are some really difficult areas. I sometimes used the trick of checking the ground firmness to determine if I was on the right trail.
I have only been "lost" twice both times in PA, meaning i was standing there wondering where the trail wandered off to. The first was near the top of the ridge prior to coming down to DWG. The trail must of branched off. I came to a gravel road and then followed it up to the trail. Relatively straightforward. The second time was hiking prior to daylight south of Port Clinton. Trail went off a gravel road, I missed the turn. Didn't really matter because the trail stayed up high so I went perpendicular to the road and hit the trail about 50 yards away. Also straightforward. One final thing. I rarely take maps except for PA because I have them, ironic that in 2000 miles of AT hiking that I had a map on both "lost" occasions.
I'll address your last line - "I wish I could just go and live in the wilderness and never come back to jobs, bills, computers, TV or smog." I don't know how you are defining wilderness in that statement but it may be that you're thinking wilderness is the absence of those things. You're romanticizing. You may be thinking wilderness will solve all your present issues. Wilderness offers up a different set of issues It entails a freedom but it comes at a steep price few are willing to consider and live by - major commitment, demanding effort, WORK, independence(that has deep ramifications!), unending responsibility, and trading in the benefits you get from most of the things on that list. It sounds like you want the benefits without putting in the effort and work. That doesn't fly in true wilderness settings. True wilderness wouldn't be embraced readily by more than 75 % of the world's population IMHO. That type of running away from all responsibility, commitment, and current issues mindset contributes to the STEEP drop out rate of wanna do a AT thru-hikers when the stark reality finally dawns on them that what they are doing is exchanging one set of issues for another.
Besides, if you really wanted to avoid computers, TV, and smog you don't have to go into the wilderness. You can do that right there in Spain. If you want to avoid Madrid's pollution relocate from Madrid. Pros and cons to most things. Consider that.
coach lou
08-28-2013, 13:38
I lost a party member once. We parked at Kelly Stand Road, Vt. headed south on a 'Relocation'! Over-nited at Goddard shelter. In the morning we stopped at the tower, John (ultra ultra-lighter) took off, Joe and I stopped for all the roses, we never saw John again until 1030pm. He got to the relo spot and cruised right by it. Got to the road and the car should have been 100yrds to the right, nope.............We waited, we drove up and down those Forest circus roads for hours. We went to town to call my X, to brief her, on the way back....there he was walking along Kelly Stand Road.........High Fellas!
bangorme
08-28-2013, 13:53
I've gotten off trail a few times. The trick is to bring a map (the AMC ones are the best IMHO) and a compass. DON'T TRUST A GPS. There are times when terrain will block the signal... take my word for it. Two ways to get lost. The first is that you get sidetracked on the wrong trail. That's when the AMC map comes in handy. Just backtrack until you find the intersection, then study the map. The AT trail is going NE for example. Look for a trail going NE, then try it. There are other tricks (like contour lines), but that will get you back on the right trail most of the time. If your trail comes to an end (happened to me last year), STOP and turn around. You'll figure it out back at the intersection.
The second way to get lost is to leave the trail to camp or to relieve yourself (this is my theory for what happened to the lady in Maine recently). Both are supposed to be 200 feet, but sometimes you have to go further to find a suitable campsite. Look at your map BEFORE you leave the trail. If the trail is going north to south and you head east when you leave the trail,you know you have to head west to find it. This seems unnecessary, but I've left the trail when it was almost dark, set up camp, and woken up to find where I am unrecognizable. Taking that compass reading before I left the trail made me confident that I could get back on the trail.
Another Kevin
08-28-2013, 21:16
Gorgiewave: If you're simply sick of jobs, bills, computers, TV and smog, are you in a position where you can take a shorter leave of absence than it would take to come to the US and hike the AT? Your country has el Camino de Santiago de Compostela, which I understand is a wonderful pilgrimage. It's considerably less arduous than the AT, and would allow you to clear your mind. I understand that prayerful atmosphere on the Camino helps a great deal, too. I'd like to do that one of these years. Maybe after I've retired. 2021 is a Holy Year. (If this idea interests you, the organization that supports Spanish pilgrims has a web site here: http://peregrinossantiago.es/esp/). It's not just for religious people. (http://vicenteasantiago.blogspot.com/2013/02/certificado-de-peregrino-no-religioso.html)
bangorme: If I'm planning to follow a trail rather than bushwhacking (which is a whole other set of skills), I take the approximate compass bearing on which I'm leaving the trail, and leave that set in the compass. Since my compass has a lanyard on it, I also wrap the lanyard around the compass base, left to right if I turned right to leave the trail, and right to left if I turned left. When it comes time to return to the trail, I reverse the bearing to know which way the trail is, and know that to continue on trail the way I was going, I have to turn the way the lanyard is wrapped. That way, there's nothing to remember in the morning, and heck, I'm perfectly capable of forgetting that stuff in the time it takes me to squat and do my business, much less camping overnight.
(On a bushwhack, I make detailed notes of places and times and compass headings. And I set the declination on my compass before I leave, because I don't trust myself to remember "timid virgins make dull company at weddings" and "Chicago dead men vote twice in elections" under pressure, much less get the arithmetic right. But that's getting far off topic.)
Catnip514
08-30-2013, 17:28
Sometimes I wish the AT was a little easier to get lost on......
On that note is the AT really considered "The Wilderness"?
Drybones
08-30-2013, 17:36
Just pay attention and you won't get lost
Agree...the trail is well worn and easy to follow. The only time I had a problem was when I was hurrying to make up lost time and took a wrong trail because I missed a sign, which should have been obvious.
garlic08
08-30-2013, 17:36
There are over 82,000 blazes in the northbound direction only. That's about 140 feet between blazes on average!
That doesn't tell the whole story. One missed or missing blaze can result in getting off trail. At least one area, the White Mountains, does not have many blazes at all.
hikerboy57
08-30-2013, 17:40
its rare anyone has actually gotten lost hiking the at.some may get misdirected for a bit, but very rarely is anyone truly lost. most of us have gone off from a break or from camp in the wrong direction, only to realize our mistake.unfortunately some have hiked miles in the wrong direction, but they were on the at the whole time.
if you pay attention, the only areas you may have some difficulty is above treeline where you follow cairns instead of blazes, and if visibility is poor, can be hard to follow.compass and map thru the whites is always a good idea.
but just pay attention. you'll be fine.
Goofy lost/confusion things happen all the time, often when you are just thinking about something else and pass a trail junction.
I think it's important to carry paper maps, so that you can stop and figure out what went wrong, and go back and get back on the trail.
This often happens when hiking life seems to be just perfect--hiking off the trail while daydreaming, or deep in a conversation.
at least I've done it many times...
IMO, it's hard to get very lost on the AT. There's AT lost and there's getting lost in the Amazon, Patagonia, canyonlands of Utah, Alaska, Siberia, Antarctica, middle of the Pacific Ocean, etc.