What To Do If You Get Lost Backpacking

hey y'all Dixie here today I want to discuss being lost in the woods if you spend enough time in the outdoors hiking and backpacking then you should consider what you would do if you end up lost some things to tell your children about being lost if you take your children out hiking and backpacking with you and then also what to consider if you're hiking with a friend and they end up lost all of the sources that I've pulled information from today I'll have those links in the video description below so let's get started first things first the best solution to a problem is for the problem to never exist so let's talk about prevention before you go out on a trail even for a day hike if you're not intending to stay the night you should always be prepared - just in case so you need to make sure that you carry with you the ten essentials of hiking and this is really in my opinion the ten essentials of stepping into the woods or the outdoors because it's a good idea just in case something goes wrong the ten essentials are navigation a headlamp or other light source sun protection first aid a knife or other tools some way to start a fire shelter and this can be a makeshift shelter extra food extra water and extra clothing I have a video on the 10 essentials in detail if you want to learn more about those or examples of those and I'll put the link to that video in the video description as well as far as prevention goes with the 10 essentials I feel like navigation is probably the most important part because that's assuring that if you end up off the trail a little bit that hopefully you can get right back on before you're truly lost now there are apps like gut hook if you're gonna go on one of the more popular trails in the US and actually in some other countries as well there's the Venza app also all trails there are several different apps where you can use the GPS through your phone to make sure that you're staying on the beaten path it's always a good idea to have a backup source of navigation in case you end up losing your phone if that's what you're using but carrying a map and a compass is not gonna help you unless you know how to use it but just keep in mind it's a good idea to have two forms of navigation another important preventative measure is checking the weather before you go which I didn't do such a great job at today and is why I am now sitting on the back porch recording but it looks like the sun's out while it's Sundering anyway there was this article that I found that was pretty interesting and went into depth as to why people in the Smoky Mountains area end up disoriented and off trail and I found that 17% of people ended up lost due to inclement weather so certainly by avoiding hiking during bad weather can increase your chances of not getting lost there are some other things that you can do before you go that won't necessarily prevent you from getting lost but can help in the instance that you do end up off trail and one of those is to make sure you let two people know exactly where you're going how long you plan to be gone your expected return time etc just give them all the nitty-gritty details that way if you don't turn up when you should have been home they can contact search-and-rescue on your behalf I make sure to also let your two contacts know if you go by a trail name or an alias while you're backpacking that way if they contact search-and-rescue on your behalf then they can let them know to check logbooks for either your civilian name as my friend perc says or for your given name on trail I know that some people don't like to sign the trail register books but even if you don't care about leaving an inspirational message or something like that then just to write your name so that if you do end up off trail folks kind of know where you might have been last so it gives them a smaller area to start searching in also before you go it's not a bad idea to check out the math and kind of study the area that you'll be going to where the high points are where some of the landmarks are maybe where the forested areas are and the meadows are and also for bailout points so if you were to come across a bad situation or a washout on trail or inclement weather then you can use those bailout points if they exist and you'll be familiar with them and finally if you can carry with you something like a personal locator beacon I know that they're not the cheapest items in the world but even not having a device that you can communicate through like a spot device or an in reach but even just the basic send a signal by pushing a button SOS I need help at this location is really probably one of the best things that you can do to make sure that if you get lost that you are found and that help comes to you especially if you've got an injury or something like that I on my first two thru-hike said not carrying anything like this but after through hiking the Pacific Crest Trail it became very important to me to make sure I had something like that that way I could call for help if I needed it and also if I saw somebody else that needed it once you're out on trail you can continue doing some things that will help you if you do end up off trail or might even prevent you from getting off trail and one of those is to be aware of your surroundings not only look at certain landmarks like a cliff or a jagged mountain range or just something some sort of feature that kind of stands out to you but look at those in front of you with your eyes and then also compare those features to the map or the app whatever you're using for navigation also it's not a bad idea to turn around and look behind you every so often because if you're hiking in the opposite direction oftentimes the trail can look like a totally different place then if you end up a bit disoriented one of those landmarks might help you find your way up I also make it a point to check in regularly while I'm out backpacking I know that a lot of folks like to just escape and not have anybody know where they are what they're doing don't want to check in just kind of want to be out there by themselves and while I can definitely appreciate that I just made a point to contact my mom each night through my inReach while I was on the Continental Divide Trail I would send her in my location I would let her know what mile marker I was at that way again if I was to end up missing they would know at least a point to start looking now let's discuss the instance where you are actually off trail your turned around and disoriented and you've realized I don't really know where I am the first thing it's recommended you do is to stop to look around with your eyes and not your legs and try to just reorient yourself look around to see if you recognize any of the landmarks that hopefully you took note of before but the the first thing that seems to happen is that people panic they kind of get in a tizzy they're freaking out maybe you're embarrassed and you don't want to admit to yourself that you're lost I've had that happen to me before I wasn't sure if I was even heading north or south on the trail and you know when I passed somebody it was a little embarrassing to ask like hey what direction are you heading right now but it's okay for that to happen it happens to a lot of people that spend time in the outdoors whether they want to admit it or not but as long as you kind of sit down just take a break allow yourself to work through that panic and don't scurry around frantically trying to find your bearings again and end up putting yourself in a worse situation not only do you want to look around if you're disoriented but you also should listen do you hear other people coming down the trail do you hear cars going down the road and you know that civilization is nearby you hear a water source that could end up helpful later in the case that you're gonna have to stick around in this one spot for a while so again just kind of taking a break taking in all of your surroundings allowing yourself to calm down can really help you with having a clear mind and coming up with a plan to move forward staying put is always the recommended action to take because folks are going to come looking for you at the last place you were reported being seen or where you signed a register or where you told somebody that you were so by not moving you're assuring that you're staying at least hopefully somewhat close to that point instead of wandering off farther and it's never suggested that you move unless you have a solid plan of action and really as a last resort so you're lost and you've decided that you're gonna stay put what do you do next you can try calling 911 if you have cell service even if you don't think you have cell service supposedly if you call 9-1-1 hopefully it will ping a tower and can kind of give your location so it never hurts to try that of course also if you've got two week of service to place a call sometimes a text can still kind of get through so if you can let those contacts know hey I'm lost the last place I remember being is such-and-such but just because the call won't go through doesn't always mean that a text won't and vice-versa while staying put you can also check for an immediately nearby opening like a meadow start a fire there one for warmth to it'll give you something to do with your nervous energy and three you can hopefully signal somebody with smoke during the day by placing wet wood green wood on the fire just to create more smoke if you've ever had a campfire and put green wood on the fire you know that it chokes you out and then by night you'll have the flames again in an open area that will hopefully draw some attention if folks are looking for you if you have a reflective emergency blanket or anything with bright colors displaying those can also help draw attention to you if you have an emergency whistle which a lot of them are built on to the sternum straps of packs nowadays you can blow on that - hopefully alert people that you're in trouble I think it's gonna exert a lot less energy than screaming so probably a good idea to make sure you have one of those in your pack if it's not already built in and again I cannot stress enough don't let embarrassment or shame or disappointment in yourself cause you to end up more loss and in a worse situation I know people have said that they ended up lost and they were about 1/8 of a mile from a road or 1/8 of a mile from the trailhead that's ok it's better to laugh at the situation later and and do the right thing to get yourself to safety then to end up not found and the worst case scenario I think it is a natural instinct for people to keep walking and not stay put and in fact in that same article that I was talking about for the Smoky Mountains area sixty-five percent of people who were lost stayed on the move to try to figure out where they were while thirty five percent of people stayed put and when it came down to how people ended up actually not being lost anymore twenty three percent of people got out on their own while seventy seven percent of people ended up having to be rescued so making it easier on the rescue teams is probably very much appreciated let's say for whatever reason you decide not to stay put maybe you didn't let anybody know where you were going and you feel like folks aren't gonna come looking for you you've stayed put for a few hours you don't hear any other people nearby or sounds of civilization one of the first things that you can do is walk around in a large radius from the point where you first kind of realize that you're off trail in hopes of intersecting the trail again but make sure to keep your eye on that one spot that way you don't end up even more disoriented from the point where you found out that you were kind of disoriented if that fails and as a last resort it's recommended that you walk downhill and stay walking downhill or if you find a water source even something like a spring or a small stream following that because it'll likely flow into a larger water source that will hopefully flow into civilization because many civilizations are of course built up around some sort of water source now the walking downhill method and the staying near water method might not be the easiest way to find your way out of the woods but again in a situation where nobody knows where you are then that might be your best bet as you're walking you might want to make some sort of marker for yourself so you know where you've come from that way if you decide to go back you can do so or if you end up overlapping where you've already been then you're aware of that something like broken branch or even taking a knife and shaving a sapling I understand that we don't want to go just killing trees in the wilderness but in a survival situation you got to do what you got to do and finally it might help you to remember that the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west and of course this is an exact East and exact West but it'll give you an idea because the Sun will be pretty much repetitive each day there are some other tips that you can keep in mind to take care of yourself if you are executing a plan to get yourself out of the woods first of all it's important to take breaks you need to rest not only your body but your mind and recollect yourself when you stop to take a snack break allow yourself 30 minutes or so for your body to start digesting your food that way it's not trying to digest while walking and exerting more energy make sure you're drinking plenty of water and keeping yourself hydrated now I think that regardless if you're going out for a day hike and you don't think that you're gonna need any additional water than what you've brought it's important to have some way of treating water whether that's a little tablet or a water filter you can get a life straw or a saw your mini that's not very expensive at all twenty bucks sure that you have clean water in a situation where you need it if you end up in this situation though where you have no way to treat your water then I would be if you can selectively about where you get water from so of course a stagnant water source is not gonna be as good as a running water source and a big river it's not gonna be as good as a natural spring flowing right out of the ground but you know when you're in a tough situation where you have nothing and then you come across some stagnant water for myself I'm probably gonna drink the stagnant water and hope somebody finds me before my diarrhea sets in and dehydrates me further but that's got to be a personal choice depending on your individual situation it's recommended in a situation like this especially if you're low on water to not push yourself hiking through the heat of the day in a survival situation it's good to pay attention to your body temperature so that you're not overheating or if you're in cooler temperatures you're not sweating too much and getting your clothes wet and then ending up with hypothermia and finally don't allow something that's kind of nagging you or some sort of discomfort to end up turning into a full-fledged serious injury if you notice something going on with your feet or your knees maybe you need to sit down and take a break or address the issue if you can that way you're not in a serious predicament where you can't move at all if you're having to stay the night especially unexpectedly that can be a very stressful situation so hopefully you'll have the 10 essentials that I discussed earlier and you'll have practice with those items so it doesn't feel so foreign just having a little bit of peace of mind knowing that you planned for this emergency situation I feel like would probably help a lot at least mentally but if you don't have the 10 essentials then creating a fire so you can maintain some warmth try to build some sort of makeshift shelter with limbs maybe against a log and then put some other brush up over that that will help insulate yourself and also keep you out of bad weather hopefully and then if you're gonna lay directly on the ground to sleep and you don't have any way to insulate yourself from the ground try to collect enough leaves and pine straw etc to give yourself about an 8 inch or so layer that way you're not losing body heat by lying directly on the ground I think it's not only important for us as adults to prepare for the situation of getting lost but if we're taking children out on the trail then informing them of what to do too now of course it might depend on your child's age how much they're actually able to understand but if your child's old enough to walk by themselves and can carry the weight of a pack with the 10 essentials in it again even for just a day hike and you can help teach them how to use those items lunch break you practice with their water filter maybe you go on a short hike and focus on using those items and setting up an emergency shelter I mean it's probably fun for kids to practice building even a makeshift shelter so but I think at least making sure that they have some things and know how to use them to keep them alive in elements is is really important and a responsible thing to do they should especially have things like an emergency blanket that they can wrap up in water snacks and a whistle as far as telling them what they should do an instance that they're lost it's recommended of course that you tell them to stay put if they feel like they don't know where they are they don't know where mom and dad is or whatever adult they were with just stay there some people recommend telling them to hug a tree some people recommend giving them a toy and having them you know play with it so if you don't realize where you are don't be scared also assure them you are not going to be in trouble so don't frantically try to find me again so you're not in trouble for being lost you know just stay put in this area play with your toy play with your cards or again hug a tree and somebody's gonna come and find you I've also read that it's recommended to let your children know that no it's not okay to talk to strangers but if they hear strangers in the woods then they should make themselves known to those people blow their whistle holler out or you know let them know that if they turn up lost that mom and dad or some really nice people are gonna come looking for them and to make sure that if they hear somebody calling out for them that they respond because it would be a terrible thing to have your child sitting there and a rescuer who I'm out here talking about this and I don't even have children but to hear you know somebody looking for them and not respond because they're afraid of strangers and then of course as they get older you can start letting them know some of the other things that you as an adult would do if you were to get lost that way they kind of transition into that same mindset and the steps that you yourself would take and the final topic of being lost that I want to today is what to do when a hiking partner ends up m.i.a so say you're hiking with somebody you stop and take a break you've waited a while and they don't show up what do you do I think the most important thing that you can do if you have a hiking partner is to establish some things before you get out on trail are y'all going to be sticking together all of the time not leaving each other's sight except for you know a private moment while you're taking a bathroom break or are you going to be kind of independently hiking together where maybe you're gonna be camping in the same places meeting up for lunch or at certain points during the day maybe certain mile markers you know that's really between you and the people that you decide to hike and backpack with it's important for each person in your hiking party to have their own source of navigation that way they're not depending on you or you're not depending on them and also take caution when sharing gear if you end up separated then somebody might be in a predicament not having the things that they need to survive and take care of themselves for myself while I'm on a thru-hike I meet awesome people along the way maybe we hike together for several weeks or I've even gone out to the trail with friends when I started the Continental Divide Trail I started with my friend perc and my friend Aaron who is editor of this channel we all kind of hiked loosely together we weren't with each other every second of the day and that was what worked well for us and and what I think works well for most through hikers even families that I've seen out there they allow their older children to go ahead and tell them okay at this point I want you to stop and we're meeting for lunch so anyway whatever works best for the individuals involved but knowing that you have a certain plan in case this happens I think is very important I actually had this situation happen with my friend Aaron while we were in the Gila River area on the Continental Divide Trail and I had seen Aaron about a mile back or so I got to the first water crossing and decided I wanted to wait and could cross together and he didn't show up so I just kind of took a little bit longer of a parade he can drink some water then I waited even longer ate some snacks and I realized okay even if Aaron stopped to take a break and hiked this mile he should have been here by now because I knew the mileage we were aiming to do that day so I wasn't sure if something terrible had happened when people came down the trail I asked him if they had seen him they said no and they had started back further than where we had started that day so if he had been on trail I feel like they would have seen him so I assumed that he was either way off trail and what are the chances that I'm going to be able to find him I only had a certain limited amount of food and water and we were scheduled to get to town the next day to resupply so I was running low on those things or I knew that he ended up on a different trail and hopefully he would figure that out and backtrack or find a bailout point and that's actually what he ended up doing so I could have put myself in a worse situation of being lost myself looking for him or being short on water and food so I felt like the best thing to do was to one I had an in reach I didn't have cell service but I was able to contact his parents that night at Cannes and let them know that Aaron had gone missing or at least he hadn't shown up at camp that night and to I had to continue on to the point that I knew we were gonna go resupply that way if he didn't show up there in a reasonable amount of time we could then contact search and rescue Chernov when I got to the place that we were going to resupply Aaron had actually beat me there and he was fine so again for myself I think going forward the best thing to do is to talk to my hiking partners and say hey if something goes awry and we end up separated and you know you're worried about me or I'm worried about you the best thing that we can do is head to the point that we knew each other was trying to get to and if other person the missing person doesn't show up at the destination in a reasonable amount of time then it's time to contact the authorities are you all well that is all I have for you today on the topic of what to do if you end up lost in the woods if you've got any other suggestions things that you've heard are a good idea to do or if you've been in that situation yourself and you've got some things to share that helped get you through please feel free to leave all of that in the comments below they go so much for watching and if you found this video useful don't forget to subscribe before you go and we'll see y'all next time

Channel: Homemade Wanderlust

Views: 76,758

Keywords: travel, hiking, backpacking, hike, gear, adventure, fun, story, Appalachian, Trail, PCT, CDT, thru-hike, Auburn, Alabama, epic, climbing, canyon, national, nature, mountains, update, park, lake, trail, tents, camping, summer, University, Aubie, River, stream, Mountains, National, Scenic, Dixie, Camino

Id: ORIldvgzlCU

Length: 24min 49sec (1489 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 10 2020