Getting Lost In a National Forest
Back when I was 13 or so, my Boy Scout troop planned a weekend backpacking trip to Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois. If you haven't been down there before, it's a really beautiful place. It's this hilly, sprawling region that balances out the rest of the state's flatness with a whole lot of elevation change. We figured it would be a nice introduction to backpacking, considering it was "relatively" nearby and a pretty good start to rugged terrain. After all, Southern Illinois had mountains, but they were Illinois mountains so, you know, easy.
We went down to Shawnee on Memorial Day weekend and found a campsite to spend Friday night at. The plan was to drive over to the trailhead on Saturday and hike 12 miles up to a campsite close to a road, so that we could do some resupply (because we were just starting backpacking), hike about 8 more miles to another campsite on Sunday, and then drive home Monday morning. Pretty easy, yeah? What would a group of teenage boys do when presented with such simplicity?
Get lost immediately. Obviously.
Yeah, so being the uppity zoomers we were, our group started booking it down the trail and quickly got pretty far ahead of most of the adults. It got to the point where we couldn't even see them behind us. We just figured we'd stop and wait once we hit the fork in the trail coming up. And so we kept going. A half-mile went by. Then it turned into a mile. Then another half mile. Then two miles total. At that point we realized that something might be wrong.
We took a break to see what happened and finally pulled out the map. Lo and behold, we figured out we had missed the fork in the trail. No one even processed that there was a fork. We just kept taking the straight route, even past the point where the trail ended. We figured out we were sitting in a riverbed, but where along the river, we had no idea.
There's a certain feeling of excitement that comes with being lost in the middle of a giant forest. Especially as a group of 13-year-olds with only one adult, it felt liberating, in a way. No one was there to tell us what to do. We could make the rules and decide what to do by ourselves. I was getting a weird Lord of the Flies mindset from that experience. It was finally up to us, the children, to figure out how to proceed. And what do you think we did?
Got even more lost. Duh.
Turns out following a river farther downstream will not get you in the direction you came from. Having already gone who knows how far off the trail, it felt like a waste of mileage to have to backtrack and find the fork in the road. After all, we'd still have a long ways to go if we went back. So instead we figured: let's just keep following the river. It'll have to intersect another trail at some point, right?
Well, it didn't. Making our best guess as to where the trails were on the map, we cut through a patch of stinging nettle and over a hill to find an actual trail. And once we found it, we were pretty ecstatic with ourselves. We had braved the dangers of the wilderness and used our super-survival skills to find our way out of the woods. And it only took a few extra miles of walking and searing pain in our legs.
Our next challenge was meeting back up with the adults. We found what trail we were on and tried linking it to the trail we were supposed to be following from the beginning. And we found one path that directly connected us with that trail, and a different path that branched off of our trail and intersected the other trail a few miles down the line. I bet you can guess which one we we went down.
Our rationale was that following the longer trail meant we were more likely to intersect the adults. We assumed that they had just kept hiking without us, so if we took the longer trail we would probably hit them before they walked past us. So four extra miles of hiking later, we finally hit the intersection. And there they were––the adults, waiting for us. A wave of relief washed over us as we crashed down at the intersection, dropping the 20 pounds of gear we were each carrying onto the ground in overbearing gladness. We had braved the wilderness and come out on top. Nothing could stop us now.
Well, except for exhaustion. And the fact that we still had two more miles to go in order to reach the campsite. And the general hit to our group's morale that getting lost had done. And getting yelled at by the adults for not using our heads. It was both a fun and not fun time.
Eventually, we reached the campsite and settled down in tiredness. The next day we decided to cut our backpacking adventure short due to the events of the previous day. Instead we went out to a different part of the Shawnee National Forest and climbed around on rocks. It was much more fun than getting lost. We drove home on Monday morning as planned, all a little bit glad to be done with that whole adventure.
We went down to Shawnee on Memorial Day weekend and found a campsite to spend Friday night at. The plan was to drive over to the trailhead on Saturday and hike 12 miles up to a campsite close to a road, so that we could do some resupply (because we were just starting backpacking), hike about 8 more miles to another campsite on Sunday, and then drive home Monday morning. Pretty easy, yeah? What would a group of teenage boys do when presented with such simplicity?
Get lost immediately. Obviously.
Yeah, so being the uppity zoomers we were, our group started booking it down the trail and quickly got pretty far ahead of most of the adults. It got to the point where we couldn't even see them behind us. We just figured we'd stop and wait once we hit the fork in the trail coming up. And so we kept going. A half-mile went by. Then it turned into a mile. Then another half mile. Then two miles total. At that point we realized that something might be wrong.
We took a break to see what happened and finally pulled out the map. Lo and behold, we figured out we had missed the fork in the trail. No one even processed that there was a fork. We just kept taking the straight route, even past the point where the trail ended. We figured out we were sitting in a riverbed, but where along the river, we had no idea.
There's a certain feeling of excitement that comes with being lost in the middle of a giant forest. Especially as a group of 13-year-olds with only one adult, it felt liberating, in a way. No one was there to tell us what to do. We could make the rules and decide what to do by ourselves. I was getting a weird Lord of the Flies mindset from that experience. It was finally up to us, the children, to figure out how to proceed. And what do you think we did?
Got even more lost. Duh.
Turns out following a river farther downstream will not get you in the direction you came from. Having already gone who knows how far off the trail, it felt like a waste of mileage to have to backtrack and find the fork in the road. After all, we'd still have a long ways to go if we went back. So instead we figured: let's just keep following the river. It'll have to intersect another trail at some point, right?
Well, it didn't. Making our best guess as to where the trails were on the map, we cut through a patch of stinging nettle and over a hill to find an actual trail. And once we found it, we were pretty ecstatic with ourselves. We had braved the dangers of the wilderness and used our super-survival skills to find our way out of the woods. And it only took a few extra miles of walking and searing pain in our legs.
Our next challenge was meeting back up with the adults. We found what trail we were on and tried linking it to the trail we were supposed to be following from the beginning. And we found one path that directly connected us with that trail, and a different path that branched off of our trail and intersected the other trail a few miles down the line. I bet you can guess which one we we went down.
Our rationale was that following the longer trail meant we were more likely to intersect the adults. We assumed that they had just kept hiking without us, so if we took the longer trail we would probably hit them before they walked past us. So four extra miles of hiking later, we finally hit the intersection. And there they were––the adults, waiting for us. A wave of relief washed over us as we crashed down at the intersection, dropping the 20 pounds of gear we were each carrying onto the ground in overbearing gladness. We had braved the wilderness and come out on top. Nothing could stop us now.
Well, except for exhaustion. And the fact that we still had two more miles to go in order to reach the campsite. And the general hit to our group's morale that getting lost had done. And getting yelled at by the adults for not using our heads. It was both a fun and not fun time.
Eventually, we reached the campsite and settled down in tiredness. The next day we decided to cut our backpacking adventure short due to the events of the previous day. Instead we went out to a different part of the Shawnee National Forest and climbed around on rocks. It was much more fun than getting lost. We drove home on Monday morning as planned, all a little bit glad to be done with that whole adventure.
I know exactly what you mean when you talk about the sense of freedom that you had when you were alone in the wilderness without any real adult supervision. It is definitely very easy to get carried away and high on that newfound independence. The first time I went driving on my own after I got my license, I promptly went for a drive on my own and somehow ended up getting lost in somewhere in northern Champaign. I sometimes wonder if kids/teens wouldn't be so trigger-happy with the freedom if we gave them more independence from a younger age, but I also can imagine what would happen if we gave kids too much independence. To be honest, I think it's a natural stage of rebellion.
ReplyDeleteThis story perfectly captures the feeling of being slightly lost but still having a great time. Something about not quite knowing where you are brings out people's adventuresome spirit, as long as there isn't the threat of abandonment or a natural disaster. I'm glad you found the other group eventually!
ReplyDeleteBeing a troop 101 boi I can relate to getting lost during a hike. We were in Turkey Run and were hiking through a Canyon. Having 40+ bois with us it was difficult to manage the dedicated Zoomers at the front and the people pulling the pace at the tail of the group. We were making our way down what seemed like a trail with fervor until we realized that the adults were nowhere to be found so we waited for them to catch up. Only after 15 minuted of bouldering on the canyon walls did we start to consider the notion that we were lost. After consulting the map we realized we were hiking on a deceased creek bed and not a trail some bois decided it was the best course of action to blow on our whistles dedicated for emergencies. In a matter of second the adults lower in the canyon yelled for use to stop blowing on our whistles, saying that they were for emergencies. At this point I was confused if they knew where we were the whole time and this was a cruel joke as I considered being lost to be on the spectrum of emergencies. After this misadventure our troop invested in a set of walkie talkies to allow communication between the speedy bois at the front of the pack and those bringing up the rear.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading the story of your misadventure because of your sarcastic tone in many places. I also like the way you would give an even, describe your thought process, and your thoughts on it now by reflecting on it. The extra details you added really separated your blog post from just a narration of the events, and made it much more fun for the reader to understand.
ReplyDelete