This is one of those almost spending the night out…..and not preparred nor wanting to!
I'll attempt to set the stage…..I was about 20, deer hunting from a blind in the thickets of Central Louisiana just north of my Grandfather's fence line. His little 40 acre place is at the end of a road of about 4 miles in length, with only 2 other places along the road, another 40 acre parcel and another 20 acre place. Both of which are timber/brush covered with no fencing…..it would be real easy to go right past or through these places without even knowing!
If you miss any of these 3 places….. from where I was hunting it's a pretty good ways to roads, a very small town, or any other homes. To the west, the small town is about 4 or 5 miles, to the north about 10 or 12 miles through some really nasty terrain, to the east about 4 miles to the gravel road running N/S, and to the south just a few hundred yards away my Grandfather's fence line…..if you didn't veer to the right very far, as I was near the NW corner!
I hunted until I could no longer see the sights on my S&W Model 28, and headed out to my Grandfather's place. In mere moments it was pitch dark, making any landmarks useless…..even with a flashlight!
After walking for what seemed like a long time to cover just a couple hundred yards…..I decided to take a look at my compass. What I saw left me in disbelief and denial…..it said that I was going almost 180 degrees the wrong! I didn't want to believe the compas. I even went so far as to, put ever metal that I had a ways from me to get an accurate reading…..still showed me 180 off.
Now came one of the hardest decisions that I had ever made……believe my compass or my uncanny sense if direction!
With all of my thoughts telling me the compass was wrong…..I, with great difficult, made an about-face and started walking!
Much to the dismay of many of you, in a little while I found the fence line…..and lived to tell this story!
memtb
Slight navigational errors can turn big!
Last elk season I was chasing a huge 6x7 on my own. I'd seen him cross the road, so I drove down 2 miles to another cross cut road and parked at the head of it and hiked down until I cut his very fresh tracks. So, being in decent shape and well prepared, I dove off the roads edge right at noon. Silly me to think I could catch an elk who was on the move.
I chased tracks down off the cut bank of the road and into a flat basin for about 300 yards, and then the tracks went straight up a mountainside. In my excitement I just trucked up it as fast as I could. It was one of those mountains that's at least a 25-30 degree slope, covered in bark less conifer branches under the snow. Half of your steps end up sliding backwards because you hit one of those slick wet branches.
I hit the log landing on the hilltop finally around 3pm, and here was my big mistake. I checked my GPS and saw I was at the end of a skidroad that tied into a road system, which looked like it dropped straight back to my truck. If I had zoomed in farther, I would have seen that the roads did not connect at all, and instead the system I was on was a 9 mile walk back to pavement, then 7 miles North to the road I was parked on. But, I did not look closely enough.
I started hiking down the skidroad and realized that without timber cover, the snow was mid shin deep and slow and exhausting to walk through. It was only half a mile to the nearest junction, but it took me 45 minutes to get there. Thankfully, that was a traveled road that had tire tracks to walk down.
By now it was nearly 4, sunset is at 5:15 or so. I changed into dry, not sweat soaked clothes for the hike down, and headed out. And kept going, and going. About an hour in I got worried I wasn't on the right route, and checked my GPS thoroughly and realized the mistake I had made. But at that point it would have been dangerous as hell to cross country back to my truck, so I stuck with my choice and kept heading down hill. Thankfully, I was prepared as I could have been. Extra clothes, bivvy, fire supplies, food and water, wearing all quality gear, several headlamps and batteries. It would have been uncomfortable to spend the night out there in the 15 degree weather, but I would have survived.
When the sun went down I started panicking a bit. I had to continually remind myself that I was on a traveled road, was well prepared, and would certainly have people out looking for me by dark. This was a bit fallacious, as my hunting camp thought I may have gone home without telling them so they drove into town to get cell service and start making calls, and weren't looking for my truck. I learned a lot of lessons this trip...
Finally around 8:30pm I saw headlights, and it was a guy heading back to camp. He very kindly gave me a lift, and I was shocked that it was nearly a 45 minute drive just to get back to my vehicle. That hike would have been brutal. We did start passing some camps within 3 miles so I would have had shelter and help soon enough, but I'm glad he came by when he did.
Getting back to camp, everyone was pretty angry that I didn't tell them where I was, and they were scared. But happy I wasn't dead! The only bad part, I jumped in the truck with my grandpa (who was too angry to talk to me for at least 30 minutes) and we drove into town to call my folks and let them know I was alive. Then I called my fiance, who is new to the hunting world, and got about a 30 second "Hi I'm safe I love you!" before my grandpa drove back out of cell coverage. She was pretty upset with me for not explaining things a bit more to her, which was fair. The next day we all stuck pretty close to camp.
out of me.
Many people at the job thought it was intentional…..who knows? memtb
