Dan's Outside

And just what does it mean to be lost anyway?

Continuing on with some other thoughts provoked by the “lost” Sierra backpackers, I was thinking once again about the concept of being lost.

Though at times I have been unsure about exactly how to get from point A to point B, I’ve only been “lost” once in any signifcant way, and this was many years ago. I was on a very early season trip during spring break, doing a low elevation loop just north of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, and there was still a great deal of snow on the ground. We followed a trail around Hetch Hetchy and then followed another trail up from the water, from which we picked up another trail that purportedly looped back towards our starting point. A short time later we lost the trail in the snow but, knowing the general lay of the land, we navigated on without the trail. We finally figured out that we were not on the trail when we saw a valley below us that we knew we should be walking through, so we headed down the hillside until we reached a stream where we camped – still not on the trail.

The next morning we headed up the valley a little ways and briefly picked up the trail where it crossed a stream – only to find that it disappeared a short distance on either side of the crossing. We followed a low ridge that was in the general vicinity of the trail until we finally decided to exit the area and head back down to an area that was not snow-covered. We picked a valley and headed down, finding our way through trees and over some tricky rocky spots, and we eventually emerged near our objective.

Were we “lost?” I’m not sure. We knew where we were the whole time within a 1/4 mile or less – we just didn’t quite know where the trail was.

Today I often intentionally explore more-or-less trailless areas, and I often do not know the exact route (if there even is one right one) to follow. I very much enjoy this kind of travel, partly for the adventure and partly for the mental challenge of figuring out how to find a route.

My take on the “lost” backpackers of this past weekend is that none of them were actually lost. “Trapped by snow” perhaps, but it sounds like every party knew where they were.

To quote JRR Tolkien, “Not all who wander are lost.”
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October 22, 2004 Posted by gdanmitchell | Commentary | Comments Off on And just what does it mean to be lost anyway?

Lost in the Sierra?

This week’s news stories about the rescues of backpackers caught in last weekend’s early-season winter storm obviously caught my attention. I was backpacking in the Sierra the previous weekend (and it did snow a little) and friends were in the Tioga Pass area the weekend of the big storm.

While October most often is a beautiful month in the Sierra with lots of sunshine, nice temperatures (but take your warm sleeping bag!), and no crowds, this is a time of transition in the mountains. It is not at all unusual to see some early winter-like storms drop some snow, though it usually is not deep and it mostly melts away in a few days.

Two weekends ago I experienced exactly that type of weather. A Pacific front came through and dropped a bit of snow on us on Saturday afternoon while we were travelling cross-country across a ridge near Cathedral Peak and Budd Lake in the Tuolumne Meadows area. We knew that there was some chance of “weather” (“20% chance of showers” at various times during the weekend) but we were prepared in several important ways.

• We changed our plans and did a shorter trip since one member of our party was uncertain about whether he and his gear would be up to a winter storm.
• We let lots of people know our plans – both the original plans and the revised plan that we improvised at the trailhead.
• We had sufficient equipment to weather any weather that could be expected: We had tents or other winter shelters, winter sleeping bags, extra clothing, and so on.
• When the front did come through on Saturday afternoon, we recognized that this was not the same kind of afternoon thunderstorm that we experiece during the Sierra summer – and that we could not assume that it would simply blow over. We got right back to our camp and secured everything.

In the end the storm passed quickly and we had a beautiful trip.

According to the news stories I read (and one must often read between the lines since they are frequently written by reporters with little actual backcountry experience) it appeared that all of the backpackers were prepared for the serious conditions that they encountered last weekend. They hunkered down in tents and worked to keep warm and dry. In one case they were actually brewing up some coffee when the rescuers arrived!
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October 22, 2004 Posted by gdanmitchell | Commentary | Comments Off on Lost in the Sierra?