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.”
—–
October 22, 2004 -
Posted by gdanmitchell |
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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