MOM read this first! I DIDN'T DIE AND NOTHING BAD HAPPENED.
Now that the story has been spoiled by that disclaimer for my mom, here comes the reality: for the first time ever I got lost in the woods. Not "I'm on the wrong trail" lost, or "I wonder whether I missed my turn" lost, this was full-fledged wandering aimlessly in the wilderness lost.
The other day I decided to go for a trail run in the Uinta Wilderness. As the name implies, the area I opted to explore is very remote with very few visitors, no cell service, and as I ended up learning very quickly: poor trail maintenance. Before heading out there, I bought a map, did my research, plotted out an 18 mile loop and even saved turn by turn directions on my fully charged phone. I was prepared, nothing could go wrong.
And then the cows happened. Apparently in Utah cattle graze freely on public land. As they meander through the wilderness they trample winding paths that crisscross the official trails of the forest. As I mentioned before, the trails were very poorly maintained so in many circumstances the cow paths appeared more trail-like and less overgrown than the official trail.
So I'm running along, feeling great, rather confident that I've been following the trail, when all of a sudden the "trail" just ends at a clump of trees. First thought: no big deal, I'll just backtrack and find the turn I missed. I walk back a few feet and realize that there are cow paths everywhere and there are no distinguishable landmarks, just trees and shrubs everywhere. I've been running along lost in my thoughts and haven't been paying attention to my surroundings.
Still I don't panic. I know I started the day with a fully charged phone and I'm only about 4 miles into my run. I started my Runkeeper App that morning so I should be able to pull up my track. But I'm in the Wilderness. My Runkeeper App is tracking my run but I have no service so it won't load a map to show me where I've been. All I see is a blue dot on a gray screen instead of a map. GPS is tracking me, but without the backdrop of a map, that does nothing for me. I can't see where I've been or where I'm going.
Looking at a real map does me no good either, because my map skills are pathetic and I have no landmarks to guide me. I walk in a few circles trying to find the trail. I walk up a hill, then down a hill, I follow something that looks like a trail, and then try to make it back to the point where I first realized I was lost and can't find it. Nothing looks familiar. Panic starts to take root.
I've never truly been lost or concerned about survival in any way so it was an odd experience to see where my mind led me. Once I realized that I truly was lost, legitimately nowhere near a trail and no idea how to get back to it lost, I took a mental inventory of my situation: I had 2 liters of water, a cliff bar, pretzels and dried fruit. It was still early in the day and I had only run about 4 miles so I had plenty of time to find my way back. Since I was out for a run and not backpacking, I didn't have any additional gear.
I start to think of plausible solutions to my dilemma and come up with three options.
1. I've always heard that if you are lost the best course of action is to stay put and wait for help. Not my style. No one even knew I was out here, I had no means of communicating my location, and I hadn't seen anyone else in the woods all day. Sitting put and waiting for rescue was a dumb choice. I'm not the type of person that likes getting saved. I got myself into this mess, so I was going to get myself out of it.
2. I could see a road off in the distance. Like over two mountains and through 2 valleys. I considered trying to bushwhack straight toward the road. I figured I had all day to get back to my car, so why not try to get to the road? Because I'm in the freaking wilderness, that's why. Although I could see the road, the thought that I could make it there without trail to follow was delusional. Traversing two peaks and two valleys without any trail to follow was just asking for more trouble.
3. I have a decent enough sense of direction and knew the route I had originally planned. At my current location, I had to be southwest of where I parked my car. I'd only run about 4 miles so if I moved northeast, I had to eventually find either the trail or my car.
So after several minutes of standing dumbfounded, shocked that I had actually gotten myself into this mess, staring across a vast expanse of endless peaks and valleys, I decided to commit to option 3 and try to get back to where I started.
As I began wandering in a northeasterly direction, I obviously had time to just think, and I was surprised by where my mind went. Here was my stream of thoughts:
•My run is ruined. #priorities
•I now understand how the lady who walked off the AT to pee got lost and died.
•I wish I had my tent like she did.
•This is going to kill my mom, I need to find my way back so she doesn't have a heart attack. (This was a prevalent and reoccurring thought during the entire experience)
•I wonder how long it will take to starve and die.
•The headlines about my death are going to make me look like an idiot "Single female runner gets lost in the woods and dies just miles from the trailhead." I can't let everyone who told me that going to the woods alone is a bad idea be right. More incentive to get myself out of this mess.
•Maybe now that I'm truly in the wilderness I'll see a mountain lion. I've always wanted to see a mountain lion.
The strange thing about being lost was that the thought of dying out there didn't really bother me. Sorry to get dark and morbid, but the only part about dying that really bothered me was how much it would upset my mom. Contemplating your own death is a strange phenomenon.
But let's not focus on the dark and dreary. I didn't die. I continued to wander up and down hills, past trees and rocks that at same time looked familiar and completely foreign. Miraculously I eventually saw a group of hunters in bright blaze orange up on a crest. I don't think they even noticed me, but their existence saved me. I was in a valley just below them, and I knew they had to be on a trail. So I continued trekking through the undergrowth of the forest until I reached that crest, and amazingly there was the trail. The true trail, not the cow path i had accidentally followed earlier.
The whole experience lasted less than an hour and just over a mile of wandering, but it felt like a lifetime. Is it strange that I kind of enjoyed it? Being lost was a little exhilarating. Even though I probably should have been more concerned about my predicament, it was honestly just thrilling. Knowing that there was a real chance something bad could happen gave me a rush. Maybe I would have been more concerned if it had lasted longer, but instead I treated it as just another adventure.
