You watch a video of a spellbinding adventure. You think, “Man, I would love to do that … .”
And it doesn’t happen.
It doesn’t happen for any number of reasons. More often than not, though, it falls victim to overthinking the logistics: What kind of preparation do I need? How will I get there? How will I know what to do when I do get there? Before you know it, you’re mentally exhausted and have moved on to the next video.
Even if you’re a dedicated couch surfer, that springlike weather we had last week, when the temperature reached 80 in some spots, got you thinking, didn’t it? Maybe the outdoors isn’t such a bad place. Maybe I should plan to spend more time outside.
It was back in the 1990s, I’d been backpacking with friends for about 5 years, and convinced myself I should take a solo backpack trip. I felt good about my basic backpacking skills, I loved hiking alone … still, there was this worrisome doubt.
I’d selected a spot for that first trip that I was only vaguely familiar with at the time, Panthertown Valley. I’d hiked there, but never done an overnight. It was also a long drive: even ducking out of work early around 2, I still wouldn’t arrive until 7:30, leaving precious little daylight to hike in (on a trail I didn’t know), find a spot (assuming there was one) and set up camp. It was a plan that left no room for the unexpected. Like a visit from a wayward turkey.
Heading into Asheville on I-40 in late afternoon, my road reverie was broken by something dark rising from off the shoulder. Suddenly, the head of a turkey appeared out the front windshield, its vacant look suggesting that it, too, was lost in some far-off world. Just as suddenly, the rear back window exploded, the Trooper bucked, and in the rear-view mirror I could see the lifeless bird butter-balling down the shoulder. When I pulled into an auto glass repair shop 20 minutes later and presented my dilemma to the five workers waiting for the 5 o’clock whistle, no one said a word. Rather, they walked single file out to the car, where one of them plucked a feather from the backseat and declared, “He’s right.”
I wound up getting to the trailhead in the dark. I could see the trailhead kiosk, and I could see a yellow sign just beyond that proclaimed, “Bear Sanctuary.” What exactly does that mean? Long story short, I checked into a motel. It would be another couple of years before I took my first solo backpack trip.
Good thing, too, because as I later discovered, I was woefully unprepared for my first solo venture. Among my mistakes:
There’s was one of the happy — if scary — endings. Too often lost hiker stories wind up like the case of the 66-year-old AT hiker who wandered off the trail to take a bathroom break and was never seen alive again. As friends and family of the hiker said later, she was an avid hiker with a poor sense of direction.
Not everyone is born with a well-honed internal compass. You don’t need to be, if you follow a few simple rules.
Need more direction?
Three years ago, we started our GetOriented! Finding Your Way in the Woods class. We spend about 30 minutes going over map and compass basics — nothing technical, just the essence of how a compass works, how a topographic map works, and how the two work together. Then we venture down the trail — and off trail — to put those skills to the test and learn more about reading the terrain and finding your way in the woods.
Here are our classes scheduled through May:
Charlotte
It was cold and dark, and we were occasionally plunked with raindrops. But not a one of us moved from our spot by the fire.
“What is it about a campfire?” someone asks.
We’re drawn to fire for its light and heat, of course. But for us, on a three-day backpack trip on the Neusiok Trail in the Croatan National Forest, it was less about survival and more about pondering, as Guy Noir might say, life’s persistent questions. Like whether one would survive a freeze-dried meal with an expiration date of 1997. (Answer: yes, surprisingly.)
