If you got lost hiking, what's your best survival advice?

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If you have a back pack or fanny pack set up with the emergency gear for hiking or hunting, check it annually, especially the fire starter stuff. The matches go bad and so don't the lighters.
 
If the gear is emergency gear, it is all good.

In the end, it all comes down to what and how much you want to carry.

An 80 pound pack for a day hike? A fanny pack for a 3 day, 5 peak traverse?
 
mikiemo83 said:
Thirty years ago when I was in the field surveying we would often walk away from the noise.

One day after a fresh snow, in an area empty of human development, we walked into the site. Hiking in at 7 am and coming out at 4 pm was just a great way to spend the day.

that said we would always know where we were, where to go and how to get out of there, well not all of us. One day we worked late and working with my brother we would tease the new kids from Northeastern about being lost and the sun going down. Now we were 100' from an obvious gas easement and our cut traverse line was visible so we never thought the kid would panic. so I point across an isolated wetland and say something like "based on the sun and time the road is that way" and point across the swamp. The kid, in his panic, just starts running across the swamp afraid we are spending the night in the woods. It was the craziest thing I ever saw.
When we finally calmed him down and take about a 5 minute walk to the truck and the next day we brought him in, handed him the plans, and USGS maps and explained to him how to get in and out if he ever got lost. I swear it was insane the panic this kid displayed. He was about to fall into a swamp in 25 degree weather.

The area was adjacent to balancing rock and so over developed today it sucks.
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Good story. Some folks are just uncomfortable when they can't see a building.

I used to work with this guy who was sort of a jerk who really loved him some him. He was a weightlifter with an "I'm always right" complex. So, he tells me that he's going to hike up Mt. Monadnock with his friends over the weekend and when I saw him on Monday I asked him how it went.

The guy sheepishly admitted that he went off on his own during the descent because his friends were "too slow" and took a couple of wrong turns and missed the trail markers. Somehow. He got himself completely lost and darkness fell and he had nothing with him and was stuck in the woods. It was July so he didn't freeze, but the mosquitos just tore him apart all night long. He was covered with bites as in a couple of hundred and was one hurting puppy.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
 
There are so many potential variables. Where (roughly) are you? Being lost in the White Mountains, where you would at no point be more than say 30 or so miles from a major road, is much different from being lost somewhere out in the West, where everything is on a much larger scale, or even somewhere like northern Maine, where there is a lot of wilderness.

What's the weather like? What season is it?

Are you equipped with anything at all?

Are you injured?

Generally speaking, priorities would be:

1. Shelter.
2. Water.
3. Food.

OPT is also right, if you're not well enough to walk out on your own, and you're not even sure where "out" is going to be, then stay put.
 
What I was always told (from my Army days):
If it's at night, hunker down.
If there's high ground that you can get to, go there and try to orient yourself.
Otherwise, head downhill, as valleys are where the water is.
 
There's some real nonsense on here. You're all Americans, so are highly likely to be hiking in areas with fierce bears, snakes, survivalist nuts, Mobsters burying rivals and characters from Deliverance.

Being lost is the least of your worries; being eaten and/or ravaged and/or tortured as a "Guvmint spy" are much more likely.

Next time you go hiking, take an M60 or similar, a couple of belts of ammo, M4 in case it jams, Night Vision stuff, a Ghillie suit, RPG and a pile of landmines.

Spread the landmines around your encampment. Get some placards and spread them around. Write "liberals/fresh ass/Govt. spies this way". Point in the arrows so that your targets will run over the landmines.

Hopefully, the landmines, RPG and guns will fend everyone off until help arrives.
 
gomezcat said:
There's some real nonsense on here. You're all Americans, so are highly likely to be hiking in areas with fierce bears, snakes, survivalist nuts, Mobsters burying rivals and characters from Deliverance.

Being lost is the least of your worries; being eaten and/or ravaged and/or tortured as a "Guvmint spy" are much more likely.

Next time you go hiking, take an M60 or similar, a couple of belts of ammo, M4 in case it jams, Night Vision stuff, a Ghillie suit, RPG and a pile of landmines.

Spread the landmines around your encampment. Get some placards and spread them around. Write "liberals/fresh ass/Govt. spies this way". Point in the arrows so that your targets will run over the landmines.

Hopefully, the landmines, RPG and guns will fend everyone off until help arrives.
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ya, we stopped taking advice from minions of "her Majesty' several hundred years ago. So far its going fair to middling. :coffee:
 
foley11 said:
ya, we stopped taking advice from minions of "her Majesty' several hundred years ago. So far its going fair to middling. :coffee:
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That's a somewhat generous view, I'd say. :dbanana:

Actually, looking back at this thread, there's some great advice such as staying where you are if in real trouble (as rescue teams will search for you methodically - I'd never thought of that before), eating (essential in a crisis to get the brain working) and so on.
 
gomezcat said:
There's some real nonsense on here. You're all Americans, so are highly likely to be hiking in areas with fierce bears, snakes, survivalist nuts, Mobsters burying rivals and characters from Deliverance.
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You're on the right track there, Percy, but....you forgot Sasquatch, Mountain Lions, rampaging Buffalo, lust-blinded Moose, abandoned pitbulls, pesky injuns and satanic cults.

Not to mention wolverines. I think I'd rather be offed by any of the above rather than fun afoul of one of those varmints. Fvcking nasty.
 
Anyone ever hike the White Mountains on a weekend day in the summer?

There are more people up there than there are in downtown Boston!

It would be impossible to get lost up there.
 
subroc said:
Anyone ever hike the White Mountains on a weekend day in the summer?

There are more people up there than there are in downtown Boston!

It would be impossible to get lost up there.
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I did the Old Bridal Path/Falling Waters loop (Lafayette/Little Haystack/Lincoln) on Labor Day a few years ago.

Was seldom out of sight of another person.

On the plus side, it was a gorgeous, warm day, and there were some gliders that were cruising Franconia Notch. Unforgettable.
 
TipRoast said:
I did the Old Bridal Path/Falling Waters loop (Lafayette/Little Haystack/Lincoln) on Labor Day a few years ago.

Was seldom out of sight of another person.

On the plus side, it was a gorgeous, warm day, and there were some gliders that were cruising Franconia Notch. Unforgettable.
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Its been a while, 15+ years since I was a "peak bagger" in the White Mountains. I did that loop in the Summer of 1999. It is memorable to be sure. All of them give a hell of a view.
 
Hawg73 said:
You're on the right track there, Percy, but....you forgot Sasquatch, Mountain Lions, rampaging Buffalo, lust-blinded Moose, abandoned pitbulls, pesky injuns and satanic cults.

Not to mention wolverines. I think I'd rather be offed by any of the above rather than fun afoul of one of those varmints. Fvcking nasty.
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Good point, Sir. I imagine that Claremonster in full warpaint would be an unpleasant sight out in the woods.
 
subroc said:
Anyone ever hike the White Mountains on a weekend day in the summer?

There are more people up there than there are in downtown Boston!

It would be impossible to get lost up there.
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And yet, I spent a lot of time as a young man going in there and bringing those stupid ****s out ROFL

---------- Post added at 07:01 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:00 AM ----------
gomezcat said:
Good point, Sir. I imagine that Claremonster in full warpaint would be an unpleasant sight out in the woods.
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Especially with my suppressed short-barreled M4. :coffee:
 
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