[pct-l] Getting lost

[CMountainDave@aol.com (CMountainDave@aol.com)]

Jeff, Rainmaker said you were looking for stories about getting lost, so 
here's mine. 

I became lost for a short while when I stopped somewhere in Oregon to search 
for a spring. The guidebook said that the spring was located near a campsite 
so I went there, took off my pack and scanned the terrain for the most likely 
place that a spring would be. I thought I discerned a "trail" leading from 
the camp to a likely looking area down hill from camp in a small depression. 
I went about 100 yards along this trail before it petered out, carrying 
nothing but my water bottle. I thought I saw  an area for a likely spring and 
went cross country to it. When I found no spring, I traveled to another place 
and before I knew it, I was turned around and couldn't find the "trail" back 
to the campsite and my pack. I searched in several directions and became 
increasingly disoriented. A light rain was falling, and I could feel a panic 
begin to swell up within me as I became increasingly wet from wandering 
without a clue in the brush with no shelter at all. I forced myself to just 
stop and think. I knew that the trail headed north. I knew that I had left 
the trail to my right which meant I was to the east of the trail. I had no 
compass or sun to use for a reference and no watch to use as a compass 
either. But I knew that rain clouds almost always travel from west to east in 
the Pacific Northwest. So I simply went in the direction that the clouds were 
coming from and sure enough I came to the trail. I marked it and headed in 
one direction until I came to a log across the trail that I recognized so I 
turned around, went past my mark and soon came to the side trail leading to 
the camp and my backpack. Whew, I felt relief. The spring was actually within 
30 feet of the trail and I had walked right by it  (there was no unusual 
moisture loving vegitation around it to give it away) while focusing on the 
camp site and then it's misleading side "trail. "