>>215487The issue from
>>215358 >>215360 >>215361 wasn't about not knowing to do that. I had a map and could see that all the creeks in the area funneled out to a main road 10 miles away. I tell people that I got lost in the woods once, but it wasn't life-threatening lost. It wasn't for more than a few hours really, and it's not like I didn't possess the skills or supplies to get myself to back to civilization safely. I was prepared for an overnight camping trip, and had at least two days' worth of food, maybe a little more. I was only lost from my route.
The point was just to show how a series of bad decisions can get a person lost, despite perceived skill level, and if that were to happen in an area where you can't easily just hike out, then you could get royally fucked. If you want to just discount my experience as the tale of one idiot who wasn't actually in danger, fine.
Let me just say from an additional 10 years of experience since then, though, that there's a lot of people here claiming how easy it is to "just hike out," or "just hike in a straight line," but bushwacking can be very slow-going in some forests. In the mountains you might come to points that are simply impassable, and in lowland forests you might be climbing over downed trees, watching the ground for rabbit and mole holes, and busting your way through tangled shrubs that slow your progress. There are lots of things that can slow your progress when traveling in a straight line, like downed trees, cliffs, swamps, and hills.
Likewise, "just following a creek downstream," though it sounds so simple, can bring you to waterfalls and cliffs that must be hiked around, tediously, and oftentimes the brush alongside a creek can be very tangled, bug- and snake-infested, muddy, or marshy to the point of sinking into it. In short, it can be painfully slow-going to follow some creeks, so this can't be your only exit plan.
