Your out door 'I am screwed' wilderness stories

[Ren the devils trailboss]

Most of the time when I am out hiking, biking etc I usually am pretty prepared for the worst, but this time I got caught un prepared big time.
My self and three mountian biking buddies went out after work one August to bike the pinckney rec area.
Mistake number one. Pinckney rec area is huge. I have no idea how many acres but I am guessing over 6000 acres of trails. We drove to a trail head and got there late. It was hot for Michigan over 90 degrees and i was biking with guys who had rode this trail before. I had not, I did not take a map, and in order to keep my gear light I did not take my bike pack with me. I made the assumption that we would stick together, which we did untill
Mistake number two, I had failed to hydrate properly before we left and was sweatting buckets. Aboult half way through the trail I started cramping up. I fell behind the group, then
Mistake number three, I crashed hard on the trail twisting a previously injured ankle. And in the process tacoed a rim and flattened my front tire. I walked for about a half mile hollering to my buddies but they were long gone.
Mistake number four, now it was getting dark, bugs were coming out in droves, I was low on water, i came to a fork in the trail. I should have just camped out and waited but I was sure I knew my direction and took the right fork, which I found out later was the wrong fork, now instead of taking the four mile shortcut back to the trail head, I was taking the long loop deeper into the woods,
Mistake number five, now I wished I had my gear. In a primary hardwood forest it gets dark as the soul of the devil. No moon, no stars, now its so dark I cannot see my hand infront of my face, I am taking three steps, kneeling down and feeling the ground to see if I am on the trail.
Mistake number six, now I am missing my ankle wrap, missing my sure fire flash light, and missing my cellphone. I am really screwed.
Mistake number seven I keep walking and soon lose the trail. Now I spend about an hour I think trying to find the trail. Cannot find the trail so I decide I need to wait it out. So I find a big tree. Lean up against a big tree. I am guessing its midnight or later. Yep I did not take a watch. Or a compass. So I spend a miserable night with no water, sweating under a oak tree till park rangers find me the next morning now unable to put weight on my ankle. I felt like a fool and have never lived it down. Learned a lot though. How bout you guys?

 

[unit]

I did my field camp for geophysics in southwest Utah in July of 1993. Long story short I was hiking/mapping a fairly large area of "hills" (we would call them mountains here in Missouri) in what can only be classified as arid desert. I ran out of water several miles from the finish point. I recall very little from that adventure other than stumbling off a ~12 foot drop in a dry stream bed.

That was a bad day that I am happy to have survived.

 

[zyhano]

I let myself be caught by the dark (mistake 1) in the southern scottish highlands on top of a 3000 foot hill in the middle of winter with pouring rain and hard winds at 16.00. An area map (so no good mountain map, mistake 2), no food (3), no extra clothing (4), no gear (5).
I thought I was on the right track so I pushed on until I would come up on the path down. But I kept telling myself that being '10 degrees' off course was probably a misread on the compass (6). I got stuck, was totally cramped (7) and couldn't come back up the hill. I had to go 1 step, then rest, then 1 step, rest.... totally sour.
Luckily I had 2 small maglites on me. 1 broke down, now I had only the small one, and I could barely make out the ground in front of me with the rain and all.
My buddy had nothing on him at all but was in better shape. I knew I couldn't let him know(8) that I was worried so I kept going and keeping his morale up, but not being real about my situation
It was cold, wet, we were drenched(9) and cold and we were totally lost and knew there were cliffs around us.

We had no emergency sleeping gear (10) and camping overnight was not an option in the snow patched hilltops.

We had told no-one our itinerary (11). The hostel we were staying was desolated, no one was around.

we held hands like little kids and shuffled back as good as we knew how to.

At 20.00 we found a familiar sight: the cross that marked a mountaineer 'killed in the line of duty'... we knew we were on the right track.
when we finally reached the grass line, we just let ourselves slide down on our butts for about 50 meters because of exhaustion (12)
But we knew we were saved/had saved ourselves.
That one maglite extra is what saved our butts that day.
for sure. and determination not to give up even though I was exhausted.
It was one of the only times in my life that I could have sworn that death was walking 1 meter behind me. I did not look back though, so I'm not sure

A stupid bunch of mistakes. But I learned a lot that day.
When we came back at the hostel at around 23.00 we were happy as kids and a shower further, it was another story for in the books.

That was 10 years ago. We still talk about it from time to time...

 

[Angus McGunnigl]

On 3 day backpack years ago, my wife and I were "lost" for an afternoon.
Poor map, very unfamiliar area, poor trail markers, and mostly ME BEING IN A HURRY.
Weather was horrid, so we had troubles with navigation(rain and fog)
It was a very uncomfortable feeling.
We stopped, made camp, woke up the next day to clear skies and pretty much instantly understood what we had done to get on the wrong path.

 

[SubaruSTi]

My best friend and I decided we would go camping at a large park about 100 miles away from home. We were 16 at the time and I had just gotten my car not too long before that. I am not sure of the month but it was hot around 85. This park has tons of sand and is actually named for it. Making the hike harder yet! Now at this age I had not studdied "survival" as much as I was young so we were ill prepared for the most part but had things such as a ka-bar knife each and a gps + compass.

We arrive at the park and talk to the ranger and tell him we are planning to stay around 5 days. so we pay for 5 days and head for the trail. The first trail we start down we find out about a mile or so down is the wrong one. It is now about 10 am and we are already frustrated with the wrong trail issue. We eventually find out what one is the correct one and proceed down it. Our packs are around 40-50 pounds + each and we have limited water due to us thinking we can go back to the car with ease, big mistake. We also have little food, a bag of bagels and jam + PB and some beans, soup and other heavy items. We are having a fairly good time considering the heat and tough sandy trails. Thank god I bought some Leki walking poles! My friend has none.

Around 7pm we finally get to our own camp site. before that around 3 in the afternoon we found another camp site and decided to stop and give up since we were tired and wanted to rest. After we set up our one man tents and all are other gear we find out this camp site was infested with hornets and decided to move so we packed up and trucked on.

At around 7 we found our intended camp site. It was like summiting mount everest! We setup our tents and I am so hot and tired I get in my tent (its mesh without the fly) and sleep for about two hours. By this time my friend has found that this site has ticks all over the place and are all over the tents and everything else. My friend is very afraid of ticks due to limes disease. Now we are talking about going back to the car, TONIGHT! It was already a 6 mile hike in and the possibility of getting lost for us in the day time was high so at night would be very dumb.

We decide to leave and go back to the car with only what we can carry like a light and other crap. we decide to take a "short cut" through the bush. After about 10 thousand spider webs and one scary hour or so we find our way back to the camp site thanks to a slow fire we can see in the distance. It was a pretty sobering experience. had we gotten lost no one would have looked for us for 5 days! no cell phone coverage for miles and miles and we were 16!

The next day we pack up and hike out early and find the car before noon and head home. Our hips and backs are super sore from the weight and we are dog tired but we had fun over all.

 

[Cascade_mtn's]

The worst thing that ever happened was a FLAT TIRE......... my truck got a flat on the way to a remote camp site. The old logging road didn't have a level spot in it. The POS jack that came with it was useless, and my lug nuts were way to tight. I had to walk in the 6 miles to the main camp site. Was accosted my bambi, thought for sure it was a man eating cougar and SCREAMED LIKE A 12 Y.O. GIRL AT A SLAUGHTER HOUSE.........

Finally got to the site, loaded up with the tools needed, and a buddy and I drove back to fix the problem. Pretty lame I know. I now have a much better jack, and make sure to use a torque wrench on my lug nuts.

 

[TimberWolf7.62]

Sounds like your buddies need an ass-kicking to make sure they don't leave anyone behind again.

My worst was trying the Mosquito Pass http://www.colomar.com/ColoradoPlaces/mosquito_pass.html trail in a 4wd Blazer with a really anemic 6-cylinder engine. At midnight. It wouldn't make it up the slope, and trying to back down in the dark was fairly hazardous, to say the least. I stopped, put rocks under the tires to chock them, then slept in the back of the Blazer with a Mini-14 in my hands since the abandoned mine buildings just a hundred yards away looked like the perfect place for any area devil worshippers to hold their services.

At dawn, it was light enough to back down and get back to Denver. No biggee.

 

[LMT66]

I had a similar experience which is what brought me to W&SS after a google search. (was already a knife nut so twas icing on the cake)

I was out dayhiking in northern Wisconsin. On the way back to where I stay I noticed a logging road and decided to see if it came out at the back of a lake I like to fish.
Had to have been about 5 miles down this logging road when I caught a glimpse of the lake. Right about that moment, the road turned into sand and my vehicle was literally sunk to its axles. I had a 4x4 Silverado but couldn't budge it. Needless to say, I spent the night in my truck. Drank all my water hiking earlier along with any trail food I had brought. Ended up walking out the next morning to find someone to pull me out.

Decided I need to learn some things in case I ever get myself in a situation like this again, which is what brought me here.

 

[PARKINGLOT]

When I was about 17, I got my truck stuck (2wd Ford Ranger) on an old 4x4 road trying to climb a muddy hill that curved to the left, when I slid to the left against the bank. Couldn't back up or go ahead. No cellphone. No answer on the CB. No supplies. Nothing of any use besides a Buck folding knife. I had to hike 4 miles in the rain to get back. Get home, get changed, call my buddy who has a lightly modded 4x4 Ranger. We get out there, it's about 10 at night (mistake 1), pouring now (#2). We get to the hill and his truck can't climb to where mine is stuck it's so slick now. We back down, have to do a 27 point turn at the bottom of the hill to get back uo the other hill, at which point we find we have no flashlights (#3), only one emergency candle. We finally get turned around, then in our hurry to get out (#4) we get high-sided in some bad ruts. Now it's like 12-1 am, we're freaking out, but luckly he brought 2 shovels and had a jack, so we managed to dig and shovel our way out eventually....

Being unprepared blows.....

 

[fujita yuji]

It was more than twenty years ago, when I was just a beginner of alpine climbing.
I went to this mountain

, which is now one of my favorite area in Japan
but also infamous for its number of accidents and deaths.
It was simply too hard both for me and for my buddy, technically. It took too much time to climb up and to climb down.
As a result the sun went down, dense fog filled the valley, finally we couldn't move at all as we had no idea which way to go.
We spent a night on the rock, putting on all the cloths we had, hearing the sound of falling rocks thundering the valley.
Absolutely worst night I've ever had.
At two or three o'clock in the morning, I noticed the sky is clear and the moon was shining.
We could see without our headlamp, which is sometimes useless in finding route.
We decided to stop spending night on the rock and pressed on climbing down.

The lesson was this.
"The guidebook of climbing is a book for skilled people.
Time, distance and of course difficulties are written for those, and not for hikers."
Of course it is written at the head of the guidebook, which I ignored and got screwed.

[edited to add] the line in the mountain shot is a route I did a few years ago, no relation to the case of this post.

 

[Erasmus]

Excellent. I feel so much better now.

 

[MoldyJoe]

I was about 13 and out hunting rabbits in central Utah (Leamington) with my brothers. This was about 40 years ago, and I have learned a lot since then. We were hunting all together and I got tired. I told my brother (16) I would walk back to the truck (about 2 miles). He said "do you know where it is?" Like an idiot I said yes. I knew we had parked where the river and the power lines crossed. What I didn't know is that there were about 6 sets of power lines, and the river goes underground from time to time. All I had was a bolt action 22, 100 rnds ammo, and an old barlow. Long story short about 12 miles later a friend who was hunting with us tracked me down just before dark (sandy soil) and we got a ride to the car from an old rancher. I was headed in the wrong direction and there was absolutly nothing in that direction for about 150 miles. The only good thing I did was lay down and sleep for a while giving my buddy time to catch up. I never go anywhere now without at least 2 knifes, water, and a lighter minimum. Joe

 

[dipbait]

I almost got lost last fall. It turned dark on me , I lost the trail . I traveled in the direction where I thought the road would be. That was the wrong way. I turned back and wandered through the woods just guessing the way back. I made it out ok. I was thinking about staying the night but I knew my wife would get worried and call for help. That would have been embarrassing.