Every so often I read an article on how to survive when lost in the wilds, and I have to laugh. The experts who write these pieces know everything about survival but next to nothing about getting lost. I am an expert on getting lost. I have been lost in nine different countries, forty-three cities, seven national forests, four national parks, countless parking lots, and one Amtrak passenger train. My wife claims I once got lost riding an elevator in a tall building, but that is an unwarranted exaggeration based on my momentary confusion over the absence of a thirteenth floor. (If you are a person with an inherent fear of heights, you want to make certain that all the floors are right where they are supposed to be, and you're not about to listen to a lot of lame excuses for any empty space between the twelfth and fourteenth floors.)
   Since I have survived all of these experiences of being lost, it follows that I am also something of an expert on survival. Consequently, out of my identification with and concern for that portion of humanity that frequently finds itself in the predicament of not knowing its way home from its left elbow, I have been motivated to publish the following compilation of field-tested tips on how to get lost. I have also included information on how to survive, and, of equal interest, how to pass the time if you don't.
   The most common method for getting lost starts with telling a hunting partner, "I'll just cut down over the hill here and meet you on the first road." Nine times out of ten, the next road in the direction you choose is the Trans-Canada Highway. That is, of course, unless you are in Canada, in which case it may well be a supply route to a Siberian reindeer farm.
   Another good method for getting lost in a quick and efficient manner is to rely on a companion who claims to have infallible sense of direction. Spin him around any time, any place in the world, according to him, and he will automatically point toward home. Your first clue that his sense of direction is somewhat overrated comes when he says something like, "Hey, now that's weird! The sun is setting in the east!" There is, of course, an appropriate response to such a statement. Unfortunately, it may result in a long jail term.
   My favorite method for getting lost is day-dreaming. I'll be trailing a deer whose tracks are so old pine seedlings will have sprouted in them. When I have to count the growth rings on a tree to determine how fresh a set of tracks is, my interest in the hunt begins to wane. Pretty soon I'm daydreaming. I imagine myself shooting a trophy buck. Then I unsheath my knife, dress him out, and drag him back to camp, where my hunting companions go wild with envy and astonishment.
   "Would ya look at the size of the buck ol' Pat got!"|
   "Man, where did you even get a beauty like that?"
   "Just tracked him down," I say. "He was a smart one too, but every so often he made the mistake of bending a blade of grass the wrong way. The wind changed and spooked him though, and I had to drop him on a dead run at nine hundred yards and . . ."
   And I'll look around and I'll be lost. The last time I had looked, I was hunting in a pine woods on a mountain. Now I'll be so deep in a swamp the wildlife is a couple of stages back on the scale of evolution. (It's bad enough being lost without having to put up with a bunch of feathered lizards learning to fly.)
   Undoubtedly, the surest way to get lost is to venture into the woods as a member of a group. Sooner or later one of the boys, on a pretext of offering up a riddle, says, "Hey, guys, I bet none of you can tell me which direction the car is in. Heh heh." (The "heh heh" is tacked on to imply that he knows the right direction, but truth is he couldn't tell it from a kidney stone.) Everyone now points firmly and with great authority in a different direction. In every such case, the most forceful personality in the group gets his way. The effectiveness of this method arises out of the fact that the most forceful personality usually turns out to rank on intelligence scales somewhere between sage hens and bowling balls. He is also an accomplished magician. With a wave of his arm and the magic words "the car's just over the next rise" he can make the whole bunch of you vanish for three days.
   While the process of becoming lost is usually a lot of fun, the entertainment value diminishes rapidly once the act is accomplished. The first small twinges of fear, however, do not last long, and are soon replaced by waves of terror. There is also a sense of general disorientation, the first symptom of which is confusion about which side of your head your face is on. Two questions immediately occur to the lost outdoorsman: "What shall I do now?" and "Why didn't I stick with golf?"
   I disagree sharply with most survival experts on what the lost person should do first. Most of them start out by saying some fool thing like, "The first rule of survival is DON'T PANIC!" Well, anyone who has ever been lost knows that kind of advice is complete nonsense. They might as well tell you "DON'T SWEAT!" or "DON'T GET GOOSE BUMPS ALL OVER YOUR BODY!"
   Survival experts are apparently such calm, rational people themselves that they assume a lost person spends considerable time deliberating the question of whether he should panic: "Let's see, the first thing I'll do is panic, and then I'll check to see on which side of the trees the moss is growing." It doesn't work that way.
   First of all, one is either a panicker or one isn't, and the occasion of being lost is no time to start fretting about a flaw in one's character. My own theory holds that it is best, if one is a panicker, to get the panic out of the system as quickly as possible. Holding panic in may cause severe psychological disorders and even stomach cramps and baldness. Also, the impacted panic may break loose at a later date, if there is a later date, and cause one to sprint across a shopping mall yelling "Help! Help!" at the top of his lungs. Shopping malls being what they are, no one would probably notice but it might be embarrassing anyway.
   Over the years I've been involved in several dozen panics, usually as a participant, sometimes simply as an observer. Most of my panics have been of a solitary nature, but on several occasions I have organized and led group panics, one of which involved twenty-some people. IN that instance a utility company took advantage of the swath we cut through the forest and built a power line along it.
   Back in the earlier days of my panicking I utilized what is known technically as the Full Bore Linear Panic (FBLP). This is where you run flat out in a straight line until the course of your panic is deflected by a large rock or tree, after which you get up and sprint off in a new direction. The FBLP is also popularly referred to as the ricochet or pinball panic or sometimes simply as "going bananas." Once an FBLP is underway there is no stopping it. It gains momentum at every stride, and the participants get so caught up in it they forget the reason for holding it in the first place. They'll panic right out of the woods, onto a road, down the road, through a town, and back into the woods, all the time picking up momentum. One time when we were kids my friend Retch and I panicked right through a logging crew and the loggers dropped what they were doing and ran along with us under the impression we were being pursued by something. When they found out all we were doing was panicking, they fell back, cursing, and returned to their work. This tendency of panic to feed upon itself gives it ever-increasing momentum and occasionally indigestion.
   Although it will do absolutely no good, I must advice against undertaking a Full Bore Linear Panic unless, of course, one is equipped with a stout heart, a three-day supply of food, and a valid passport. Instead, I recommend the Stationary or Modified Panic. It offers the same therapeutic effect and subsides after a few minutes with none of the FBLP's adverse side-effects, such as making your life insurance company break out in a bad rash.
   The Stationary Panic first came to my attention one time when a large but harmless snake slithered across a trail a couple of yards ahead of my wife. She made a high-pitched chittering sound and began jumping up and down and flailing the air with her arms. It was a most impressive performance, particularly since each jump was approximately a foot high and her backpack happened to be the one with the tent on it. The only adverse side effect to the Stationary Panic was that the lone witness to the spectacle could not help laughing every time he though about it, a reaction quickly remedied, however, by his sleeping most of the night outside the tent in a driving rainstorm.
   Although I immediately perceived the advantage of this form of panic, I could not imagine myself bouncing up and down, flailing my arms and chittering like an angry squirrel, particularly in front of the rough company with whom I usually find myself in a predicament requiring a panic. Thus it came about that I invented the Modified Stationary Panic, or MSP.
   The key to the MSP is not to bounce up and down in a monotonous fashion but to vary the steps so that it appears to be a sort of folk dance. You can make up your own steps but I highly recommend throwing in a couple of Russian squat kicks. The chittering sound should be replaced by an Austrian drinking song, shouted out at the top of your voice. The MSP is particularly appropriate for group panics. There are few sights so inspiring as a group of lost hunters, arms entwined, dancing and singing for all they are worth as night closes in upon them.
   Once you have established the fact that your are indeed lost and have performed the perfunctory Modified Panic, you should get started right away on the business of surviving. Many survival experts recommend that you first determine on which side of the trees the moss is growing. I'm not sure why this is, but I suppose it is because by the time your get hungry enough to eat moss you will want to know where to find it in a hurry.
   If you think you may have to spend the night in the woods, you may wish to fashion some form of temporary shelter. For one night, a tree with good thick foliage will serve the purpose. Thick foliage will help keep the rain off, and reduces the chance of falling out of the tree.
   After a day or two, it is probably a good idea to build a more permanent shelter, such as a lean-to. A very nice lean-to can be made out of large slabs of bark, pried from a dead cedar, pine or tamarack, and leaned against the trunk of an upright tree. If you have a tendency to walk in your sleep, the lean-to should not be more than fifteen feet from the ground. After a couple of weeks, it might be a good idea to add some simple furnishings and pictures.
   Each day you are lost should be recorded by carving a notch on some handy surface (This procedure should be skipped by anyone lost at sea in a rubber life raft). I've known people lost only a few hours and already they have carved half a notch. The reason for the notches is that you may write a book on your experience and sell it to the movies. As is well known, a film about being lost is absolute zilch without an ever-increasing string of notches. The best film treatment of notches that I've seen was in a TV movie about a couple whose plane had crashed in the Yukon. They painted the notches on the plane's fuselage with a set of oil paints. It was a great touch and added a lot of color to the drama. I for one never go out into the woods anymore without a set of oil paints, just in case I'm lucky enough to be lost long enough to interest a film producer.
   Many survival experts are of the opinion that lost persons have little to fear from wild animals. I disagree. It is true that bear and cougar will almost always do their best to avoid contact with human beings, but how about squirrels and grouse? On several occasions the sound of a squirrel charging through dry leaves has inflicted partial paralysis on my upper ganglia, erasing from my consciousness the knowledge that one has nothing to fear from bear or cougar. Having a grouse blast off from under one's feet can cause permanent damage to one's psyche. The first-aid recommended for restoring vital bodily functions after such occurrences is simply to pound your chest several times with a large rock. On the other hand, if the jolt has been sufficient to lock your eyelids in an open position, it is best to leave them that way. This will prevent you from dozing off during the night and falling out of your tree.
   The excitement of being lost wears off rather quickly, and after a few days boredom sets in. It is then that one may wish to turn to some of the proven techniques for getting one's self found. Building a large smoky fire is always good. During fire season, this will almost always attract attention and it won't be long before a team of smoke-jumpers will be parachuted in to put out the fire. They may be a little angry about having their poker game back at camp interrupted but can usually be persuaded to take you out of the woods with them anyway. (The term "survival tip," by the way, originated from the practice of giving smoke-jumpers five dollars each for not leaving the fire-builder behind.) There is always the possibility that a bomber may just fly over and dump a load of fire retardant on you and your fire and you will have to turn to other measures.
   Scooping water up in your hat and pouring it down a badger hole is good, if you are fortunate enough to have both a hat and a badger hold handy. Someone is bound to show up to ask you why you are doing such a fool thing. If this person isn't afraid of associating with a madman, he will probably show you the way home.
   Similarly, you can try your hand at catching some large fish. If you're successful, three anglers will immediately emerge from the brush and ask you what bait you're using. In case you don't have a valid fishing license, one of the three will be a game warden who will place you under arrest as soon as he has caught his own limit. But at least you'll be found.
   When everything else fails and you are really desperate, you can always resort to taking off all your clothes. Even when lost, I've never known this technique to fail in attracting a large crowd of people, no matter how far back in the wilderness I happened to be. Here's an example.
   My friend Retch and I had been fishing a high mountain stream at least three miles from the nearest road.
   We hadn't seen a sign of human life all day. The fish had stopped biting and we were hot and sticky and decided to take a dip in a pool beneath a small waterfall.
   We took off our clothes and dove into the water, the temperature of which instantly proved to be somewhere between damn cold and ice. As we popped to the surface, and started flailing wildly toward the ledge from which we had dived, approximately twelve members of a mushroom club rounded a bend in the trail and headed straight for us. I would like to be able to tell you that modesty forced us to remain submerged in that liquid ice until they had passed, their pleasant outing unblemished by nothing more lascivious than a patch of morel mushrooms. Unfortunately, that would not be the truth. The startling spectacle of two grown men lunging out of the water, matching up their clothes and racing off through a thicket of devil's club was at least mitigated by the fact that most of the ladies in the group apparently thought we were wearing blue leotards. I was also relieved that a particularly bad twelve-letter word had frozen on Retch's lower lip and didn't thaw out until we were in the car driving home.
   Perhaps the most important thing to remember when lost is to accept the experience in a philosophical manner. Whenever I start becoming slightly confused over which is my elbow and which the way home and night is tightening its noose upon me in some primordial swamp, I never fail to recall the folksy wisdom spoken to me under similar circumstances by the old woodsman Rancid Crabtree. Rancid spat out his chaw of tobacco and in that comical, bug-eyed way of his said, "JUMPIN' GOSH ALMIGHTY, WHERE IN HELL IS WE?!" Somehow those words always seem a fitting introduction to a lively folk dance and a rousing rendition of an Austrian drinking song.