Backpacker Magazine has a fascinating article in their newest issue (May 2010), but sadly, the article itself isn't available online, only a video diary by the author.
The article, by Jim Thornton, is about being lost in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho. As an experiment, he volunteered to be flown blindfolded into the middle of the 2.3 million acre national park to experience what it meant to be totally, completely, lost. Over the course of his experience, he makes what I consider to be unbelievable errors, like not stopping immediately when he locates an identifiable landmark or taking compass readings so infrequently he only knows he's headed north-by-not-southish. Even so, it sounds like a fascinating experiment, and one I would love to try on my own at some point.
But it got me thinking about when I've ever been lost in my life. I mean, there have been times where I didn't know where I was, or I was in a new environment with no map, but I could not think of a time where I've ever been legitimately lost. I mean lost like: "I have absolutely no idea where I am and I'm not sure I have the means to keep myself alive until I do". The closest I could think of was when I went to Thailand. I remember getting off the plane in China, and getting swindled by the taxi cab driver because I was so wet behind the ears, but I had at least enough rudimentary language skills to get from point A to B, buy train tickets or food. But in Thailand, if I wandered off the very specific path of hotel to airport, or a list of very specific destinations, there was a not insignificant chance I couldn't find my way back to my hotel. I couldn't even pronounce the name, and half the cabbies to whom I gave the hotel's business card to had no idea where it was either. But it was a city, and eventually I'd run into someone who spoke some English. I was never lost, just in a highly foreign environment.
Which is the second odd part of this experiment. At one point, Thornton quotes Daniel Boone as saying he had been lost for weeks at a time, but says it was all ok, because Boone knew how to live off the land. Which is true enough, I suppose, but it made me think two things. First, it was evidence of just how detached even a highly experienced backpacked was from the land in which he routinely walked. It gave me the impression that Thornton lacked even basic survival skills. But secondly, it also occurred to me that you always came from somewhere. In terms of normal human terms, the experience of finding yourself in a place without at least a basic idea of where you are or where you came from is pretty rare.
Survival in the ocean is one possibility, as is hiking some place and falling into a ravine or the like, a place where even though you know how you got in, you can't backtrack your way out. But for hikers, people on their feet, this sort of spontaneous manifestation is really pretty rare. And, as long as you keep your head, that memory of how you got in is exploitable, a key to going home.
In the article, Thornton talks about transporting squirrels to new, foreign habitats, and notes that, almost always, the squirrel dies because it knows nothing about it's new environment. We're creatures of accumulated knowledge, experiences of where is safe, where we can find food, and where predators come from. Disruptions to that environment make us nervous, but we can adjust. But changing everything all at once is debilitating, and very dangerous.
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