How lost have you been?

March 9, 2009

Sooooo....just how lost have any of you gotten? Here is my log from a recent night cache I did with my three kids. Sigh, live and learn...

Quest For Gold GC1KAGM

Well, this cache turned very interesting....

I have wanted to do this one since before Mountainfolk found it. Finally, I get the idea that since the boy and I had so much fun doing the Birthday Cache in the dark the night it was put out, I would take him and the girls and we would head off to find this one after dark. Got to parking, jumped out of the car and headed up the trail. We got to the point the trail goes down hill and I mean down hill. We had a great view, however (and I still don't know how we did this, but we missed something in the dark) we got to a place where the cache was pointing off to the right a little over a tenth of a mile, so I tell the kids let's bushwack. We fight briars and mountain laurel and are within 500 feet of the cache when I realize we are at the bottom of the overlook and the cache is up top. So we started to try to find our way to the left to find a way up...no way in sight, so to the right....nope, we do the only thing we can do...crawl straight up the mountain. Took us about 45 minutes for myself, my oldest daughter (15), son (11) and youngest daughter (10). We get to the top after a long struggle and are rewarded with finding the cache. Then we start to follow the trail which I assumed is where we were suppose to come in on.

Trail turns into a hunting path, which turns into a deer path, which sudddenly becomes a sea of mountain laurel. When we go to backtrack we are faced with a zigzaging pattern of deer trails. at this point I realize that I had messed up in setting to co-ords where we left the truck and didn't have them in the handheld cause I use the Nuvi to get to parking co-ords when I can. After an hour of trying to even find our way back to the cache, I realize that with my kids out here, it could be dangerous. One of them could fall and get hurt, or I could and then they would be stuck....so when I exhaust all other options, I make the call to 911. The police will come to the truck location and then blow the sirens so we can find our way back. Great, we are only 1.5 miles or so from the truck so this will work.

It didn't work with the echo at first. led us in the wrong direction. I thought we were due to the GPS readings, but I was trusting the 911 guy. At that point, I text my wife and tell her that we are lost in the woods. Yes, I did the cowardly thing and texted instead of calling. We went in at 7:30 found cache about 9:00 and it was now 11:00.

So we get straightened out with where the siren is coming from and head toward it. This takes us through mountain laurel as thick as any I have ever seen, down the side of a mountain that was still covered in ice which took all of us holding onto the laurel and trees to make it down; then cross a stream, and more mountain laurel now 6 foot high. Only benefit was some of it we could kinda walk under.

At this point it was taking us an hour to go about .15 miles. And I was still uncertain with the whole, follow the siren thing. So, I call 911 back for about the 20th time ("hello 911, please state the nature of your emergency." "umm...yeah, this is Scott Hartsock again...the guy lost in the woods with his kids." "oh yeah, Hi Scott how's it going?" --- I kid you not.) And tell them again, I have a GPS unit, how about giving me the co-ords for where the police are right now? So they do and we head off in that direction. Again, all mountain laurel...really thick mountain laurel. Fire department guy asks me on the phone if we can see the moon. I said yeah, and he stated that we should keep it in front of us and walk toward it. Then 5 minutes later clouds roll in and the moon isn't seen the rest of the night.

We get within the distance that we can hear the cop over the loudspeaker, but GPS is bouncing like crazy and is hard to make way through all the laurel. Cell service was spotty, so that wasn't helping. We finally get to a small path and think we are making headway only to find out that the trooper is behind us to the left, so we make another b-line toward him...more bushwacking. We get so far and stop for a rest. I sat on a log which broke and dumped me to the ground and as I laid there, I called 911 to see if there was any update of where we were and where the cops were. Talk to them a little and then talk to the trooper again that is up somewhere ahead of us, then talked to one of the men from the fire department that came in as a rescue squad. Set up the thing where we are going to stay put and they will come to our location to get us. Just as we are finalizing that....cell phone battery goes dead. GREAT!!!! So the kids and I follow our last instructions and sit there for about 20 minutes.

I can tell that eventhough it is a nice night and eventhough that they have had a great attitude up to this point that sitting there was eating away at them. I would have been content to sit for 2 hours till daylight (it was 3:40 by this time...I think, since cell went dead I didn't have a watch on.) But I knew that staying would break their spirits, so we got up and heading toward the direction of where the cop was to be. As we walk along about .10 of a mile or so, we finally see a light. As we yell and head toward it, we get an answer. It was the guy who I had talked to on the phone from the fire department. So we were rescued and home at 4:30 (only about a 10 minute drive to our house.)

The kids did great, I was very proud of them. I took some pics which I will post on here shortly, but all in all they did great, even if they all have refused to ever go night-caching again.

The boy summed it all up though when he said "at least there was one good thing about tonight. At least we found the cache!" THAT'S MY BOY!!!!!

Eventhough we worried their mother to death and were in a little danger (I told the kids what those noises were after we made it to the truck ---- coyotes do make the strangest sounds at time.), I feel this was a real bonding experience for us all. Showed them that no matter what happens, as long as we stick together and as long as you never give up, you can accomplish anything. It also taught me to double check the waypoint of where you parked the vehicle.

TFTC!!! This is going to be probably the most memorable one for the longest time.

dropped 2 coins and retrieved 2 TBs

1.4k · March 9, 2009

Fantastic story!! .. but you forget to say "and the moral of the story is..." []

March 9, 2009

LOL, Glad you're all okay.

March 9, 2009

Fantastic story!! .. but you forget to say "and the moral of the story is..." []

My wife would state that it is to never go geocaching in the woods at night again, but I am going to go with ALWAYS, ALWAYS, make sure your parking location is entered correctly as a way point before leaving the parking area. LOL.

After we climbed the mountain side and found the cache:

After the first 911 call:

I was really proud of the way they handled themselves. Great kids!

6.5k · March 9, 2009

I agree-great kids. And I'm sure it was a bit easier for you that they viewed it as an adventure and not a crisis. Sounds like you are doing a great job raising them.....so far.

My very smart and pretty wife says we like geocaching because we can act like kids playing in the woods all over again. I'll bet your kids are still telling this story when they are big kids like most of us are.

Edited March 9, 2009 by wimseyguy

3.3k · March 9, 2009

Imagine if your cell phone didn't work.

Some useful tips:

Leave a map with a reliable party and instructions of what to do if you do not return at a set time.
Have a back up when your GPS fails (preferably a map and compass)
Carry enough supplies of you are forced to stay overnight. (You owe that to your kids)
If you are completely reliant on GPS technology, it isn't wise to trek deep into the woods at night. Technology can and does fail.

The Wilderness Survival thread is worth reading.

Edited March 9, 2009 by Kit Fox

3k · March 9, 2009

Imagine if your cell phone didn't work.

Some useful tips:

Leave a map with a reliable party and instructions of what to do if you do not return at a set time.

Have a back up when your GPS fails (preferably a map and compass)

Carry enough supplies of you are forced to stay overnight. (You owe that to your kids)

If you are completely reliant on GPS technology, it isn't wise to trek deep into the woods at night. Technology can and does fail.

The Wilderness Survival thread is worth reading.

Good advice

On a side note if you know what direction you were heading (even vaguely), you can simply change your destination waypoint further east/west/north/south of wherever you're at and head in a straight line. There are very few places where you can travel for very long without crossing a road at some point if you're going straight. If you're lucky enough to have a coord for another cache (preferably one way past your starting point... as in your house coords) leave them in your gps permanently. You'd be amazed how helpful that can be in a pinch. Last bit of advice is anytime you're lost, head downhill & follow water if possible. You can conserve energy and eventually, all water leads somewhere. Provided you're not in a bayou, you should find civilization pretty quickly.

Good job keeping cool though. Concentrating on a solution and keeping a level head is by far the most constructive thing you could have done.

March 9, 2009

When I was a kid living in Oregon, one of my best friends had parents that were on the Oregon search and Rescue team. They strongly believed in kids being prepared and knowing what to do if they ever got lost in the woods (since the woods were everywhere around us). They gave me a search and rescue whistle that is supposed to be heard up to 2 miles through the woods (get lost, stay put and occasionally blow the whistle, rescue will find you). I still have the thing and try to keep it with me most of the time. I've not been able to find anything as good anywhere but if I ever do I want to get more to share with others.

1.5k · March 9, 2009

Sounds like quite an adventure and I'm glad everything turned out OK. My only question is why couldn't you follow the tracks on your GPS back to your car?

I admit I often forget to waypoint my car, but it's usually no big deal since I can just look at my track log and backtrack. I guess it depends on the GPS you have and whether you had a good signal in the woods...

March 9, 2009

Attempting to follow the "breadcrumbs" on my GPS back to the truck was the first thing I was attempting to do. They weren't leading us in the right direction. I could tell that by the position of the moon and the general direction we were heading. I am not sure what happened there. I didn't really prepare for a "hike" because this was only approx 1.5 miles back a trail, it was the darkness of night that made it harder to see where the trail led in some places.

Overall, I know I didn't see it as seriously as I should have. I didn't take the preparation lightly or carelessly, but I underestimated the difficulty of doing it at night. I have spent most of my childhood in wooded areas and have spent alot of time camping and being out in nature. I know how dangerous it can be and how easy it is to get turned around. Had I just been alone or with another adult, I would have handled the situation differently. We could easily see route 322 from the vista area, but it would have meant hiking about 3 or 4 miles through very dense forest. Then it would have been a few miles up that road to where the turn off was for the truck and then another 2 miles back to where the truck was parked. I didn't think the kids could handle that. if it had just been me, I would have followed the stream that we crossed because I knew where it would come out to crossing a road, which was about 7 miles or so (if I am correct). At the point I decided to call 911 to get some help, it was based on what would be the quickest and safest way to get the kids out of the woods. I didn't expect all of the extra hardships after 911 responded to help.

March 9, 2009

Oh and I did leave a copy of the cache listing on the dash of the truck along with contact information incase their was an emergency or problem. Plus the wife knew which one we were going to and was waiting for us at home.

5.2k · March 9, 2009

"hello 911, please state the nature of your emergency." "umm...yeah, this is Scott Hartsock again...the guy lost in the woods with his kids." "oh yeah, Hi Scott how's it going?"

That part had me snorting milk out of my nose!

Getting a little friendly with the dispatchers there, eh?

Glad to hear everything turned out OK in the end.

Those times that I forgot to set a waypoint for the vehicle, I've used the track logs feature of the GPS. Not "trackback" necessarily, but just looking at the little map display, with the track lines on it, helps me figure out which way I need to go. "Lets see we're here, and our trail in circled over here so if I just head to this starting point..." With most GPS's you can use the cursor to point to a spot on the map that you want to head to, press enter, and it will create a waypoint there that you can navigate to. It may not be exact but it will help you keep your bearings.

1.2k · March 9, 2009

Great log!! And glad to hear you're all ok and may have a story of a lifetime!

Although it will be very interesting to hear your follow-up of going back in daylight and finding the well-groomed trail not so far away leading directly to the cache.

Thanx for sharing!

March 10, 2009

See we don't run into these problems in Southern/Central Jersey, yo walk 25 minutes and you would be at a fire road and or power lines in Wharton, or if you were in Allaire or Hartshorne, a quick brisk walk will get you to a major road in 10-15 minutes.

March 10, 2009

When I was working in the mountains of Southern California (The San Bernardino Mts.) A friend and I decided that we were going to go get ourselves lost in the woods overnight. Needless to say we'd been working in the mountains too long and never got lost. We might not have known where we were, but we always knew how to get to where we wanted to be.

March 10, 2009

Sounds like you had quite an adventure and I'm glad it turned out okay. You might find it interesting to look at the thread "What's the worst injury you've experienced while geocaching?" Then you can be very grateful that your adventure didn't fall under that category. I carry a cell phone plus my 2-meter band Ham radio even on day hikes after my own little "fun experience" of breaking an ankle in the woods. You can get a ham license fairly easily and a good radio for around $150 or less. You should be able to hit several of your local repeaters from most locations. Your kids rule!! Ed KF6DXX

March 10, 2009

Glad you and your kids were ok! Guess that's one of the reasons I always take a compass with me. I just don't trust modern electronics enough. As long as you knew the general direction of the car, a compass would easily get you there...

March 10, 2009

(You DO realize all the Urban P&G fanatics are exchanging furtive glances, giggling hysterically, Hi-5'g each other & such, don'cha?)

~*

1.2k · March 11, 2009

(You DO realize all the Urban P&G fanatics are exchanging furtive glances, giggling hysterically, Hi-5'g each other & such, don'cha?)

~*

(Yeah, and in their Golden years, they can sit in their rocking chairs and fondly reflect on the glorious memories of getting lost in the WallyWorld parking lots...just sayin)

March 11, 2009

When I was a kid living in Oregon, one of my best friends had parents that were on the Oregon search and Rescue team. They strongly believed in kids being prepared and knowing what to do if they ever got lost in the woods (since the woods were everywhere around us). They gave me a search and rescue whistle that is supposed to be heard up to 2 miles through the woods (get lost, stay put and occasionally blow the whistle, rescue will find you). I still have the thing and try to keep it with me most of the time. I've not been able to find anything as good anywhere but if I ever do I want to get more to share with others.

Storm Whistles Available at many camping supply places.

3.3k · March 11, 2009

(You DO realize all the Urban P&G fanatics are exchanging furtive glances, giggling hysterically, Hi-5'g each other & such, don'cha?)

~*

(Yeah, and in their Golden years, they can sit in their rocking chairs and fondly reflect on the glorious memories of getting lost navigating from one WallyWorld parking lot to the next Wallyworld parking lot...just sayin)

Fixed it for ya.

March 11, 2009

Glad everything turned out OK for you guys..

I work for the fire department and know how those things can happen before you know it.

I also hike in the woods alot. I ALWAYS ALWAYS carry extra food and a space blanket and two glow sticks along with a first aid kit etc.. Your better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

Again glad you guys were OK

March 11, 2009

Perhaps you tried giving the dispatcher your coordinates from the GPSr. Sounds reasonable enough but most of the time they don't know what to do with them! The manual they use asks to find out nearby landmarks or cross-streets. Not too helpful when lost in the woods full of briars.

3.9k · March 11, 2009

See we don't run into these problems in Southern/Central Jersey, yo walk 25 minutes and you would be at a fire road and or power lines in Wharton, or if you were in Allaire or Hartshorne, a quick brisk walk will get you to a major road in 10-15 minutes.

But... if you were anywhere near the Pine Barrens, a more ever-present danger would be that the Gipsie monster, a mutant hybrid part-Piney monster, part-carnivorous plant, part-human creature that eats humans, might find you first and eat you. Not good. Not good at all. I have learned to fear the Gipsie monster.

5.2k · March 11, 2009

Perhaps you tried giving the dispatcher your coordinates from the GPSr. Sounds reasonable enough but most of the time they don't know what to do with them!

Somewhere in these forums someone related how, when the dispatcher said she didn't know what to do with the coords, the cacher told the dispatcher to enter the coords into Google Maps. She did, and was then able to figure out where the cacher was based on the map.

March 11, 2009

So, how much fun did the kids have telling the story at school?

March 11, 2009

I have learned to fear the Gipsie monster.

Obviously not.

March 11, 2009

See we don't run into these problems in Southern/Central Jersey, yo walk 25 minutes and you would be at a fire road and or power lines in Wharton, or if you were in Allaire or Hartshorne, a quick brisk walk will get you to a major road in 10-15 minutes.

But... if you were anywhere near the Pine Barrens, a more ever-present danger would be that the Gipsie monster, a mutant hybrid part-Piney monster, part-carnivorous plant, part-human creature that eats humans, might find you first and eat you. Not good. Not good at all. I have learned to fear the Gipsie monster.

:rolleyes: :blink:

How lost have you been?

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