This past weekend my wife and I were backpacking in the Shining Rock wilderness area in North Carolina. Many years ago we pounded the ground there a lot but hadn't been back in a long time. We quite accidentally wound up going there on a weekend of perfect weather sandwiched between 2 rainy weeks. The fall colors were amazing and some of the leaves looked like they were on fire.

Anywho, we stopped for a bit at Ivestor Gap and soon another hiking couple walked up from another trail. The two were "discussing" the right way to go and it was clear that neither had any previous experience in the area. They were dayhikers and were not planning to spend the night out.

They asked us for some info so I pulled out my 1:44,500 topo trail map, explained to them where they were and what their options were for the way back. At this point the man said "well, I guess I should have brought a map...". His ladyfriend made it clear that she agreed. It was late in the afternoon and while they could have backtracked the way they came (if they had lights), I showed them an alternate that avoided the mountainous terrain that backtracking would involve.

He seemed to be learning a lesson so to help him avoid losing too much face I decided not to mention my 1:24,000 custom UTM map from MyTopo, Garmin Vista HCx and Suunto compass. He might have noticed the Brunton backup compass on my watchband, though... well probably not.

It is so easy to not be prepared, plus it cost considerably less ... in the short run.

I'm glad you were there to help them ... and to educate them a little bit.

I suspect that you could have given them your topo and a compass, and they would have been just as lost...

Agreed...OBG. A lot of people are clueless about how to use a map and compass. I wonder if they had enough supplies to last a couple of days if they had got themselves hopelessly lost.

Unfortunately, I meet a lot of folks out there w/o a clue as well. A friend of mine and I were recently hiking in Devil's Canyon (San Gabriel Wilderness) which is a pretty tough hike, and it's an "upside down" hike, meaning that you descend first (into deep Devil's Canyon), and then have to climb on the way out after you're tired. Anyway, we found two perfectly good mountain bikes sitting alone way out in the middle of no where. We had come down canyon and had gone down as far as a large water fall that blocks further progress downstream -- unless you're prepared for class 5 climbing. We knew we were alone. Thinking this to be odd, I called a friend of mine who is on a SAR team. He said that two mountain bikers were missing in the area.

The good news is that SAR picked up the two guys, and they were OK. Apparently, they had become overwhelmed with the grueling nature of the route. Lower Devil's Canyon is brush choked, boulder (large) strewn wash that necessitates a lot of climbing and bush whacking. (why anyone would carry a bike down that is beyond me) They abandoned their bikes, but on their return trip, they missed the point where the trail climbs out of the canyon (easy to do in heavy brush) and went deeper into the wilderness. Oh, and yes they were just wearing T shirts and bike shorts (the lows were down in the high 30's/low 40's but the days were in the high 70's). There are too many people who read the various "pasttime" magazines which pump up a particular sport but rarely if ever discuss the truly serious nature of accidents, getting lost, etc. in the wild. It's all really upbeat pablum.

More than once over the past few years I have had "tag-a-longs" following our group down off a mountain trying to safely get back below tree line.

It happened once last spring in NH, Mt Adams if I recall, but, I'm not positive, we did that whole ridgeline. The people were so happy to see us coming down from a summit one afternoon, I thought they were going to hug us. They were disoriented, clueless, out for a "fun day in the mountains". When the clouds rolled in we were above them, and visibility really dropped. You could barely make out the next cairn on the trail if you were really looking. I don't think they even really understood how trails worked above treeline. Anyway, they didn't care where we were going, they just wanted to get below the clouds so they could see again.

I probably don't need to mention that they were underequipped, both in terms of actual "equipment", and in terms of training/experience...here's an example:
We had a couple instances where we had a guy head out to the next cairn on length of paracord, just because the visbility was so bad... well, our "tag-a-long" couple were horrified, because they somehow envisioned my buddy rappelling down the mountain on the 550 cord! (We got a pretty big laugh out of that one, could have really spooked them if we weren't so nice...)

Eventually we got them to an AMC hut (Madison Springs hut between Mt Adams and Mt Madision), and they went in for some cocoa and a sanity break. We kept going on our traverse, and for all I know, they stayed the night at the hut. Afterwards, we looked at it as having saved some poor SAR team from having to go find them later that night when they didn't come home.

I wonder if they were Avid readers of publications like Backpacker magazine?

Wow, I missed this when you first posted it.

Hopefully, they've learned something. Other than to look for you in a cape and tights.

Well, they were carrying razor blades...

Cheer up, I once heard of a couple who apparently stepped off a trail (dirt road) for a "true wilderness experience" and couldn't find the "trail" again " no fog, on a slope (couldn't even tell which way was uphill, I suppose).