Why Humans Get Lost

http://news.yahoo.com/why-humans-lost-163420867.html

An interesting article, but even more interesting is a link to

http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/

Thanks for the links! Now I have an excuse when I get lost. So what excuse do guys have for not wanting to ask directions?

I can’t speak for any gender group. Each individual has a preference. Give me a road map and I can tell you exactly where we are.

Jeanette Isabelle

there are probably a lot of reasons. But i'll give you one good one. Very FEW people actually stop and look backwards.

Let's suppose you are hiking down a trail in an area that you've never been before. You're excited by the vista ahead. So naturally you forge ahead. But you don't make frequent stops to look backwards - and see how the countryside (and landmarks) would appear when you are retracing your steps. Therefore ... how can you possibly expect yourself to find your way back home.

People with good map-reading skills, or GPS skills, or a good natural ability to spot and remember landmarks - do FIND their way back home.

Otherwise, getting lost is pretty easy, really!! :-)

Pete2

In the technology age, using a GPS to lay a cookie crumb trail to follow or simply marking waypoints as you travel is very basic. You don't need to mark the trail continuously or even a lot. Just enough to keep you going in the right direction. After all you should be looking at the local scenery -- flora & fauna -- and not at your GPS.

... or you could do it the old fashioned way and check your back trail ...

This is a great read, I've been working on it off and on this morning... Thanks for sharing!

Looking backwards and checking landmarks at key points such as trail junctions is a habit that one soon learns can be quite beneficial. It is absolutely vital if you are traveling underground in a cave or a similar environment.

Never even thought about it,not being a hiker....

Situational awareness. Know, not think you know, know where you are on the map. GPS is great, except when it's not. Most can't find my house, only been here 16 years but the road name changed, as did the connecting road. Use GPS and you're lost. If you can read the updated maps, you are good to go.

Know how far you need to go. Seldom is anyone lost because they went too far, it's not going far enough and trying to make the terrain fit the map.

Look back. Leave a sign that can be easily destroyed. Say an arrow made of rocks, or branches, placed just off the trail.

Trust in your map. It's probably not wrong, it's the operator. Know how to use a compass as relates to the map, magnetic deflection. Check the legend.

I learned map and compass as a Scout. Mapped my suburban neighborhood at the insistance of my teacher - Dad. Then we compared it to the survey map. I did pretty well if I do say so. Practice, practice and don't rely on anything with a battery.

+1 on what JBMat said.When using map and compass you are actively involved in your location.Even if your compass breaks or is lost you can still use a topo map and landmarks to find your way back.When most people use GPS they put all their trust in it.If it is dropped and breaks or the batteries die they are instantly lost because of blindly following it.Technology is great,but I have seen it fail at the worst of times to not place my trust or life in its hands.I have read too many stories on this very forum were Mr.Murphy's law prevailed.......

BOATMAN
John

I read the story the SAR guy wrote about the incident with the German tourists.

It was quite an interesting story.

These same reason apply to losing your car at the mall...

All the more reason to practice map and compass skills.

HJ

My Scouts always look at me like I have three heads when I make them do stop along our hikes and look backwards but it just makes sense to me that the more familiar you are with the area, the less likely you are to get lost.

I agree with the necessity to practice navgation skills.
I think the even more import statement was this:

In a parking garage it might mean they have to do a long walk through the decks to find the car, in the wild it simply means they are lost. Good navigation skills usually really means getting into the habit of tracking the environment and having a good mental map. I think the study should have been phrased (or quoted)more accurately. Relying on the GPS is not the same as using it as additional tool.

Some environments are easier to get lost in than others. A dense forest on a cloudy day can be tough, especially compared to mountainous terrain or a deeply incised canyon; there you may be unable to travel because of steep cliffs, etc, but at least you know where you are.

The advice to know map/compass first then GPS is wise and I preach it myself. However there is another truth lurking out there: a lot of map/compass guys don't know how to really leverage a GPS.

You may say that map/compass has served you fine for all these years and you don't need to know how to run a GPS like a scalded ape. But then, musket owners would feel the same way about an M4.

"I've done quite well with my slide rule, why should I care about silicon chips?".

There's deficits on both sides of the argument.

Some slide rules have silicon chips. Sharp made an abacus/electronic calculator hybrid in the early days when people didn't quite trust electronic calculators. "How can it do calculations without gears or some sort of clever mechanical device?" So the abacus provided a bridge for the digital age. If you don't trust the silicon chip, you can double-check its work with the old-fashioned abacus on the right:



Neat, hunh?

The best answer is "both of the above." As a field archaeologist,I had a lot of map and compass experience before GPS came along. In 1991-92, I acquired my first GPS (no map, the size of a brick, lousy battery life, cost $3000), and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Even so, GPS is not perfect - deep canyons and tall buildings can deflect signals and generate inaccuracies, but what an improvement!

I don't mean to disparage a GPS. More than once, I've been very happy someone in my group had one along. But I do try to use brain first and GPS second.

HJ

The way I teach land navigation is always beginning with map and compass first. Only after mastering this do I begin to teach GPS. If you learn to navigate without the GPS, then you are a much better operator of the GPS. The key with a GPS is to not blindly follow its directions. You must still plan your route, terrain associate and be aware of you surroundings. GPS is an awesome tool, but used poorly can get you into trouble.

Maybe I am too old to learn, but I have not been able to use the GPS my wife gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago for anything other than keeping track of where I was and how far I walked.

It just seems easier to use a map to me to figure out where I am going and how to get there.

Distance covered is one of the very best bits of GPS data available. It is easy to badly estimate, usually overestimating, the ground covered. If Mr.GPS says you have only walked one mile, don't lose heart because you have not encountered the trail junction at two miles. Inaccurate distance estimation if one of the main reasons people get confused.

I usually strap my GPS to my wrist when bike riding. It gives me great data on distance covered, and speed, etc.

You nailed it. Learn traditional navigation first, and you will get much more out of using a GPS.

I'm mostly out in fairly rugged terrain, and I can usually navigate quite well with just a map, by terrain association. But as hikermor noted up thread, some environments are much tougher to navigate in. Flat land with thick woods can be hard, because there are few if any good landmarks, and the woods make it difficult to see whatever landmarks there might be. In those cases, a compass is invaluable, and a GPS is even better.

Maps, compass, and GPS are all tools. I try to keep my skills sharp with all of them.

Just a tidbit here.
I'm taking my wife as an example - but not picking on her :-)
She tends to be a person who has always had some trouble with navigation. Some people just do - their brains seem a bit less connected to memorizing landmarks and noting directions. However, she really made major progress once these automatic GPS devices, along with route guidance, became available. She has relied on them ever since, and really could not get to a lot of places without them. I suspect my wife is part of a big majority of people who drive, and sometimes hike, relying highly upon GPS. To the people on this forum that may seem like madness .... but that is the modern world that we live in. It is - what it is. If for some reason all the world's GPS signals came to an abrupt end ... there would be a LOT of people stranded out there. A lot of folks don't even carry hard-copy maps anymore.

Pete2

Then there are those of us who had to learn land nav with map and compass. Warn't no GPS way back when. Why I tell you, we had to magnitize needles and float them in a puddle on a leave to determine north (actually works). The worst part was when the dinosaurs would step on your leave...

As previously stated, I learned land nav as a Scout. Then once I joined the service, the first NCO school had a fearsome Land Nav course with one heckova mean evil and nasty written test - mixing map degrees and magnetic and if you didn't notice -- ahhhh. And you had to be on a spot to 8 digits. Better have a sharp pencil, as a dull one could cover 50 meters.

GPS is simple, if you can read and understand a map it is a great tool. But once the batteries die, whatcha gonna do then?

This will sound like a stupid question and I’ll ask it anyway. As long as the sun is visible, why would anyone need a compass? Does anyone know how to navigate by the sun?

Jeanette Isabelle

I have noticed that the trip odometer on my GPS reports less distance covered than Base camp reports when I load it in there. It comes out about the same thing in the car. I suspect the GPS trip odometer does not work real well when walking.

Using a GPS or "Map & Compass" for navigation is not an either/or situation. Use both.

I too learned navigation way back -- take a fix and then proceed using dead reckoning until you have another fix then adjust and proceed with dead reckoning.

A set of batteries in a GPS receiver should last much longer than the 10-20 hour battery life. Batteries die because the receiver is left turned on for constant nav. Rather, you should use the GPS to find yourself initially on the map (if you are lost), and then navigate with map and compass. Until something indicates your position on the map is suspect, leave the GPS turned off.

My favorite GPS was a very simple Garmin Geko 301 but the Foretrex® 301 is very similar and it is worn on your wrist. I have a couple of the mapping models, but the basic units are just fine. For reliable navigation you need to be smarter than your tools.

Yes, I always prefer to use both if possible. I use a Garmin GPSmap 60csx and the batteries last a long time, but I do not use it for constant navigation.

And to Jeanette, I normally use the sun and other celestial objects to maintain orientation, but they are not as precise as a compass unless you have other instruments, and the compass is much easier than those other devices. For general direction and maintaining a general heading the sun works just fine.

It is often overcast around here and one cannot see the sun or any shadows.

Even when maintaining a compass course, as in steering a boat at night, it is much easier to pick a prominent star low on the horizon and guide on that, rather than deal with the frequent oscillations of the needle in your binnacle. Just check the orientation every now and then, cause them shiny things do move around a bit....

There are NO stupid questions - but there are plenty of stupid answers (though on this forum, you'll find plenty of clever answers).

There are overcasts and there are overcasts. Today was complete cloud cover in my neck of the woods, but you could still see the bright spot in the clouds where the sun was now standing. Sometimes you can't and then you are in a pickle.

Even better is night time. Learn to recognize the Big Dipper, its pointer stars and the North Star. You will have True North nailed. I used this once on an early morning start on Orizaba, the highest of the Mexican volcanoes. My companion was using his compass when I pointed out the North Star. His compass was off by about 34 degrees due to local variation (local rock with high iron content).

Prehistoric Polynesians explored and populated the entire Pacific,navigating by wave swell patterns, flights of birds,changes in the sky tint over islands,and all kinds of esoteric lore.

And Cassiopeia, on the other side of the North Star. The middle point of the W points toward Polaris, in the general direction anyway.

There is the shadow stick method;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3l49zQREcY

Works quite well if you don't mind waiting, although depending on the time of day at certain times of the year above the arctic circle could actually point you South rather than North

Doesn't work too well on the moon though as you need the light source to be non divergent i.e. a light source far enough away to create parallel rays

In the UK there is also the Satellite TV Dish Method, this can give a very accurate determination of finding True North. But this is for more urban areas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPW8xmI4w6U

Mall Navigation fail!

Paying attention to your surroundings is key

A calibrated Altimeter can also be handy if navigating in mountainous terrain when used in conjunction with a contour map as it will give you another reference. On your contour map you will be standing somewhere on that contour line. This can help in resection problems to find your position i.e. you may only have one resection line to a compass bearing prominence to intersect with the contour line to determine your location.

There are a lot of helpful techniques and pieces of equipment, but nothing works as well as having a plan, knowing where you started, and knowing where you are located at all times. Everything else keeps you on your planned route, gets you back to it or helps you lay it out. That is why the method I use constantly and regardless of any other gear or techniques I have, is keeping the map in my hand and using terrain association. It always works, needs no batteries, and the only problems I have ever had with it was when I made a mistake and doubted what I could see with my own eyes. Build the skill and trust it. All of the other things are helpful and useful, but you still need to know where you are on the map at all times.

Yout statement nails it. It helps if you do not travel until you have resolved the problem and know where you are for sure. One of my more memorable rescues was for a young lady who lost sight of her picnic spot while out gathering wood for a campfire, became confused, and just kept walking. She was three miles away, traveling downhill into steep, dangerous territory, when we caught up with her, Had she stayed put, the search would have been over in twenty minutes, and she would not have spent a night out. A situation where packing a whistle would have been a good idea....

Hows that for excellent advice,Im going to get that info out when talking with friends and hand out some whistles if anyone shows interest.

Great advice and simpler than GPS and maps while good for expert hikers.....the rest of us/MOST people,the great majority,need the above.

Thank you Hikermor,one of the smartest pieces of advice Ive seen here (not that others havent mentioned in other contexts) this was well stated in this instance.

Sit down,blow whistle,how brilliant is that??!!

Edit-Thank you rescuers for sharing stories and prevention and decreasing risks,Ive really learned a lot.

Thats why the old advise is still good value. That is, when you get lost, sit down and brew a cup of tea and think for awhile. Instead of running in panic.

"when you get lost, sit down and brew a cup of tea and think for awhile"

True.
It does help to have tea, some water, a small stove, matches, and a chocolate chip cookie.
But definitely - PANIC is not an option :-)

Pete2

That is what the youngest Cub Scouts are taught

Taught the wife that last night,LOL!

S.T.O.P (even when using a GPS)

Stop, Think, Observe, Plan



http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/woman-drives-900-miles-gps-error-181605523.html

That belgian woman had surely some form of dementia.

I mean if you embark on a journey that might take a couple of hours and only on the second day figure out someting is wrong...

Then you can´t blame the navigator.

" If you start seeing road signs in (multiple) foreign languages (Flemish, French, German, Croatian), pull over. You're probably going the wrong way."

that was funny !! :-)

you guys have hit upon another cause of getting lost. It's long term exposure to the elements. A slow but steady drop in body energy, accompanied by heat or cold exposure and dehyrdration. Personally I can attest to the mental screw-ups that come from dehydration and exhaustion.

You can get to the point where you are hallucinating. Somewhere before you start seeing things ... your sense of direction takes a major hit. People tend to enter a death spiral where they are going around in circles, hardly even realizing that they are doing it. So they are expending energy and "pushing on" but really getting nowhere.

Pete2

Another Scout lesson. This is first step in the Boy Scout wilderness survival merit badge lesson. The way the Cubs are taught is to hug a tree. Once they realize they are separated they should stop and sit by a tree. signal, drink water, and pull out your poncho or jacket and put it on. It works for anyone in an emergency situation, once out of immediate danger. A similar process is taught in military survival training, but it focuses on being somewhere behind enemy lines so signalling is a bit different.

This is exactly what I teach the local Girl Scout troops when I'm brought in to speak.

I like the STOP approach.

It's good because it helps people to conserve body energy and to re-think their situation. I have to say that "stopping" can be pretty hard from a psychological point of view - because people have to admit to themself that they acrewed up. I'ts generally considered a "failure" if you get lost.

However - STOP doesn't work if there's nobody looking for you. Look at the story (on this thread) about the German family stranded in a remote part of Death Valley. Their bones weren't found for years. I think - if I remember right - that there was a search when they went missing. But it was too late and went in the wrong direction.

STOP is still a really good idea.
But may be it needs to be STOP and Signal.
Send a signal out to the world that you've got a problem.

Pete2

We teach STOP and Hug-A-Tree to our Scouts, starting with the Beaver Scouts, who are as young as 5 years old. They make both make serious sense. We don't all always need to wait for rescue but STOP should be standard protocol for everyone. You're lost, hurt or in some other emergency/survival situation. The worst thing you can do is keep doing what you were doing to end up that way so just STOP. I tell my Scouts that as soon as they feel like something's not right, even a little, that's when they STOP. Don't push through through that feeling.

One of things I liked about Man Woman Wild was that they actively did a STOP in every episode. Hawke used STOP as an acronym for Situation - Threats - Observations - Plan, but essentially, it's the same thing: STOP and do some serious thinking before you do anything else.

You bring up a good point, Pete. It has nothing to do with stopping yourself from getting lost but could get you found quicker: help initiate the search by letting someone know your plan, and the either stick to it or let that person know when you change it.

The thing I like about the STOP strategy is that it melds nicely with brewing up that nice cup of tea, a good thing to do to calm yourself. The tea will warm and hydrate you; if you are cold and thirsty, your mental functioning will improve. Signalling is probably one of the more rational actions you can take as you develop a plan.

Come to think of it, brewing up a cup is a good thing to do, whether or not there is an existing problem. I'll be right back....

My Grandma was am avid outdoors woman. When it came to preparing for getting lost or stuck out on a trip, she used to always say that if you were prepared for a brew up, you were pretty prepared:

You'd have a chance to STOP
You'd have a safe shelter
You'd have fire
You'd have water
You'd have warmth
You'd have light to see by and signal for rescue
You'd have sustenance
You'd have an animal deterrant

She was a wise woman.

A couple lost hikers here.....looking at location on web came across this.Clever.

========================
I pack a CD to signal. When flashing, just flash at the plane three times (the universal distress call). Also, tumbleweeds are great for smoke.