Originally Posted By: haertig
It's easy to set finite boundaries in Colorado - usually I'm hiking in some mountain drainage and it's easy to keep yourself from "accidently" crossing these towering ridges on either side of you. They make great funnels to keep you within a well defined area, even if you venture off-trail. It's easy enough to get yourself temporarily lost anywhere, but not to the extreme that you inadvertantly scale a 14,000 foot peak and wander down the other side of it.


I concur that it's pretty easy for a guy to make like a gutterball and not be lost so long as he doesn't cross a ridge. That works nicely if the trip doesn't leave the drainage.

But for the record, and for those who don't know, coming down off a ridge or a peak is a PRIME place to begin getting lost.

The different drainages might be separated by ten feet at the top of the ridge where you choose the wrong one. When you discover you've picked the wrong drainage you could be a LONG way from where you needed to be. And you're downhill and may have to climb a ridge to get over to the correct bowling lane :-)