Being lost...

On a previous post I wrote about some of my experiences while hiking in the beautiful Southern California mountains. If you are ever in this area and have the energy, time, and desire, you should save a day for experiencing nature at its best. These local trails are relatively safe and typically have enough other adventurers on their paths that wild animals stir away from them and it is rare that you would regret having doing the climb. Just the thought of going up one of these beautiful trails makes my body release higher levels of adrenaline and excite me. The more I do these hikes, the more I want to do them again and keep doing them. Unfortunately, in the last few years my complicated parental and work life has ruled over my ability to go out and do what I love doing. It should not be this way, but a set of priorities has taken over that have made it a lot harder for me to find an entire day for me to get lost in the wild.

Get lost, that is a bit of an understatement. The beauty of leaving the rush of civilization and spending this time with nature is that somehow I am able to set free my mind and find all sorts of other ways of seeing things that are consuming my life. Out there with the smell of the forest, the sound of its life, I can typically hear and feel so much more than anywhere else. It is like if when I am in the city there is too much noise, too much everything overwhelming my senses and making them only available if I consciously make a request for them to do their job. Otherwise I think I would go nuts. However, when I decide to do a hike, from that very moment my mind starts to prepare itself for what is to come. Days before I am checking out the weather and conditions of the targeted trail, and my mind starts to adjust to what the forecast says. The night before I am preparing snacks, iced water bottles, and what clothing I am to wear, and my mind again begins to accept what I am planning on eating, drinking, and even wearing for the occasion. On the drive to my starting point I find myself even breathing a bit differently, as if aerobically my system is telling me that even though there will be a lot of huffing and puffing to get up, I can do it if I breath properly and allow myself to adjust to altitudes and climate. So yes, I do get lost in the experience which is a lot more fun than getting physically lost during the hike.

Being lost can be a very scary experience. I have been physically lost several times in my life and each and every one of those occasions brought a whole different set of fearful images to my mind. I am not talking about driving around in my car and not being able to find my final destination. What I am talking about is being out in the wilderness and not knowing how to get back to civilization. They say that this is a particularly good reason not to go on long hikes in desolated areas without a partner or buddy. The reasoning being, if one of the two individuals gets hurt, then the other should be able to seek help instead of being stuck in one place at the mercy of the elements and time before being rescued. Of course the trick is to not allow yourself to fall into any of these situations in the first place. However, I already know of at least two stories of very experienced hikers that have lost their lives while finding themselves either hurt, disoriented, or quicker than expected bad weather. In both of these stories these fit and able men went out on their own to do what they had done so many other times in their lives, take a nice hike, and one was never to be found again, the other was found weeks later frozen inside the hollow trunk of a tree which he had used to seek shelter. Even though these are true stories and seem to be good enough reason for many not to ever venture again on their own to hike, somehow many avid and adventurous individuals still file these mishaps in some locked up drawer of their mind and eventually go out and do it on their own again, and again.

I must confess to being one of the above. Not only have I gone on my own leaving my destiny to fate, but I have also found myself lost. The first time I got lost on a hike I was not alone. I remember hiking up Mount San Jacinto with my sister's husband when there was still snow on the trail. On the way down the mountain we ran into a path on the trail that was blocked with a wall of compacted snow so we decided to go around it and find the trail a bit farther ahead. Interestingly enough after several minutes we realized that we had never again found the trail and were pretty much clueless as to how to proceed. My brother in law made several suggestions which we tried and by their conclusion we had spent another 20 or 30 minutes seeking the trail and were still lost. In fact, at that point, since we had not left any markers or indicators it then seemed impossible to backtrack and try to place ourselves on the trail by reversing our steps. I had done this hike at least five or six previous times so I at least had an idea of how far we were, which then started to worry me because I knew that if we did not find the trail soon, we would then be hiking at night. We had not come prepared for such an alternative. I let myself think for a few minutes and came up with a plan. I asked him to stay put in one place so that I could go to higher ground and orient myself to get an idea as to which direction we needed to proceed to reach our final destinations. Being a bit familiar with those mountains paid off. On higher ground I found a landmark at a long distance which seemed familiar and it gave me enough of a bearing for us to proceed. Sure enough, we had not been hiking for another 30 minutes when we finally ran back into the trail. This was a close call, but all in all we probably were not lost for more than an hour, which later did not seem like such a big deal.

On another occasion I was also descending a mountain, this time it was Mount Baldy. I got so distracted while talking with my brother that we started descending on what seemed the right path, but later realized we were going down the mountain on the opposite side as to where we needed to be hiking. This was not so bad since we never left the opposite trail, and other than having to huff it back up for about an hour to get to the right trail, all was well. On this occasion I realized how important it was for me to pay attention when I arrived at the peak to which direction I came from and what it looked like when looking backwards at my path. This way once it is time for me to head back down, I don't find myself losing time and energy going in the wrong direction.

On the two previously described experiences I was in the company of some great people that made the whole being lost dilemma not so scary. However, I have been lost on my own. This I tell you can be for a bit of a frightening experience. Just in case my mom ever reads this, I am going to just stick to one of my escapades so that the next time we talk she won't want to choke me and promise her I will never go hiking again. Probably around seven years back I had the last of my being lost while hiking experiences. I had been having a particularly bad week dealing with my marriage, separation, and impending divorce. After days of confusing emotions, stress, and a lot of dissolution, at the last minute I decided that what would be good for me would be to grab a bottle of water, head to a mountain trail, and take a walk. This was not a planned hike like so many of the other ones that I had done throughout my life, no, this was a spare of the moment, seeking to find some piece of mind, let me get the hell out of every one's face and take a little time for me. I drove to the beginning of one of the trails to San Gorgonio Mountain and parked my car. Since it was not particularly early anymore, I had mentally told myself that I was just going to walk an hour up the trail and then head right back. I grabbed my water bottle, a baseball cap and absolutely nothing else. No GPS tracker, cell phone, food, or jacket. After all, I was just going to take a stroll and clear my head. Well sure enough, as I was walking up the trail my mind found peace and refuge in the solitude of taking this walk on my own. My thoughts turned into my current state of affairs and how it all might affect my children in the long run. Little by little I started to find some of the answers by simply being able to think more clearly. Once the promised hour had passed I looked at my watch and decided that I was feeling so good that I could safely go on for at least another thirty or sixty minutes, so I kept going. Thirty minutes turned into sixty, sixty into ninety, and soon I realized it was time to head back. There was only one little problem. In my distracted mentally occupied walk I never noticed when I had left the trail. Almost two and a half hours later I suddenly found myself in the middle of the beautiful forest, but completely unaware of which way was I supposed to go to get back. The obvious instinct is to just turn around and start walking in the opposite direction of where you came from, but believe me when I tell you that it is just not that simple. The path is never in a straight line since hiking is about switchbacks and crossing over streams, and slowly ascending to a place which is never visible from your starting point in the first place. Unless you are on a clearly marked trail, almost everything looks the same after a short while.

I sat down on a boulder for a minute or two to consider my options. My heart rate started to speed up with the now new knowledge that I was lost. Every other thought that had been occupying my mind was quickly filed away and a fresh set of desperate thoughts began to emerge in my head. I knew that darkness was on it's way and it would not be long before even if I could find the trail it would be difficult to stay on it without a flashlight. It had not been cold during the ascent mostly because of the exercise I was getting going up hill at least sixty percent of the time, but I was familiar with the place and knew that eventually it would get very cold because temperature drops in that area significantly at nights. So I built a pile of rocks as an indicator and to mark my starting point. I placed a line of rocks from my marker indicating in which direction I was going as I had come to a stop and realized my predicament. It was very unlikely that this first choice would be the correct way to get back on track since it seemed to lead mostly uphill. So I placed another line of rocks on my marker and decided to head on the opposite direction in hopes that it would lead to the trail the quickest. I decided to hike twenty minutes in each of the remaining directional options. If I did not find the trail by the twenty minute time limit in one direction, then I would head back to my marker and start again in another one of my leftover choices. Yes, you guessed it, it was not until I was on my final choice that I eventually found the trail which now meant that I would be hiking for at least the last hour in the dark.

Just finding the trail brought so much hope that most of the fear I had been facing a few minutes back disappeared. Interesting that I did not have to be safely in my car for this sudden relaxation to overcome the last sixty minutes that I had endured of fear. Seeing the path almost feels like being on the other end of the journey. Sure enough, if I am writing to you today it means that I eventually found my way back to my car and safely home. That day was a significant day for me in my decision making as to how to proceed in my personal life. Among all of the contemplation I found answers, and among my despair of being lost I found a few more, and eventually in my car heading back I made some serious and difficult decisions which I had not been able to do until that moment in time. Being lost, no matter how scary an event in my life, was good for me.

One of the lessons I learned that day was that I had actually been lost a lot longer than I had realized. The longer I had been lost, the longer it was going to take me to get back safe. I also learned that sometimes I need to be alone in order to find my way. Having someone else there to help me might of gotten me back quicker, but quicker is not always better. In the time I was lost I discovered things of myself that needed to be discovered. In solitude there are answers that I cannot find anywhere else. Getting the answers from others is not the same as finding them on my own. I also learned that to find my way I sometimes have to take more than one path. The first, second, and maybe even third might not lead me to where I need to go, but eventually if I keep trying and I don't give up, I most likely will find my way back to safety.

I will confess that on that day I made some very dumb rookie mistakes. For one I did not even tell anyone where I had gone, or even that I had gone for a hike. If I would not of found my way back to my car, the outcome could of been much worse than it should of been due to my absent mind. Sometimes we truly are not alone, even though it might seem that way. That particular day I was for what some might be considered extremely lucky, and others blessed.

You know as well as I do that my story applies to not just being physically lost, but also emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. Youth seems to be a particularly susceptible age in which the emotional, spiritual, and mental aspects of our lives are painted more like watercolors in which no borders are specifically notable, yet from a distance there is still much beauty and allure. Careful brushstrokes blend our relationships with the rest of the world making us part of a scene of attractive elements that create our lives. Even to the untrained eye there is a bit of contemplation that takes place when the canvas is exposed for all to see. To those that are close to the artist or that know about the subject that is being painted, much more than idle contemplation is achieved. We find ourselves entranced with its combination of beauty and horror, and we somehow are no longer free to stop looking. It is like a single blinking light in the darkness that forces our eyes to turn back to look at it over and over again. If we are so capable of seeing it, why is it that we are so limited in our ability to guide it to a safe harbor? Probably because just as I needed to find my own way back from being lost in the physical world for it to be significant enough for me to write to you about it, in that same way these young creatures that are part of our lives must navigate themselves back to safety. In the meantime, I'll keep my porch light on. Who knows if anyone will come knocking and looking for a bit of refuge on their way back home. I hope one day that might be my son.

Dad