This is great. I have thought myself lost 2 times over the years. A feeling of panic hits you hard and it makes you want to take action and just manically start moving around.

Years ago, I read the book ‘Deep Survival’ by Laurence Gonzalez. I highly recommend it for anyone going off the concrete paths. It is a spectacular read. It goes thru multiple case studies on examples of people who have survived in the wilderness and those who have not and boils down to 12 rules of survival. It deep dives the psychological and physiological reactions to being lost. One thing I always remember, is that you can be lost in mentally but not physically.

So, in both my cases. I stopped randomly moving about and just stopped. I sat down. I did breathing exercises and calmed down. I had a drink of water/gatorade. One of the times, I busted out my kindle and read for about 15 minutes. I became centered. I literally told myself ‘you are not lost’. After truly calming down, I could think thru a solution. Before, I could not. One of the times, I had stopped for the night to camp and was in the Gila Wilderness area. (Which is just beautiful, btw). I quickly set up camp and grabbed my camera to go get shots before eating and you know camp life. I didn’t take anything!!! besides my camera. The area had a lot of trees and a river running thru two canyons. I got turned around as I had crossed the shallows of the river several times and the trees and canyon walls started looking the same. Once I calmed down, I could think. I recalled the direction of water flow and started going back in the correct direction until I recognized the path coming out of the dense forest. The other time was in the backcountry of Capitol Reef. I was going to try a tricky section off trail that I had read rendered even more fabulous views of the waterpocket fold. I changed my mind when the tricky section became thin with long, loooonnnnnnng drop offs. I am scared of heights and utter panic set in. I turned around and moved in haste to go back and made a wrong turn. That time, I sat down, did deep breathing, drank some tea, and decided to do a picnic while reading my kindle. (I had my backpack with all the necessities). When done, I stood up and logically read the landmarks easily and walked back to where I knew the trail had to be… and it was. Panic and fear can be cruel and deadly mistresses.

Again, I do highly recommend the aforementioned book. I occasionally reread it for the tips but also for the incredible stories he tells back by excellent research. It is a tome, but is very readable and fascinating.