¿ªÔÆÌåÓýMy first experience in backpacking was in Portola redwoods state park in the Bay Area. This was after a few years of long day hikes. Our leader had about ten plus years of backpacking experience and he is a Scout parent who accompanies scouts for many hikes a year.?It was a gear shakedown hike before we did a thousand island, Ediza lake loop. Our campground at Portola was only 4.5 miles away, but for some weird reason, we decided to approach in the reverse direction of the loop.? We had a paper map, compass and the works. However, we quickly went off trail onto another trail. After about 3 miles, we had questions and started to look at the compass and figure out where we were. We thought we knew exactly where we were and headed in the right direction. The direction was correct but we had strayed away into Butano state park (which was further away in the same direction).? After about 4 miles, we reached a fire road that had a large map on a board. This was the road that separated Butano and Portola parks. We didn¡¯t realize it at the time and it didn¡¯t register that we were off course. We continued further for a couple of miles and realized our expected turnoffs weren¡¯t there.? For two of us, it was the first backpacking trip and I¡¯m sure we would have panicked. But since we had our experienced leader, we traced back to the fire road, took off our packs. Rested a bit and then compared our paper maps and the signboard. We finally realized we had gone a mile past our turnoff and we were in a trail that was concentric to our original trail but leading us farther away.? We had about 45 minutes of light. We abandoned our original plan and took the fire road back to where we started, based on finally knowing exactly where we were.? We reached the trailhead and park headquarters at about 8pm (this was August ). The caretaker had a good laugh and said he would treat us as ¡°walk-ins¡± and let us stay at the bike packers campground.? It was hilarious after the fact how comically lost we were.? I bought AllTrails pro the next day and I download offline maps for every hike I go since then. A Garmin Inreach followed shortly thereafter.? This was the hike.? AllTrails also failed us twice on the HST, maybe I will write about it later. On one day, we did panic because we were losing light and were tired.? I now carry a water filter, a small stove, a small fuel canister and extra food for almost all day hikes. The only hikes I didn¡¯t carry was on Pleasanton ridge - and yet that¡¯s where Philip Kreycik went missing and died recently. This has shaken me pretty badly.? On Sep 25, 2021, at 5:09 AM, ravi_jmt2013 <ravi@...> wrote:
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