“You don’t know what you don’t know until you need to know it, and don’t.” –Old Sport
I had a few phone conversations with our outfitter, trying to pin down the exact location of our camp and the areas we’d be hunting. He eventually gave me some GPS coordinates and I spent a few hours looking online using Google Maps & Google Earth. I also asked him for a topo map marked with where elk had been taken recently. He eventually sent me a map of the Gila Wilderness. (This map later proved to be worthless in the field as the topography markings were all wrong.) In addition, I studied US Forestry service maps online. Their maps were great and I highly recommend them.
I grew up in the Boy Scouts, which is where I received the majority of my orienteering/wilderness survival training. I was also a member of a very active troop, which helped. I had also read “To Build A Fire” a few times, so I knew enough not to light a fire under a snow-laden tree.
I felt I had done all of the necessary preparation for safely navigating my way around the area we’d be hunting, that is until I was actually sitting there in the wilderness.
I had planned our itinerary so that we would have a day for riding in, setting up camp and getting settled, and a day in the field for scouting and acclimating before the first day of hunting. The ride in was beautiful and exciting. The terrain varied from wide open plains-like grasslands, steep and dense Ponderosa forests, lush meadows and clear mountain streams. All of this is great, but the deeper we went into the Wilderness, the less I knew where I was. Logically you could turn around and take the trail back to where we parked the trucks, but this could prove to be a difficult task if it were dark or there were white-out conditions caused by fog or snow. It’s plenty easy to lose your bearings and panic and get yourself into real trouble. I quickly realized I would be dependent on my guides to get me in and out of the wilderness safely and I wasn’t completely at ease with this idea. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust them it was that I know what can happen, and how quickly a party can get separated.
After we’d set up camp and settled in a bit, we gathered around the campfire and opened some maps to get our bearings. We were lucky in that we were camped at the base of Lily Mountain and could use it as a significant landmark for finding our way back to camp. Again, that’s all well and good if it’s a bright and clear day. We studied the maps and the contours and the trails. We all pulled out our compasses and checked where magnetic North actually was. We discussed the areas we’d be hunting, and their relation to the camp and Lily Mountain. At the end of the meeting, my father said to us, “Just use all of the training you guys got from Scouts.” My mind took a very quick inventory of what I’d learned, and what could be useful out here in the middle of nowhere.
The next day we scouted the two main areas we’d decided to hunt, and every so often I would stop the party, pull out our maps, and ask where we were. This helped a lot as the week progressed, and the more time I spent out there, the better I felt about where I was…although I was never completely at ease. I was always worried about my brothers or my dad, whomever I was hunting with.
During the trip my older brother got separated from us for a few hours when one of the guides had dropped him off on the wrong ridge. He fired a shot to alert us that he was “lost”, but didn’t fire three consecutive shots to signal he was lost because he’d only brought three along with him that day. I spent half a day looking for him and the elk I thought he’d shot…which leads to a few other things I learned on this trip, which I’ll get to sooner than later.
1) Know how to read a compass and a map and practice using them before you get out into the field
2) Ask your outfitter for as much information about exactly where you’ll be camping and hunting, and any helpful landmarks, well before you’re out in the wilds
3) Study your maps
4) When you’re hiking/packing in, take time to orient yourself and take note of important landmarks along the way
5) Allot time to acclimate/orient yourself once you’re into your hunting area…don’t go rushing off into the brush after your quarry
6) Trust your compass
I’m sure there are some other tips that experienced outdoorsman can give, so please feel free to chime in…
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