Posted on 08/26/2017 12:03:08 PM PDT by Aliska
Caked in mud and covered with bug bites, a shivering group of six friends from the Quad-Cities huddled together in the dark this past Sunday, stranded in the woods of northeast Iowa.
(Excerpt) Read more at qctimes.com ...
Back around 1964 as a teenager growing up in northern Michigan, myself and three friends, Mikey, Dave and Bobby were inner-tubing way off the south shore on Lake Charlevoix for a couple of hours.
The next day, I was at Dave's house closer to town when we saw a Coast Guard helicopter flying off the marina on the north side of the lake. Turns out, they were looking for Mikey who was doing the exact same inner tubing, only alone when he slipped off the tube and sank. Little did WE know the day before when we were all tubing together, he never knew how to swim......
Pride of the Iowa Coast Guard.
“I’m always amazed at people lost on mountains overnight in populated areas. Just look down, see those lights? That’s where the people are. Go there.”
And look out for bears along the way! ;)
If there are bear in those woods I don’t think sitting still is going to fool them.
I run Topo Maps on my iPhone. You can download the 1:50,000 maps.
If I’m going somewhere I download the maps that cover that area.
Handy little bugger. Works like a GPS with map features.
Use it mostly when I’m wandering the back woods of Uwharrie NF here in NC.
Only problem is it and programs like “Map My Hike” eat phone batteries in a few hours. I only run the map app for a “look see” every now and again - and carry a recharge power pack.
Most places you have to get up a hill to get phone coverage.
I’ve paddled down the Wisconsin River a dozen times through the years. Usually it’s relatively tame with lots of big sandbars for overnight camping and bonfires; a LOT of fun!
However, there have been a few years when the water was so high that there were NO sandbars and the current was very swift - almost whitewater - in some sections.
Me no likey that! ;)
Glad these girls had a good outcome. All bodies of water have their rewards and risks, that’s for sure.
The Yellow River State Forest is over 8000 acres of wilderness and the only place in Iowa where you can backpack. So it’s really not a place to take for granted.
I just got back from the 4x4 beaches on the northern OBX this past weekend, and north of the big dune, Penny’s Hill, you’ve got to text, no cell service strong enough for calls.
“Lucky to be alive”? In Iowa in the summer? Are the corn stalks going to eat them? The pigs going to petrify them with squeals? A few hours walk in any direction and you’ll find a farmhouse. You won’t freeze to death on a summer night. You won’t starve or die of thirst overnight.
Picture postcards from Rugen Island:
https://flic.kr/p/WRH16M
https://flic.kr/p/Xu9B4d
https://flic.kr/p/XSSUhg
https://flic.kr/p/Xu9tBu
https://flic.kr/p/WRHNTz
https://flic.kr/p/WPtcY5
And when you come to a gorge, just leap it. :)
I was referring to another post, in which a group of girls got stranded overnight in Michigan. They were completely lost and thought the river went in a circle. Those girls were the ones I was referring to. I was referring to the survival skills, or lack thereof, of that other group of girls.
Back in high school, I would take the girls out hiking in the woods.
I would pretend to get lost.
I’d tell the girl,
“We better take off all of our clothes and cuddle together to stay warm.”
You’d think that a girl wearing boots and a backpack wouldn’t be able to run very fast but zooooom.....like Big Daddy Don Garlits running the quarter mile.
Why were these inexperienced dunces allowed to do anything like this? They should be liable for every cent spent and told if they ever try this crap again, you go to jail. Total ineptitude.
It's near Effigy Mounds National Monument, and from maps, it looks like certain areas are pretty remote, especially for tired, cold, bug-bitten, nettle-scratched and scared women at night.
Men get lost, too, in the wilderness but maybe a little more remote, not always. David Paulides has several books about people who get out in National Parks and just disappear, no trace to be found. It's very sobering.
He's written about Bigfoot, too, and I don't get too excited about that. Maybe I would if I thought I saw a big hairy creature. Oh wait . . .they had big feet, too.
But back to the women, there's got to be more lessons in here about getting re-oriented if you become lost. That Yellow river is one of the snakiest ones I've ever seen.
No.
You won’t freeze to death on a summer night.
If you get wet? Yes.
Like they say, “it’s not an adventure until something goes wrong.”
I use the “Gaia GPS” app for hiking. I just have to remember to download the maps on wifi at home before I head out. As much as I like the app, I still don’t care for the small screen for maps (and I have the larger screen iPhone 6 Plus).
In Oregon last week, the BLM was handing out fantastic large color paper maps of eclipse watching sites along OR 26. They showed National Park, National Monument, and BLM land. There is nothing like having a large paper map in your hands! They had three large maps (all free), one for the Painted Hills NM, one for the John Day Fossil Beds, and a smaller scale map of the entire area showing the eclipse path and the zone of totality.
The “Yellow River”?
I’d stay away from that, too.
That and Turd Creek.
Oh. Yeah, I remember that discussion last week. It was hilarious. What a bunch of noob city slickers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.