People tend to underestimate their ability to get lost when they go off trail. It’s surprising how easy it is to lose a trail even when you’ve gone just thirty feet off of it.
It happened to me in Jasper. I was on my way back to my car and I could see the trail across a relatively small patch of wilderness that I thought I could save some time by heading straight towards it. I lost the trail that I was heading toward and I lost the trail I had left. My compass app on my cellphone saved me that day, even though my phone died after 15 minutes after that.
I learned to carry a power bank with enough charge to recharge a phone completely.
“””I learned to carry a power bank with enough charge to recharge a phone completely.”””
A little shirt pocket power bank and a cell phone when lost in the woods sure make for a lot of good, it would take a good writer to even get close to how useful that combo is.
Geesh, $2 magnetic compass would save you, IF, you were smart enough to bring one.
Without the compass and having a basic knowledge of orienteering, I would have been fairly screwed. This experience was something I have posted here in the past in more detail.
That experience by the way happened to me just before cellphones with GPS became common. I think younger people today have too much of a comfort level with this technology and go on hiking expeditions woefully underequipped and not prepared for what to do when the technology fails them.