Determing Location While Lost Hiking

Video Transcript

"Hi. This is David Jackel on behalf of Expert Village. And, I'm here to talk to you about how to determine your general location if you get lost when you're hiking. So, you've decided that you're lost. You've taken stock of what you have with you. Now, it's time to figure out where you are. Now, of course, you're not going to know exactly where you are, otherwise, you wouldn't be lost. But, you can get a sense of your general location so you can start to make a plan for getting home. Now, how do you figure out where you are in general? Well, if you've thought ahead and brought a map, that will really help. If you have a map, you can take a look at the trail and judging by what you see on the map, get a sense of where you are relative to the trail you started on. Another thing you can do is get to a clear area where you can look around. Let's say you're on a mountain. You walk off to where there's a clearing in the trees and you can look around, see the geography, and then see if the geography that you notice matches up with the lines on the map. Now, if you don't have a map, there are things you can do. One of them is to just get a sense of where you are in terms of where north is, south, east, west. You can do that if you have a compass. If you don't carry a compass, you can look up at the sky and check out the sun. The sun rises in the east, sets in the west. And, that way, you can look at the sun and see where it is. And see, okay, well it's starting to set in that direction, that's the west. Then, you can figure out where you are from there. Once you've figured out where the four directions are, what I would do is actually mark them down in the ground or on a tree. So, you that know, okay, from now on this is where north is. This is where south is. This is east. This is west. You know exactly where they are. That way if it's cloudy out, you can't see the sun, whatever, you still know what the directions are. And, that's your starting point. From there, you can start to make a way back home. But, now you know your general area. If you have a map, what you should do is draw a circle around the area where you think you might be. And then, also make a note on the ground near you as to where on the map you think that is. So, that way if you go out exploring later on and you come back to the spot, you can say, okay, wherever this is, this is in that general circle. By making marks in the ground where you are, that way if you have to retrace your steps at any point to go back to where you were when you first figured out this information, you'll know where you are again. Even if you're lost, you can have some reference to tell you where you are relative to where you started off."