“When you have played basketball for a while…[Y]ou develop a sense of where you are.”
So wrote John McPhee about Bill Bradley, Princeton ’65, senator for 18 years, a remarkable man.
When Bradley was playing college ball, I was in high school, and my best friend played for our high school team. He and I shot baskets out in his backyard, talking about girls and other things teenage guys did. That year, I went from an awful 30% free throw shooter to a decent 65-70%, taking his advice to shoot each one the same way and not let a bad shot change my mood. He told me to use the backboard for my jump shots, because it made bad shooters fair and fair shooters good.
Thirty-one years later, Jon Krakauer saved his own life on Mt. Everest while descending in a snowstorm by recognizing parts of the route he had taken up. He had a sense of where he was, trail memory.
Backcountry navigation is having a sense of where you are, a sense that can be developed, using aids that make a bad navigator fair, a fair navigator good, and a good navigator excellent.
***
I pushed off from Wolf Creek into Burntside Lake, heading towards Crab Lake in the Burntside Unit of the Boundary Waters, a separate area of the wilderness I hadn’t yet explored that summer. It was a pleasant September afternoon, and my plan was to go north 2-3 miles and then I would be “on the map” I had in a plastic bag by my knee. I was lacking the actual map of my starting point, but it was so close to the edge of the maps I did have I didn’t see any problem. North was in front of me.
About a mile out, I could still easily see where I had launched and began looking for islands I would use for markers on the maps with me. There were several, and at first I thought I had found one, but the long axis wasn’t right, so I looked at a couple more. They weren’t right, either. This was bothersome, until I found an island that looked possible, now about 2 miles away from where I had pushed off. I started to look to the west, where I planned to go, but what I saw didn’t match the map.
I then continued, paddling, making the rookie mistake by “making” another island “fit” to where it should be for me to be where I thought I was. That wasn’t working either. As a general rule, you can’t remake the surroundings, put the Sun in a different part of the sky, or change the shape of an island.
Finally, I did the first smart thing I had done since I had pushed off. I stopped, drifting in the calm lake.
The second smart thing I did was to speak aloud, as I have done on other occasions, countable in number, I have been in this situation. I think it better if one speaks aloud. It sounds more honest, more compelling, more urgent.
“You do not know where you are on this lake.” I said to the waves and to the foam near the canoe. “You don’t need help, but you need to go back. Now.” Aloud, the words had power. I did a couple of draw strokes behind me to pull the stern to starboard and the bow to port, then did a figure of eight motion ending in a power stroke, this time moving forward again, south, towards the distant shore where I had begun, the third smart thing I did. Even without binoculars I could see where I had started.
And where today’s trip would end.
When I got back to shore, I put the canoe on the car and drove back into town to look carefully at the maps of the lake. I easily needed to go another mile just to get on the maps I had.
I then bought the map, the fourth smart thing of the day. It took four smart actions to deal with one dumb one. It seems like a bad ratio, but if you survive unhurt, except for your pride, the ratio is fair enough.
The following day, I returned to Burntside from a different jumping off point and into the Unit for three nights. I had no navigation problems. I had a mile portage in and back out. One night in there was my Outdoor Triad of wilderness, total quiet, and completely dark skies. I took a long way back around to the starting point. With a good map, it was simple. The fall colors were beginning, I saw a bunch of duck decoys on the water in one place and got out of there fast. That was smart, too.
That experience occurred well before GPS. Today, I require two of the following: map, GPS, and trail memory. Having a compass is mandatory. Not often I’ve used one, but more often than my tourniquet.
Boreal B[l]og 
December 11, 2024 at 17:23 |
That belongs in a book, “Mistakes Were Made.” Those weasel words, taking responsibility without taking responsibility, fit so many outside — and the truth of the decisions YOU made become apparent to any novice in need of reminders. You write. I’ll enjoy!