People Who've Been Lost In The Wild Are Sharing What Happened And How They Survived, And Wow

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5 days ago

The scariest thing to me is being lost in the wilderness and having to survive on my own. Like, I fear I would not last a week.
So, I was very interested to see that Reddit user mirrorsare asked, "Redditors who have been lost in the wilderness, stuck somewhere deserted, lost at sea, what's your story?" Here are the wildest stories:
1."My friends and I love outdoorsy stuff. One day, we decided to drive a few hours to do some spelunking (caving). This particular cave is near a river, so it has a maze of streams inside of it and a waterfall! Being young and stupid, we didn't have much of a plan and took off. Well, turns out, it started raining while we were inside. The rain partially flooded the cave and sealed off a lot of passageways. It was unreal. You could actually see the water levels swelling up. Needless to say, we shat bricks and did some incredibly stupid stuff like swimming some of the flooded narrow ways. We came out starving, dehydrated, cold, and bleeding. Turns out, we had spent around 13 or so hours in the cave."
—HyooMyron
Related:
2."I was at a friend's cabin and went squirrel hunting alone at dawn with his dog. I had been at the cabin for a few days and thought I had acquired a good knowledge of the local area. After about an hour of trekking through a moderately heavy maple forest, I realized I was lost. There was no cellphone coverage, I had no compass, and the sky was overcast. It is a terrifying feeling not knowing where you are, or even which way is north. I wandered around aimlessly for another hour looking for a familiar landmark, but I was getting nowhere."
"Out of desperation, I turned to the dog and in an upbeat voice said, 'Let's go home, it's time to eat!' The dog quickly turned around and started bounding over a ridge. Fifteen minutes later, we were back at the cabin. I still remember how I hooted once I knew I was safe. Now I never go into the woods without a compass and whistle, and I always let someone know where I'm going and when I expect to return. And yes, the dog ate very well that day."
—Gravy-Leg__
3."When I was 8 years old, my mom and I moved in with a friend of hers who had a son several years older than me. Let's call him Travis. Travis was f*cking wild. I was really into stage magic at the time and had just received a little magician outfit with the hat, cape, and everything. One day, Travis was watching wrestling on TV and got super amped, so we went out to the trampoline where he proceeded to beat the crap out of me while screaming about the culinary endeavors of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and farting on my face. Anyway, he accidentally sat on my face and broke my nose. I was crying, there was blood, and he knew he was about to get in trouble, so he decided to lead me off into the woods under the pretext of taking me to a nearby relative to find Band-Aids. He ditched me in the woods. In a magician's costume."
"I wandered around crying for a while before remembering some bullshit from school about leaving behind markers if you ever get lost so that you know you're walking in circles or whatever. So, I started removing my outfit and leaving parts of it hanging from trees. At some point, I stumbled upon a neighbor who was oddly nonchalant about the half-dressed little boy coming out of the woods in tighty-whiteys and a magician's hat. With blood all over his face."
—TravixMaximix
The story below deals with the topic of suicidal ideation.
4.About three years ago, I struggled severely with depression and suicidal thoughts. Those thoughts later manifested into plots. I'd stay up at night thinking about how I wanted to go out of this world, and I eventually decided upon a method. I constructed a plan to make the two-hour drive from my house to the Inyo National Forest after work on a Friday, and get lost. The plan was simple and stupid. I'd try to survive as long as possible until something killed me, be it dehydration, fatigue, or whatever else nature had to throw my way. I ordered some survival essentials on Amazon, packed a bag, and left as planned."
"I had no idea where I was going, but that drive felt like I was ten again and on my way to Disneyland with my parents for the first time. I felt so overjoyed and relieved. I got there, parked my car behind some bushes, and started walking. It was about 5 o'clock and the sun was falling quickly (bad planning on my part), so I started running, deeper and deeper into the forest. I would run then tire so I'd walk a while then run again, and I repeated this process for about three hours.
I stopped at a clearing in the trees. It was a round little patch of mostly dead grass and leaves. I pitched my tent, unrolled my sleeping bag, and fell asleep. Happy as can be. The next morning was far less tranquil, however. I woke up feeling like I had a terrible hangover, and I had no idea where I was or how I'd gotten there. I began breathing rapidly, and I started jogging in random directions, trying to retrace my steps. I ended up getting even more lost and separating myself from my gear and tent.
I tried telling myself that this is what I wanted. But for some reason, I knew that it wasn't anymore. I remember repeating 'No Choice' over and over again. That was a really cold night. I tried doing push-ups to keep myself warm, but that hardly lasted. I tried singing 'Vienna' by Billy Joel, but I was too cold and my teeth kept chattering. Although the cold was nothing compared to the fear. Every falling leaf or trickling sound of a stream was a vicious predator in my mind. There was a point where I couldn't tell whether I was shaking from fear or the cold or a mixture of both.
Finally, the morning came, and I slept through most of the day on the ground with my back to a fallen tree stump. I woke at around 3 p.m., and once again I panicked. I began jogging in a seemingly random direction until I hit the road I came on. That feeling of relief was something I will never be able to explain. It humbled me yet lifted me up. I walked up the road until a very nice old man in a big black truck pulled over to see if I needed help. I told him I was hiking and got lost. He drove me up the road to my car, and I drove home.
That weekend changed everything for me. I never had suicidal thoughts again, and I got the help I needed to deal with my depression. This isn't much of a survival story, but the whole experience changed my point of view on life and self-worth. I'm still working on constructing a suitable life for myself, but whenever I'm discouraged or I want to quit, I think back to that night in the forest, and after a quick shudder, I realize just how much my life means to me. It was a stupid plan, but I'm glad it was. I may not have survived a slightly more elaborate one."
—Halfbl8d
5."I'm a hunter. It's a great way for me to escape the everyday hustle and bustle and just sit alone in the woods, watching it either wake up or go to sleep. This particular day, I was deer hunting about 20 feet up a tree, and anyone who hunts knows that you go all the way until dark, pack up your stuff, and then come out. Sunset was around 5:00 p.m., and I sat in the tree until about 5:40 p.m., and then climbed down from the tree, packed up my stuff, and realized that I didn't have a flashlight. No big deal, I've got my cellphone. Oops... 5% battery left because I'm so far out in the woods (long hike in) that it was searching for signal the whole time and drained itself. I shut off my phone to conserve battery. I figure, 'Oh well, I'll be fine. I'll start walking back now.'"
"Even though I spend a LOT of time outdoors, and practically spent every weekend as a kid in the woods, even I can get lost. There's a moment that I just can't describe where you realize that you're lost, and you have no flashlight, and have no idea which way to go. It's a pretty unsettling feeling, but you want to remain calm. You're panicking on the inside, but you know that will do no good to panic, so you try to calm yourself down. I did this for a while before I decided to just sit down.
By this time, I had been lost in the woods, in the dark, with no flashlight for about three hours. It was an overcast night and a new moon, so I had ZERO light to work with. I decided to sit down and take inventory of what I had and remain calm. I took out my cellphone and sent my fiancé a text that said: 'Phone dying. Those lost in the woods may spend the night here. I won't die, promise, love you.' ... and turned off my phone in case I needed that 3% to make an emergency call.
It was now around 9:00 p.m. I realized that I wasn't going to die out there in the woods, but I wasn't going to have a fun night either. I did have a gun, plenty of ammo, good clothing, and a bottle of water. Oh, and a full pack of cigarettes! I could start a fire and be fine.... wait. I could start a fire. I could... build a torch... Why didn't I think of this before?
I had some para-cord that I had in my hunting pack that I typically use to pull my gun up a tree with after I've climbed it, so I cut off a section of it and bundled up a few leaves/sticks/bark and made a torch. It was wet, so I used some lip balm on the string to get it going a little better, and the torch worked... not perfectly, but now I could see.
I ended up eventually finding a trail that I knew (even in the dimly lit torch darkness) and hiked out from there to my vehicle. If it weren't for that cigarette lighter, I'd probably have spent the night there. I got to my truck, called my fiancé, who was freaking out, and headed home for a beer."
—jik0006
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6."I went geocaching one time with some family friends. We split up into groups, and in my group, I had a 15-year-old, a 13-year-old, and a 7-year-old. Now, our parents had set up the spots, so all they did was give us the coordinates written down on a sheet of paper, a GPS, and sent us off. We found our first two spots no problem; they were less than a mile from our campsite, but when we plugged in the coordinates to our final spot, it came up with 3.2 miles. Okay, whatever, how long could it be? We set out in T-shirts, flip-flops, with nothing but the clothes on our backs and a GPS. The first hour was great. We were hiking in the deep Rocky Mountains, it was a beautiful day, and we were off trail, so everything was pristine. After that, though, we began to wonder if our coordinates had been copied down incorrectly. I mean, we had to cross two barbed wire fences. Looking back, that should have been a warning sign."
"The 7-year-old of our group wanted to turn back, but we were only a mile away, and we didn't want to have hiked so far only to return empty-handed, so we kept going. It took us another few hours to finish that mile because we were hiking steep uphill now. What's worse, the sky was beginning to cloud over, and before long it was pouring, and then it began to hail. So here I was, standing on the top of some godforsaken mountain, in charge of three kids, who were wearing flip-flops and T-shirts and huddling under a tree, covering their ears whenever lightning flashed and thunder sounded.
We all wanted to turn back. But we were only .08 miles away! We waited for the rain to pass and continued on, knee-deep in grass and mud. When we got there, there was nothing, as expected. Only a grassy slope with scattered trees.
We started back downhill and kept walking down until we found a road. Then we hid in the grass while our little 7-year-old stood on the side of the road to grab a ride (not my best idea either), and when that failed, we hiked about five miles back to find our parents frantic with search and rescue rangers blowing whistles. So... yeah. Fun times."
—[deleted]
7."My father intentionally left us three kids (12, 8, 7) on a hike about one mile away from where we camped. He left us a picnic box, stated he needed to go to something, but would be back in a few minutes. We sat and ate, oblivious to time. About an hour passes, and we are suddenly very aware that we are very alone. My big brother and I stayed put and called for Dad loudly for about 15-20 minutes. Little sis cleans up and tries not to freak. We then decide to pack up and head back for camp, because we are pretty confident about how to get back."
"During our little 'hike' away from camp, Dad had pointed out several nearby identifying landmarks on our way. A large boulder that looked like a nose, a skunky-smelling area, a pile of trash with a zombie-looking rubber duck... He seemed to make a very stern deal out of these things.
We used the landmarks to find our way back...the whole while leaving stone arrows in the trail we are walking...every 50 to 100 ft. My little sister was scratching one long continuous line in the trail, too. Any wrong turns, and we headed back to the last arrow, easy peasy. We made it back easily....and we were rewarded with some really nice s'mores. Little did we know that our dad had been testing us to see whether we were paying attention to taking note of landmarks, north/south direction, staying on the left of the highway, etc. He had been silently following us a distance away, making sure we were in no harm. He did many little tests like this that really helped ingrain survival skills better than simply being told."
—jrwreno
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8."I was alone, hiking on a hill trail in a nature reserve near sunset, when I suddenly ran off the trail. It was not a well-traveled route, and the trails had grown over. I tried turning around, but couldn't see where I came from. It was 15 minutes to sunset, there was no phone signal, and I was starting to panic. I guessed that I was probably close to the northern side, so I kept the last rays of sunlight to my left as I trekked northwards. I finally found a fence and followed it, climbing over rocks and through thorn bushes until I found a gate out of the place. It was locked. Fortunately, someone heard my calls for help."
"From then on, I always hike with a partner. There's less chance of getting lost, and even if we get lost, it's calming and safer to get lost with company. It's also good to have a travelling partner in case one person gets hurt and needs help. Lesson learned."
—PM_YOUR_ANKLES_MLADY
9."We went backpacking in the San Gabriel wilderness in California for a few days when a fire started. We got cut off from our exit and got stranded. We were trying to follow a fork of the San Gabriel River, but the fire was charging down the ravine and cut us off. We were about 10 miles in and had to figure out how to circumnavigate the fire. It was really fucking scary. It was really windy, smoky, and overall — very, again, scary. Giant towers of smoke were just piling up in the air; search and rescue were buzzing the area, along with fire planes dumping water. Finally, we got to the top of the ridge to see where we would go from there. Water was getting short, and we saw that we could get over to the next ridge and cut back down to the river. We set the compass and moved out. We got back down to the river and filled up on water. We were f*cking exhausted and miserable."
"Our lungs hurt, our legs hurt, and we were all tired. The detour took us another 3–4 miles out of the way, added another 3,000 to 4,000 feet of elevation gain, and ticks. I hate ticks. So, we finally get back to the river, we fill up on water, and we can't stop. The fire is on our backs at this point, and we think it is advancing towards us. We have about 8 more miles to go, and we are all seriously considering dropping all of our gear, grabbing the water filter and bottles, and just booking it down the river bed. We decided not to and just toughed it out, which I am so glad that we didn't. After about another hour of making it down the river, we run into a search and rescue squad!
We all were just blown away, I couldn't believe that this was even happening — or would ever happen in my life, it was just surreal. We weren't lost anymore, but now we had help and encouragement. The Search and Rescue team was also equally surprised, looking at us covered in dirt/ash, wheezing, and just plain beat. They told us that we had to get moving as the fire was running along the ridge parallel to the river and was coming down the ravine. We booked it the f*ck out of there and got to our cars. We were all so tired.
I went back to an area we passed through on our hike after the fire (months later); the area was completely scorched. We would have been some crispy critters if we slacked and rested."
—Oldpenguinhunter
10."Lemme tell you the story of how I got lost on a mountain and nearly died. Years ago, in the early 2000s, I was at a summer camp as a counselor in upstate New York: Camp Olmsted. It was a sleepaway camp, and we took care of kids there from like 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. The activities of the day were split into roughly 50-minute blocks, all except for one. This activity was about two hours put together, and it happened about once or twice a week. It was the Storm King Mountain climb. Now it wasn't a grab-a-rock-and-climb style mountain, it was walk-a-path-for-a-lil'-while, yay-you're-climbing-a-mountain-style mountain. Anyway, two hours was never enough time to get to the top, and we always had to turn back at the hour and change mark. This particular day, I had some free time after the climb, so I told my partner to take the kids back down. I was gonna continue the rest of the climb by myself, be back in an hour."
"This had always been the plan, so I had the groundskeeper's assistant come with me so I could have a climbing buddy. Anyway, 45 minutes later, we made the top. We kinda lost track of the path along the way but we made it, that was all that mattered. I actually saw a bald eagle flying around and saw some town that was craaazy far away. It freaked me out how high we were, but the view made it all worth it.
Now, it was time to get down. We didn't remember which way we came so we just went in the general direction we felt we came until we saw the path again. Needless to say, we never saw the path. Of course, our 19-year-old minds figured if we keep going down, we'll eventually get off the mountain.. Well, it turns out sh*t gets real once you get off the path. Thorns everywhere, animals wandering around, at some point, gnats just started swarming around our heads and refused to leave, and turns out our plan had some kinks. After a while, the hills became very steep, and we resorted to sliding on our butts as a method of travel. I started doing some Last Action Hero slides, and at the last minute, I grabbed a mini-tree before I went over the horizon. We went towards it because we thought it was yet another steep hill. And we were right, a 90-degree angle steep. I nearly fell off what looked like at least a 5-story drop.
My buddy is freaking out, but for some reason I can't explain, I wasn't even scared. I was more worried that we're late as hell, we're going to get in trouble, and I'm going to get fired. I didn't wanna get fired because I loved this job, I was basically getting paid to play with kids, and I liked all my co-workers. At this point, we were about 20–30 minutes late, and I was banking on the head counselor not noticing. I planned on just casually walking back to my group and acting like nothing was wrong.
After much butt sliding, dead ends, and improvising, we finally saw a road. We celebrated, got on it, and began randomly walking in a direction. Eventually, some stereotypical biker-looking dude rode by. I asked him where Camp Olmsted was, and he said it was about 2 miles in the direction we were going. We thanked him, continued on our way, and had the bright idea to put dirt in our hair because maybe that'd give us more sympathy points and we wouldn't be fired. At this point our clothes are beyond filthy, we have gnats swarming our hair, and now we have dirt in there as well.
After some light jogging, we eventually make it back. Groundskeeper Jr. goes back to his post, and I creep back to my cabin and tell my partner the adventure. I asked him if the head counselor asked about me, and he said nah, and I got away with it scot-free. Totally worth it."
—Aurhiro
11."Anahim Lake, British Columbia, 1967. I had only arrived that day. My friends, Mike and his wife, had gone to town for groceries and left me at the cabin with the dog. I decided to go for a walk. Tybalt and I took off across the road and into the woods. After strolling around for a while, I crossed back over the road and continued on. I climbed up some ridges and wandered down in the little hollows, not paying much attention to where I was. I had never been in big woods before, nor so far north. I began to tire and to think about food, so I decided to head back to the cabin. I then realized, in one heart-stopping moment, that I had no idea where I was."
"I could feel the panic building way down inside me, ready to reduce me to a pissing, screaming imbecile. I scrambled up a ridge and then a tree at the top of it to look out. I saw an ocean of Jackpines, dark forbidding trees, in all directions. Nothing relieved the monotony of those trees. Nothing. No one knew where I was. I remembered a map I had, which showed that the cabin was seven miles from the nearest house to the east, ninety miles to the west, 400 miles to the north, and the same to the south. I was fighting off panic with every breath and on the edge of losing the battle. I was lost, and I knew, in my churning guts, I could die right here. Tybalt seemed unconcerned, stupid dog.
I sat still, again on the ground, afraid. I had no thoughts; I was paralyzed, unable to move. Somehow, I found, somewhere inside me, underneath the roaring terror, a place that was dead calm. I had no idea it was there, but I found it. I looked out from that place within and saw, clearly, everything around me. After a long moment, I felt a tug, right in my middle, strong and clear. Without a thought, I got up and followed that steady pull. I walked straight to the cabin as if I were on a well-marked path. I didn't tell this story for years. I still don't understand it."
—kludwig9
12."I went to Finland to work for a few months. The first day I worked, I got a bus from Vinkkilä to Turku. I did my day's work and got the bus back. Now Finland is a little different than the UK, everywhere looks the same, tall trees, no landmarks, a few of the same shops dotted about. I saw a shop that I thought was a shop I recognized in Vinkkilä, nope! I was closer to Lemu than anywhere else, and there were no more buses, so I started to walk in the direction the bus had headed. It got dark fast and started to snow heavily. The ground was already covered in snow, and there were no street lights anywhere."
"I kept walking, and every now and again a car would zoom past me (I was walking on some kind of motorway?) I was wearing all black, so people wouldn't have been able to see me. I got sprayed with ice-cold slush from passing cars quite a few times, but I had nowhere else to walk. This went on for what seemed like hours, and it was getting too dark for me to see anything, plus the snow blowing in my face constantly made it impossible to tell where I was going. Finally, I saw a driveway that went off into the trees at the other side of the road and lights in the trees! I ran across the road and followed the driveway. I basically fell to my knees at someone's door and banged on it until someone answered. An old lady came and peered through a gap in the door. When she heard me speaking English, she went to get a guy (I guess her son). He came to the door and asked me what was wrong, so I told him what had happened and that I was lost and where I was going. He was nice enough to drive me all the way back to where I was staying. It seemed like we were driving forever before we arrived. That was the single greatest act of kindness I've ever received. I kept thinking that I was going to die when I was walking and thinking about my family at home finding out, and it being in the papers, and how awful it all was. I'll never forget the kindness that random Finn showed me!"
—silverbackjack
Related:
13."There's a road called Clinton Road by me where some really weird stuff goes down. One day, a few friends and I were feeling brave on a summer night and decided to pull over and explore this road. We went off deep into the woods on this 'most haunted road,' but the craziest thing was when we wandered off and found the ruins of a castle...I mean, straight out of a demonic horror movie."
"We were exploring when suddenly two guys dressed in white hooded uniforms pulled shotguns on us and asked if we wanted to join their brotherhood. Freaked out, I said that I really didn't want to get involved, and they got in our faces and asked, 'If we support those ruining our history.' I told them we would join, but we wanted to lock up the car first before they did this 'ritual' thing to us. We got to the car with them not far behind. We ran into the car and drove away as fast as we could. I don't know if the guns were loaded or not, but adrenaline took over, and we were petrified and had no other way out."
—PM_ME_SELFIES_
14.And finally, "Several years back, my family and my neighbor's family were hiking in Northern New Mexico. On this hike are me (15 M), my dad, my brother (13), my neighbor (14 M), his parents, and his two sisters (12, 10). My dad and I have hiked this same trail half a dozen times in years past, and seeing as it wasn't too hard, we took everyone up. To get to the start, you drive up 2/3 of the mountain, then hike from there. We reach the peak early in the day, probably by 12 or 1. After a nice picnic and some pictures, we're ready to follow the trail down. My dad leads. The first part is down a rocky slope, which we all handle just fine. Then, the trail leads into the cover of trees. Keep in mind, it's less of a trail and more of a connect-the-dots style hike where you follow cairns, little piles of rocks that let you know you're going the right way."
"Anyway, once we hit the trees, I take the lead for a half an hour or so with my neighbor. I have to stop and tie my shoe, so my little brother takes the lead. My neighbor and I end up at the back of our group, which is fine. After about 30 minutes of hiking, I look around and notice something funny and ask my dad, 'Hey, when was the last cairn?' He didn't know. We had all been talking to each other, content to let my brother lead. We ask him when he saw the last cairn. His response: What's a cairn? F*ck. Now, in hindsight, hiking back up and finding the trail would have been the smart move. It would only have cost us an hour or so. But my dad was sure he knew where we were and that he could get us back by going right, thinking we wandered left. I thought the opposite, as did my neighbor. But our dads were in charge, so right we went. So we're hiking. And hiking. And hiking. No trail.
It's getting late. After lots of debate, we convince our dads to hang up their egos and call search and rescue, which we do. They send a fleet because it's getting late, and we're in the mountains alone without any gear. They're all out blowing whistles and horns and asking us if we hear anything. We don't.
We weren't totally lost; we could see the city we came from in the distance, sort of. So we keep moving. Search and rescue never finds us. We make it to the city around 9 p.m. A three-hour round trip turned into an 11-hour ordeal."
—[deleted]
Responses have been edited for length/clarity.
Have YOU ever been alone in the wilderness, stranded, or lost at sea? What happened?! Share your story in the comments below, or if you prefer to remain anonymous, share your story using this form here.
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