Get Lost-Not!

“Overall it’s amazing, but you have to be OK with getting lost.” Hilary Sueoka 

When I titled my blog, "Where's Loren?" I had no idea that I would be hiking a trail where I would be asking myself that very question on a daily basis. If previous CDT thru-hikers agree about anything, it is this: getting lost on the CDT is not a possibility or probability, it is a certainty - every day. CDT thru-hikers report daily challenges in finding the trail, following the trail, missing trail junctions, and navigating for hundreds of miles without a trail, signs, or markers.

There are many objective dangers to understand and manage on the CDT, but none of them compares to the daily challenge of navigation. More than snakes in New Mexico, violent thunderstorms in Colorado, or grizzly bears in Montana, the fear of getting lost was the greatest fear I had to overcome in deciding to hike the CDT. To conquer this fear I took two map and compass navigation classes through REI; the first in a classroom and the second in the field. After completing the field class I drove home with a new found confidence in my ability to read a map, use a compass, navigate without a trail, and find my location when lost.

I'll have lots of opportunities to practice my new found skills on the CDT! I have 492 pages of maps for the CDT and a GPS trail app on my iPhone with over 2 gigs of maps, way points, elevation profiles, and photos of the CDT identifying water sources and trail junctions. It's going to be a challenge, but I'm confident I can safely navigate the trail from Mexico to Canada. Here is a link to a good article on navigating the CDT by a 2011 thru-hiker.