A Little Lost

Boredom set in and the crew headed out to an unknown destination. We decided to hike to the top of what was called a knoll on the map. The knoll would 9,000 ft elevation.  The truck rumbled about five miles up a dirt road, then the ebikes took us another mile or so. Off the ebike we headed into the pine forest. Following elk trails and old logging paths we made it to the top for a great view.  The final part of the hike involved some scrambling over large rocks. On these uncharted hikes Kadizzle likes to make some mental landmarks, but he did not account for the fact that the rocks on the top of the ridge made a gentle U.  When the time came to head down the two bullheaded hikers decided to take different routes back to the bikes.  Kadizzle figured if he kept edging left he would make it back to where they came up. It soon became evident it was not working.  Now Winkie called him on the cell phone and asked where he was.  The simple answer was he did not know.  After taking a little time to orient himself with the gps he thought he had an idea of the right direction. The terrain was very confusing. The GPS was supposed to make a track Kadizzle could follow back, but somehow the Gps shut itself off.  Using the phone GPS Kadizzle again tried to electronically get back.  The GPS pointed the direct route, which was not possible because of the steep terrain.  After Kadizzle navigated for awhile he did come within hearing distance of Winkie.  In the end Kadizzle realized the importance of leaving GPS crumbs.  That would mean you mark a series of points that you can reference.  Normally we mark the car, which in this case Winky did and she had the GPS with an effective track. Kadizzle is going to tighten up the procedures, and use the more sophisticated GPS next time.