Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Lost for eight days

Sounds like a fun place to live.

Not.

Bear grease as well, if I remember what I've read correctly. The other thing they did was get the heck out of Dodge during the warmer months. It should be remembered as well that back then the woods burned with greater frequency so a lot more air movement could take place at any time of the year. Having said that, there are probably parts of the Croatan that no human being has ever walked through. The density of the undergrowth is so great that it would likely muffle sounds from traffic and travel would be reduced to a crawl (literally; I've had to get on hands and knees for short distances through places near the Croatan).

A good rule of thumb when escaping from an enclosed wild area. Don't travel into areas which are extremely difficult to travel in. Odds are traveling in the direction of least resistance will lead one to areas of human activity like trails and roads.

All "wild" areas east of Mississippi can be escaped by simply traveling down flowing water or down logging roads. Eventually these always lead to human activity.

But panic does not let people think rationally.

IIRC there was an outdoor burning ban at the time the guy first got lost.

A Bic lighter could have saved several days of misery.

Mike

3 Novembers ago I was checking my game cameras on 40 acres I own out in Kisatchie National Forest. Over a mile off the main road on an ATV trail I came across a senior citizen lady weighing maybe 115 dressed in shorts and a sleeveless shirt. She was very disoriented and headed off into the wilderness. She had come to the woods to help her son look for a deer he shot with a bow. She would not be convinced she was going the wrong way. I promised her I knew the way out and got her on my ATV and delivered her back to her son 2 miles away. She argued the whole time I was going the wrong way.

Ass, gas or grass nobody rides for free! LOL

Yep. Send up heap big smoke signal!

Some people just don't understand how easy it is to get disoriented in the Croatan, do they? You get 100 yards off the roads and it all looks the same.

On a grey-overcast day with no sun it's reasonably easy to get disoriented in any thick "woods". It's happened to me a couple of times hunting ruffed grouse. Large several-section parcels of state game management areas that I'm familiar with. Wandering along following the dog and not paying attention, all of the sudden you realize where you are isn't where you thought you oughta be.

It's never cost me anything more than time, but, I has prompted me to attach a small compass as a zipper-pull on my jacket/vest.

Bingo. Find a creek. I bet there are lots of them in that area. Follow the creek and you will find civilization.

"The monkey-man took me right into the tree!"

Lost in Croatia? Would that be any worse?

Wisconsin jungle, too. Climbed the evergreen (group of 3). BIL's car was 50 yards away. In the wrong direction, where we had left it.

How it got over there I have no idea.....

I wouldn't go into any forest name "Croaton" after seeing Storm Of The Century"

Not in the Croatan. One of those creeks may lead to Great Lake, 10 miles from nowhere. Those of you who are unfamiliar with the Croatan just don't understand it. 75% of if is thick swampy "mucky-muck" that you sink up to your knees in. You can travel for 5-10 miles in a straight line and not change elevation more than 1 meter. The remaining 25% is scrub-pine savannah that looks the same in every direction you turn.

I have just one question. "Lost in the woods."
Was the young man paddling a canoe?
After all, this is the Deep South. He might have been making love with a local "mountain man."

You don't have to be very far off into this to get lost.

You can't see over it , you can't see through it , there are no landmarks , there is no horizon. You are up to your knees in mud with vines & bushes wrapping you up.

The guy said that at different times he heard a helicopter right over his head but they never saw him.

So what if you find a creek & follow it downstream ? It might be going AWAY from civilization or it might be the long way out.





Mike

Back when I was a SAR Controller, we had an overdue case. A guy staying in a camp, accessible only by boat, took off in his camo jon boat just before a major thunderstorm, to buy more beer and cigarettes. We conducted an exhaustive multi-agency search for 5 days before calling it off. On the 9th day some people in a small boat piddling around in a wooded bayou, far from the missing man's intended track found him. He looked like something out of a horror movie. His face was swollen from bug bites to the point that his eyes were barely open.

I can't imagine anyone being lost in a coastal forest for 8 days not being completely chewed up.

Path of least resistance. Not into the thickest and worst. Google satellite imagery shows croatan as a central swamp surrounded by roads. The imagery shows you would cross a road or trail well before 5 miles.

I have not been there true. So i can't say for sure. Worst bug wilderness I was in was fishing Manitoba small rivers. It required head nets, gloves, bug jacket and duct tape on your ankles and wrists. Mix of biting flies, but these guys would crawl in the cracks and find bare skin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_fly