Let's get lost
Let them send out alarms (?!?!)
Hi, all.
I’m posting this just before we load the car and head back to Colorado. I can’t wait to be among the pines and aspen with my cabin neighbors, although recent text messages indicate a siege mentality is taking hold in our ghost town as summer begins.
When we’re in our right minds, we want visitors to come to the forest. If the mountains are calling, you should answer, that’s our attitude. But this year, hospitality is in short supply. It’s alarmingly dry and all the “Extreme Fire Danger” signs in America won’t stop the weekend warriors from showing up for Memorial Day with lighter fluid and a trunk full of logs.
Car campers used to be families and middle-aged men bonding over their ATVs. Millennials took to it during the pandemic, and now they show up every year with an NFL-size roster, off-leash mascots, and one car for every 1.5 bodies.
It looks like a lot of work for a sleeping bag with a view of dusty hubcaps: Coolers, chairs, plastic suitcases of water, folding tables, games, stoves, grills, Beats Pills, phones, and the battery packs and chargers to keep it all running. I don’t want to start a fight on the holiday weekend, but could you go a couple of days without the electric toothbrush?
But please bring maps.
Last summer I ran into a young couple dressed for an afternoon at the pool, headed west at 10,500 feet. They appeared to be sharing a single plastic water bottle. “Is the trailhead this way?” the woman asked. About three more miles, I confirmed as I studied her canvas sneakers for any sign of tread.
Great, the guy chirped. They were planning to summit the peak that afternoon. That would add an additional 3.8 miles one way. Uphill, as you probably guessed. There were so many obvious reasons this was a bad idea, but the only objection I managed to stammer was, “We saw a bear up there last week.”
“Oh, cool!” the woman exclaimed, and they skipped merrily on their way.
It’s not as if maps are hard to come by out here. Every place with a cash register sells them. Chambers of Commerce and the Forest Service give them away, but you’re more likely to spot Bigfoot crossing the trail than a hiker studying a map. (Our canyon used to be one of the top spots for yeti sightings in the world, but they’ve declined as traffic has increased).
A couple years ago, my husband and youngest son were fishing four miles up a Jeep track when a pair of harried runners in shorts and tank tops came crashing out of the bushes. They’d scaled a 14,000-foot peak (a fourteener, in the parlance) and taken the wrong trail on the way back down. Their tiny packs contained water, GU, a change of socks … but no map. I’d like to say they were an anomaly, but I’ve encountered at least two people trekking the Continental Divide trail without one.
I usually carry two maps by different makers* when I head out. I’ve felt truly lost twice, and it’s an experience I do not want to repeat. The first time was in a large park in Iowa, which contrary to what I was taught growing up in Minnesota, is not flat. I wandered hills and dales blanketed in chin-high grass for a couple of hours before a nice local couple helped me find the correct turn.
The second time was after a wedding in a clearing in the woods in Texas (which, contrary to what I was taught growing up in Minnesota, is also not flat). We saw a sign or two on the walk in, so I assumed there’d be signs on the way out. We chatted with other guests as we strolled past several forks in the trail. By the time we were trying to find our cars ninety minutes later, we were disoriented and hangry, and the sun was setting. Some of us were wearing high-heel sandals. I vowed to just send a nice gift next time.
Oh, and I did get a little turned around at the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden during the holiday lights event, but it was very dark and I’d been drinking hot chocolate spiked with peppermint schnapps. The point is, each time I was on a trail.
Sometimes I carry old maps to give away, because a map that’s been folded backwards multiple times and wedged under the bottom of a leaky water bladder still beats no map. And–is this an unpopular opinion?–your phone. You can burn through your battery quickly in the mountains while your phone searches for a reliable signal (tip: put it in airplane mode while you’re not using it). If it dies, or you drop it in the creek, you’re lugging an extra six-ounce brick in your pack. That’s almost a half-pound.
They’re also insultingly easy to lose. You can distinguish the poor souls frantically searching for their phones from the athletes training for the Leadville100 because the former are actually looking at the scenery as they run by. I’m sorry to tell you I’ve done it twice. Both times it fell out of my back pocket while I was taking care of business behind a tree.
Some of the new phones come with satellite capability that you can use to request assistance–or text your friends when you summit. This has caused both an uptick in smartphone sales and an increase in tourists who have no business in the wilderness.
It’s true, you might be able to overcome poor planning with a text or call, but the last time I used it I had to wait five minutes for the satellite to glide into position up there in space. Fortunately, I was trying to notify my husband we’d be late for lunch, not cradling my hiking partner’s bear-mangled leg.
There is also some anecdotal evidence to suggest cell phones will be the death of us rather than the savior. Last year, two guys from New York decided to climb a fourteener on the drive out from Denver, a spur of the moment thing. They eventually lost the trail and called for help. Rescue volunteers stayed on the phone with them for more than an hour, guiding them back to the route and up to the summit.
It’s mysterious, this impulse to traipse around without a clue as soon as civilization is in the rearview mirror. I have friends who won’t drive to the gym without using Google Maps, but they’ll strike out across the face of a mountain because they’re pretty sure the creek is that way. Some vestige of the survival instinct that led our Ice Age forebears to cross the Bering Land Bridge, it’s a menace in the age of convenience stores and drone deliveries.
It was already late in the day when the New Yorkers reached the peak. It’s risky to be above tree line after noon, because thunderstorms creep up on you like Sleestaks – slow and then suddenly inescapable. They were still on the phone when they were struck by lightning. Thanks to the Colorado National Guard and the highest-altitude helicopter rescue in state history, they survived.
Most rescues aren’t that dramatic, but there are thousands of them every year, and the number is climbing as the forest becomes more crowded. Colorado just raised the fee on wildlife licenses and some vehicle registrations to cover a significant increase in search-and-rescue costs (the teams are volunteers; funding pays for administration, training, and equipment). If you want to try something crazy your first day in the state, may I suggest the venison-jerky shed at the turnoff to Guanella Pass?
Since you’re bringing your phone anyway, please consider subscribing to an app like Gaia or AllTrails. They’re not a substitute for a good printed map and a compass, but they do provide some useful data you would otherwise have to do math to obtain, like elevation gain over distance. This alone could save you from a mutiny. I was a little slow getting the hang of reading topography, so now before every hike, my husband demands, “This isn’t another uphill slog, is it?” To get him out the door, I play the animated AllTrails route preview. Sometimes it’s even of the trail we’re going to hike.
Have you been lost? How did it happen and how did you find your way back? Tell me about it!
*My favorite Colorado maps are by Latitude 40. They’re designed at a smaller scale than many maps, so they cover more territory, and their color scheme is intuitive: green on paper generally means green on the ground, blue means water. But I also like the level of detail on the National Geographic maps. It’s a good idea to cross-reference them, because they won’t all contain the same information for trails (the FS frequently retires and opens new trails), private property (there are a surprising number of inholdings and not everyone is sanguine about you traipsing across their place), old mine pits, etc. It’s worth checking out the free maps you can find at visitor centers and Forest Service offices. They’re often quite good and some of them are designed for tourists, so they include local sights and experiences.
Coming soon: Garmin, Personal Locator Beacon, or phone? Best two out of three! And, the trouble with Fourteeners.
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BOOK NEWS
I spent the first weekend of May in New York with the Empresses, celebrating the release of Eleanor Anstruther’s Fallout and Margie Zable Fisher’s The Cabernet Club, and attending the Open Secrets Magazine personal storytelling summit, where Kimberly Warner joined a panel to discuss her memoir, Unfixed. This small sampling of titles shows the depth and breadth of Empress Editions’ shelf. They have a perfect book for you and everyone you love, and they are just a year old.
The following weekend, I attended panels at ThrillerFest, including the tribute to Poisoned Pen’s Barbara Peters, which included a three-way conversation with Peters, Douglas Preston and Lisa Scottoline. I hung out with fellow Sisters in Crime Desert Sleuth author Deborah J. Ledford, who has another Eva “Lightning Dance” Duran thriller out and a new series on the way, and I finally met one of my critique partners, Ruth Knafo Setton, who was a finalist for Best Standalone Novel with her atmospheric, history- and magic-fueled mystery, Zigzag Girl.
And I made it back to Scottsdale in time to stop by the book-release party for Imogen Vane’s The Department of Dark Errands, Book One: Shadowmarked, a tale of magic, espionage, and female friendship.
I am so grateful to those of you who have already preordered Up to Her Neck! If you emailed, DM’d or texted me to let me know, I’ve added you to the swag list (we are working on something very fun for that). The calendar for next year’s travels is starting to come together, too. I’d love to join your book club for an evening, or meet and sign your copy when I’m in your area. Do you have a favorite bookstore? Send the info my way and I’ll see if we can set up an event.
March 15-18: St. Louis MO
Mid and late April, final dates TBD: San Antonio TX
April 27-May 1: New York, ThrillerFest
August 19-22: Nashville, Killer Nashville
September 1-5: Washington D.C., Bouchercon
Dates coming soon for: Buena Vista CO, Scottsdale AZ, Minneapolis MN, Little Rock, AR, Denver CO, Los Angeles, Chicago, and more.
Wishing you all a good start to the summer. Talk to you soon!
Elaine
I can get lost in any scenario. With or without a map.
I know this doesn’t really apply, but in reading the first part of this post I kept thinking of the old Yogi Berra quote, “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”