lesson learned
I've one time spent an unexpected night out. Back in my early days of solo canoe camping, must have been in the 70's, I had paddled my big aluminum canoe toward the east end of Stillwater Reservoir. There is a protected channel leading to a small flooded lake on the south side, called Loon Lake. A storm blew in and trapped me on the island, not really a bad place to be. Not unless you count being surrounded by the loudest and largest bull frogs I'd ever heard. They kept me awake all night, but they made a mighty fine hot breakfast in the morning rain.
I had told my wife before I left that the weather forecast did not look good, so if it bagan to blow I would plan to stay safe until it cleared. That was a wise choice, because I stayed there most of the next day. Finally I decided to give it a try to leave so I could get back to the parking lot before dark. That was almost a mistake, because when I paddled out from the channel into the main fetch of Stillwater I had all I could do to keep from being blown downwind farther east. I was not yet particularly experienced and did not trim the canoe as it should have been. I could not turn the canoe and paddled as hard as I could, only to remain parallel to the waves
until reacing the north shore. I finally turned into the wind and hugged the north shore until the wind softened as I paddled toward home.
Another time I did not spend an unexpected night out, but came close to needing to make a natural shelter to keep warm on one very cold late October night.
Quite a few years ago as a fairly young solo wilderness traveler I had my sleeping bag strapped to an external frame backpack while on a bushwhack deep in the Five Ponds Wilderness. I used old style straps, with a metal toothed clasp to tighten down on the sleeping bag. There was also a metal keeper that the loose end of the tight strap was supposed to go under. To get to the zippered food pouch I had to loosen the sleeping bag straps. Usually I took the time to refasten it properly. After a snack near the end of a really hard day of hiking I sloppily didn't bother with the second keeper.
The sun had set on one of those cool crisp crystal clear late October days, but I had a destination in mind at the shore of a small pond that looked from the map might make a good campsite. Ordinarily I should have noticed the significant missing weight of the sleeping bag. Being tired, I guess, I did not feel the lighter than usual backpack until I arrived at the site. My sleeping bag was gone!
I had two choices with three possibilities... I could accept that I could not possiblly hope to retrace my compass heading to find the sleeping bag before dark. That meant I would have to gather dry leaves and grass for a shelter under a fallen tree right where I was. I had a year or two before been through Air Force Survival School where I had learned to do exactly that in similar conditions, so I felt confident enough in my skills.
Or I could try to head back and hope that I could remember the exact trees I passed by until I found the sleeping bag, and set up my camp there. Third and worse, I might not find the bag at all and be back to option #1 at a less than optimum site in the dark with fewer natural materials than were available near the pond.
The one factor that drove me to go back was I remember slipping while climbing a slope and hitting the ground hard. Maybe that is where the bag fell. If I could get back to that slope again I think I can find exactly where I was and hopefully find my warm bag.
Sure enough, there I found my sleeping bag. It was nearly totally dark by the time I got my camp set up, and ate my dinner thanking my lucky stars on that frosty night.
The lesson I learned on this one is to never take short cuts in stowing and securing gear for any reason. Being tired is not an excuse, but if fatigue gets that bad I should learn to recognize when to stop. I never did that again, always taking care with properly tying and putting gear away.
Each time I went out like that I learned another lesson of some kind. Most mistakes were minor, or I was lucky. But they all add up to make some interesting memories.
