This whole story is super bizarre. I live in the Bay Area, and the Santa Cruz mountains aren't exactly a big undeveloped wilderness, they're more akin to a bunch of county / state parks and you're never very far from the road. In his case, he was in an area that was 5 miles by one mile - he could have just walked in a straight line for any direction for roughly 2 hours and found his way out. He claims he was disoriented by the "burn" but I don't necessarily buy it - the burn was also like two years ago. There are some other things that don't add up as well.
EDIT: Also redditors claim he's legally blind but I have yet to see a news article that mentions this yet.
EDIT 2: Don't mean to shit on him, I could just be some Redditor that doesn't know what they're talking about, but there's just a lot about the story as written that just leaves me with a lot of questions.
n his case, he was in an area that was 5 miles by one mile - he could have just walked in a straight line for any direction for roughly 2 hours and found his way out.
holy shit. how is it even possible to get lost then
For 10 days though? At some point you can use basic orientation guides (the sun), or just follow a stream or general downhill path.
And even if it is cloudy, it's more that the path one takes it somewhat chaotically squiggly, it's not a perfect circle. Given a small enough bounding area (e.g. roads), it will eventually hit the boundaries.
There was a study where they tested this on different subjects. The ones who did it on a sunny day went pretty much perfectly straight (yellow and red lines). Those who did it on cloudy days or at night (blue lines) did squiggle a lot, but still, there were larger patterns and variability that were on the scale of at least a couple of kilometers (and this experiment was only a few hours).
The eyesight issues or some other disability are the only thing that really explains it.
I agree with everything you are saying but you are ignoring some key aspects
Some people are really dumb and wouldn't know how to use landmarks to navigate. This is something that was actively taught to me in school so I don't think it's fair to assume this is a skill people naturally have
People get dumber when they get scared and they thought of being lost in the woods can be pretty scary
Some peoples sense of direction, specifically to walking straight, can be way off. I've had mates who got lost in a similar situation and when we found them, they had just been doing laps of the same basin for hours and didn't notice.
Most people get told that when they get lost, they're better off finding shelter nearby to their last known location and staying put
Although at the age of 30, I'd expect there to be at least some survival skills. Or at least the basic thought of "sun rises here, that means people are in that direction". So yeah I think old mate is dumb as fuck, getting a pass on the dumb af if he does turn out to have a disability that affects his navigation.
and you are ignoring the fact that people on reddit (and in general), vastly overestimate their own ability for survival in any situation that doesn't involve DoorDash.
It’s interesting that there are a few circles there, even inside of a couple hours.
But yeah, if you find yourself in this situation when you reach a landmark e.g. a tree, look ahead and notice two more along the line you were heading in. Head to the closer one of those keeping the other in sight. Rinse and repeat to keep going in a pretty straight line even through dense and hilly forest in the rain.
3.0k
u/YodelingVeterinarian 5d ago edited 5d ago
This whole story is super bizarre. I live in the Bay Area, and the Santa Cruz mountains aren't exactly a big undeveloped wilderness, they're more akin to a bunch of county / state parks and you're never very far from the road. In his case, he was in an area that was 5 miles by one mile - he could have just walked in a straight line for any direction for roughly 2 hours and found his way out. He claims he was disoriented by the "burn" but I don't necessarily buy it - the burn was also like two years ago. There are some other things that don't add up as well.
EDIT: Also redditors claim he's legally blind but I have yet to see a news article that mentions this yet.
EDIT 2: Don't mean to shit on him, I could just be some Redditor that doesn't know what they're talking about, but there's just a lot about the story as written that just leaves me with a lot of questions.