Most of you already know the story: Ken Knight, nearly blind production editor at BackpackingLight magazine, disappeared a week ago today on the Appalachian Trail near Buena Vista, Virginia. On his seventh day of wandering he decided to light a signal fire … when the firefighters showed up, they found him.
I’ve never met the guy and don’t spend much time at BPL (sorry, Sam) because I’ve got too much ultralight hiking gear already, but I do have a few insights on a) hiking with a so-called disability; b) what gets you lost; and c) What gets you found. Since it’s a rainy Sunday and I won’t get any hiking done, I might as well expound a bit, in order.
My disability
I’ve seen what people with alleged disabilities can do with a combination of training, preparation and bulldozer determination. Everybody has things they can’t do. Ken Knight, for instance, can’t see anything beyond about 15 feet. I’m legally blind in one eye — I can discern the big E on the eye chart but nothing below it — and I sure wouldn’t want to be relying on this sorry excuse for vision out in the woods. But if I did, here’s what I would do differently: break out my map and compass and determine which way I’m facing, and use what I can see of the trail to make a dead-reckoning guess as to whether it’s the main path.
Hikers get in the habit of judging whether we’re on the main trail vs. use trails or deer paths. I’m guessing the only way a guy with a 15-foot range of vision finds his way is with map, compass and extremely in-depth knowledge of the characteristics of main trails.
From what I’ve read on the discussion board at WhiteBlaze.net, Knight’s hiking experience was defined by getting lost and unlost. He’d find the trail for awhile, lose it for awhile, but eventually find it again. Took him a lot longer to make much progress, of course, but it’s just how he hiked.
People coming up and down the trail could fill in some of the blanks. If he stopped seeing people coming up and down one of the most heavily hiked trails on the planet, that’d be one more clue that he’s off track.
To get back to the point about disability: my one bad eye is part of the package of a birth defect that brought me into the world minus a working version of the seventh facial nerve on my right side. I have a little bitty pathetic excuse for a paralysis that has only one negative consequence: I smile on one side but not the other (the motor neurons aren’t on speaking terms with their attached muscle fibers).
You can feel the eyes on you when you’re a freak of nature, the people wondering what happened and trying not to stare. It turns you into somebody who does not want other people’s help. I can see why a guy like Knight would wander in the woods for seven days, probably going a few days without eating before his survival instinct trumped his independent streak.
How I get lost
My second visit carries the highest risk of discombobulation. First time out I’m cautious, but the second time I figure I know my way around. This inevitably leads to wrong turns born of overconfidence.
Also, the not-wanting-any-help urge discourages me from consulting my map till it’s too late. Having to consult the map is an overt admission of defeat that I put off as long as possible. This always adds extra miles to my hikes, but I figure walking around in the wilderness is the whole idea of hiking, so being lost for awhile is just what it means to be hiking.
I’m guessing that perhaps Knight shares a similar urge. And he might’ve actually been badly served by the number of times he’d gotten himself found — that is, every hike he’d gone on up until a week ago today. I could see how a guy with a full pack of survival gear would just try to work it out till his food ran out and his strength started to fade.
How I get found
First, I never hike without a map, even at places I’ve been to a dozen times. Your brain cannot memorize all the features of an expanse of wilderness. I carry a compass that I end up using about once a year.
More important than reading a compass or map is listening to what nature’s telling me along the way. One time I thought sure I was headed north, but the prevailing westerly breeze hitting my face told me I was heading south. After a half hour of not finding any trace of the trail that should’ve been just around the bend, I got out the map and figured out the breeze was right all along.
I’ve also learned to distrust the comfort of going downhill. I can’t count the number of times I’ve ambled along on a pleasant downslope for a couple miles, remaining in firm denial of the reality that if this is the wrong way I’ll have to retrace all my steps back up the hated hill.
Mainly, though, I’ve just learned there’s no harm in turning back.
As for Knight, I’m sure he’ll have an account of his adventure posted in the next few days. Post a link in the comments if you see it before I do. (Or you could just follow his Twitter feed.)
I have very good eye sight. I can not imagine what it would be like to hike with limited or no vision but it can be done. Last season on the Appalachian Trail, Trevor Thomas who is legally blind, hiked the entire AT by following other hikers. In the late 90’s Bill Irwin successfully thru hiked the AT with his guide dog Orient.
As for maps, I do not think a sighted person really needs one on the AT. The white blazes are everywhere. I did nit use them on my thru hike. or the 2,000 miles of section hikes I have done on the trail since. But the AT is an exception. I showed up On the Pacific Crest Trail without maps. Just a data book. I am a successful thru hiker after all. That did not last long. I never got lost but sometimes I was not sure. I bought a trail guide with maps at the very first opportunity. Maps are our friends.
Great post, Tom!
I think I may get just a small taste of what it is like to be unable to orient oneself due to what you describe as a “so-called disability” and what it feels like to be unable to rely on senses that might otherwise be reliable.
For some reason I’ve never been able to trace, when I was young (perhaps 10 years old?) and my father took me to Tuolumne Meadows for the first time I got it in my mind that what is really north there was west. In other words, the world seems to suddenly and inexplicably rotate 90 degrees as soon as I arrive there, taking with it any destination that I walk to from T-Meadows.
I’ve tried to “correct” this. I’ve tried paying very careful attention as I drive up there in hopes of finding “the spot” where the rotation occurs and then telling my logical self to “not do that.” I’ve tried sitting in one place and meditating on the fact that I’m looking, for example, west and not north. I try imagining the non-rotated reality on the far side of the area in which I’m disoriented.
None of this, of course, works at all.
So, when I hike in that part of the world I do something not all that different from what you suggest Knight does. I wander along in my own out-of-sync world until something intrudes and I have to reorient myself. I try saying “if I have to go north I should just go in the direction that seems like west” or, more fruitfully, I get out a map and simply pick something to walk toward.
I know my pathetic little disorientation is nothing like successfully coping with the visual issues that you describe, but I think it may help me to understand a bit – the fact that we don’t all “see” the world through the same eyes, the complexities of dealing with the world in a way that is different from that of most, and the very real possibility (more like probability – see “4Wheel Bob!”) that much of this need not stand in the way of entering and enjoying the natural world.
Dan
My brother has a strange difficulty discerning certain geometric shapes: it was hell in his high school math classes.
I have a brother-in-law who is dyslexic … in Catholic school the nuns just figured he was stupid, lazy or stubborn, when in fact he simply could not see the words the same way as his teachers or fellow students.
No two people see the same thing the same way, which is why “seeing is believing” is something of a myth.
“No two people see the same thing the same way, which is why “seeing is believing” is something of a myth.”
Ah, but maybe that is why no two people believe the same way! 😉
I met Ken and hiked with him once while I was going to Eastern Michigan University. He’s a heck of a nice guy–I’m glad he’s home safely.
I’ve been a bit out of the loop re: news lately due to some stuff gearing up at work, but a friend woke me up with a text message this morning about “do a Google search for a visually impaired hiker from Ann Arbor who had been lost on the AT for 6 days. Guy runs a website.” My response was “Holy crap! That might be Ken!” and immediately checked the intertubes to make sure he was okay.
One thing that makes me different than many other men is my willingness to consult a map and ask directions whenever I’m uncertain of the way.
My main problem is forgetting to bring important things — like the map.
All your ultralight backpacking gear makes turning around and having to walk back uphill that much easier, Tom ; )
At the risk of trivializing the dangers, or disrespecting those who have lost their lives or body parts, and/or sounding plainly out of my gourd, I sometimes fantasize about getting lost in the wild and having to survive knowing just what I know and having just what I have on my person to do it, or not do it. It’s a visceral reactive fantasy – to leave behind the sterile, toneless, boring, predictability of everyday nature outings, or life itself. Maybe that’s where “vision quests” come in, guided or not. The closest I’ve ever come to actually experiencing anything like this was in the High Sierra during a day hike, when a white out struck and I got completely and hopelessly disoriented with my dog and ended up stumbling around in thigh deep snow and yelling out loud shamelessly HELP!! I’M LOST! And to my amazement, some snow campers were bivvied nearby who “saved” me from a freezing night of probably death by hypothermia. (Although I did dig out a snow cave and had a poncho and was ready to cozy up with my dog.)
We teach the Scouts to stop at each junction, wait for the crew to regroup, and consult the map. It takes longer, but it beats search and rescue.
I’ve been reading a couple of UK books about hiking, or “hillwalking” as they call it. Their basic navigation section covers topics that are advanced in the US, like navigating cross country in thick fog to a small hut.