Lost at Mono Cliffs (Final)

It was such a mystery, (how we got lost). It seemed so simple. We just followed the stream up… crossed over… and followed it back. No brainer right? Hmmmm. There can only be one explanation and it seems right as we checked out our topo map.


Here it is. After dinner we thought that we’d just go for a simple hike and follow the stream until the terrain got too rough. The bush was very dense and had a lot of underbrush so you couldn’t see much detail, let alone elevations. We hiked for quite a while, following the edge of the rushing water. After trudging for an enjoyable time we decided to hike along the other side of the stream, back to base-camp to relax and prepare for the next days’ excursion. Everything was cool and the landscape was recognizable for awhile, but then it all seemed unfamiliar. One part of the stream narrowed, but somewhere in this area an estuary at about 30 degrees to the North joined the original brook. Both were protected from sight with dense bluffs, so that you couldn’t see one from another. The original water-way was winding here and there so we really didn’t take a bearing. When we came back on the opposite side we didn’t realize that we were following the wrong stream and that it sent us off 30 degrees to the North. This took us on the opposite side of a huge hill that we didn’t even know existed, (due to the dense forestry), so now we’re on the North East side of this monstrous barrier and not even aware of it being there so when we checked out our GPS it was directing us in a Westerly direction up a steep hill. Well we were so confused. We didn’t go down any elevations… so why is it sending us up 100 feet. We reluctantly followed it anyway. When we summitted, we felt so desolate. We didn’t know where the heck we were. It was a chilling experience as darkness was closing in on us and we were ill prepared to spend the night…who knows where. We started walking and just happened upon the Bruce Trail. We couldn’t believe it. We recognized the path that we initially came through before we found our site and found our camp 100 feet down the other side of the hill.

Morale of the story: don’t take anything for granted when in the bush. Be prepared for anything. It’s too easy to get complacent.

Happy Hiking

Jim Bondy

Author of: Friday on the Trail

A book about our backpacking adventures in Ontario Canada

http://jimbondy.webs.com

effexus3@yahoo.com