"lost" and "not lost" are relative, right?
Jul. 9th, 2022 07:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marcicatI went out walking on some new (to me) trails yesterday! It was great! I probably should have used bug spray!
It was a well-established forest recreation area, very popular for biking, although it was mostly deserted on a weekday morning. The trails fell into three categories: marked trails that also showed up on the map; "rogue" trails official enough to be on the map but without any markings; and "other." (There was technically a fourth category: at one point I ended up on a trail that was marked but was clearly not part of the town forest I'd started in. Embarrassing, but not unexpected, given my well-documented inability to stay un-lost.)
But! Lost-ness is a spectrum! Totally un-lost would be, like, I'm on a trail and it's the trail I thought I was on, at the point I thought I was at. Incredible! Amazing! This did occasionally happen yesterday!
The worst kind of lost (not on a trail, can't see it, don't know how to get back to safety) is To Be Avoided, which is why I do this kind of adventuring in places like town forests -- it's surrounded on all sides by roads and housing developments, and there's cell service everywhere. Also, being in New Hampshire means the answer to the question "is there an alligator here" is almost certainly no. Always a relief to me!
(At one point I was carefully switching back and forth between 1) a picture of the trail map from the town website; 2) my current location as per the map app; AND 3) the other map app that showed my path so far. I'm happy to report that with these THREE technological I was in fact able to successfully return to the town forest and relocate the path I was looking for.)
It was a well-established forest recreation area, very popular for biking, although it was mostly deserted on a weekday morning. The trails fell into three categories: marked trails that also showed up on the map; "rogue" trails official enough to be on the map but without any markings; and "other." (There was technically a fourth category: at one point I ended up on a trail that was marked but was clearly not part of the town forest I'd started in. Embarrassing, but not unexpected, given my well-documented inability to stay un-lost.)
But! Lost-ness is a spectrum! Totally un-lost would be, like, I'm on a trail and it's the trail I thought I was on, at the point I thought I was at. Incredible! Amazing! This did occasionally happen yesterday!
The worst kind of lost (not on a trail, can't see it, don't know how to get back to safety) is To Be Avoided, which is why I do this kind of adventuring in places like town forests -- it's surrounded on all sides by roads and housing developments, and there's cell service everywhere. Also, being in New Hampshire means the answer to the question "is there an alligator here" is almost certainly no. Always a relief to me!
(At one point I was carefully switching back and forth between 1) a picture of the trail map from the town website; 2) my current location as per the map app; AND 3) the other map app that showed my path so far. I'm happy to report that with these THREE technological I was in fact able to successfully return to the town forest and relocate the path I was looking for.)
