-1

Update: A missing trail marker in the Wind River Range turned a 2-hour hike into a 6-hour ordeal

I was trying to connect from the Big Sandy trail to the Cirque of the Towers, but a key cairn was gone where the path splits near Clear Lake. My partner and I spent four extra hours bushwhacking up the wrong drainage before backtracking and finding the real route. How do you all prepare for when trail markers just vanish in remote spots?

3 comments

3 Comments

taylor_flores3mo agoMost Upvoted

That photo trick from @richardknight is smart, but how do you even practice reading a paper map before you're lost?

olivers281mo ago

Laughing at myself here because I once spent 45 minutes staring at a paper map thinking the squiggly line was a creek when it was actually a contour line for a ridge. Ended up bushwhacking straight uphill instead of following the valley bottom. That photo trick richardknight mentioned is gold, I swear by it now. I also tie a bright orange bandana to my pack and take a compass bearing off a known peak before I leave the trailhead, that way even if the markers vanish I at least know I'm not heading into the wrong drainage. Saved my bacon more than once, especially after that time I got turned around in the Winds and ended up following a herd of elk for a quarter mile before I realized they weren't leading me to a trailhead.

richardknight3mo ago

Man, that's rough. It's like when your GPS loses signal in a weird part of town and you're just suddenly guessing. You realize how much we rely on these little signs, a painted blaze on a tree or a stack of rocks, and when they're gone you're back to square one. I've started taking a picture of the trail map at the kiosk with my phone, the old school paper one, because it shows the shape of the land better than my blinking dot on an app. That and actually looking at the land itself, not just the path, so you know which valley you're supposed to head up.