21 Wild Stories of Being Lost in the Wilderness

‘There were tarantulas everywhere!’
21 Wild Stories of Being Lost in the Wilderness

Whenever I hear of people getting lost in the wilderness, I assume they didn’t experience insurmountable trauma at the hands of Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet like I did. Either way, given the stories below of Redditors who have wandered too far into unfamiliar territory, I’m right to still be afraid. From being stranded after a swim to a wrong turn down a tarantula-covered road, here are the times Redditors somehow survived what Mother Nature threw at them…

PM_YOUR_ANKLES_MLADY 9y I was alone, hiking on a hill trail in a nature reserve near sunset, when I suddenly ran out of trail. It was not a well travelled route and the trails had overgrown. I tried turning around but couldn't see where I came from. It was 15 minutes to sunset, there was no phone signal and I was starting to panic. I guessed that I was probably close to the northern side, so I kept the last rays of sunlight to my left as I trekked northwards. I finally found a fence and followed it, climbing over rocks
TheAeroplaneFlies 8y As a little boy, in Sweden. Our summerhouse was right on the edge of the woods. So we went in there all the time to pick blueberries, mushrooms, or just explore. One day I decided to venture in there myself. It was 8 o clock in the morning, so no one was really up yet. I went in, thinking I'd just go find something cool and come back. It was that day that I learned that all trees look the same, and can really fuck up your direction. I was trying to get back home and hours and
ellipsis9210 9y Two years ago I was on an arctic survival training in Nunavut, Canada. In february. No trees can grow there. Nothing but rocks and snow. Shit's cold. Anyways, our group of about 150 people would move on snowmobiles to set up camp every night. We were guided by a group of inuit rangers. Real badasses. We moved in convoys, one behind another, always following the same tracks, in case we got lost. Rule of thumb is if you can't see the guy behind you, you stop, until the entire convoy stops and regroups. Well one day, while on
TravixMaximix 9y Ok, so. When I was like 8 years old my mom and I moved in with a friend of hers who had a son several years older than me. Let's call him Travis. Travis was a fucking psychopath. I was really into stage magick at the time and had just received a little magician outfit with the hat and Cape and everything so keep my outfit in mind. One day Travis was watching wrestling on TV and got super amped so we went out to the trampoline where he proceeded to beat the shit out of me while
tjkac 9y I was deer hunting. I was walking along a trail that was alongside a stream. I thought the stream ran to the North. It didn't. It ran Northeast. The trail itself was all muddy and slippery. After a good hour of walking along the trail I decided to head back to the car. However, instead of walking back along the slippery, muddy trail, I decided to cut across the forest to get to the road the car was parked on. Since I believed that the stream ran North and the road was perpendicular to the West of the
KS Gravy-Leg_ 9y I was at a friend's cabin and went squirrel hunting alone at dawn with his dog. I had been at the cabin for a few days and thought I had acquired a good knowledge of the local area. After about an hour of trekking through moderately- heavy maple forest, I realized I was lost. There was no cell phone coverage, I had no compass, and the sky was overcast. It is a terrifying feeling not knowing where you are, or even which way is north. I wandered around aimlessly for another hour looking for a familiar landmark,
SeakingRedemption, 8y Yeah I took one of those sidepaths that you can come across on a ski slope (I was snowboarding). I kept going until I couldn't move anymore, cause you know, snowboard, and before I knew it I couldn't hear any people from the slope and I was pretty shit outta luck. I pushed my board to another slope, thinking 'down' was the answer, and rode the slope. The snow was covering up a nasty sharp stick that when going down, ripped right through my flimsy pants into my leg. My hands were painfully numb, I was injured, and
Bhmira 3y Not mine but my father. Не went on a solo trip in New Zealand (a midlife crisis thing) and went on a hike. Everything was fine, he got to the cabin where he was supposed to sleep, and then in the morning it was super foggy and he couldn't see the trail marks. Не started walking in a direction he thought was correct, and ended up completely lost, stuck with no shelter as it started to rain. Не had to cross a fast river, and used the book he took with him to light a fire. (And ot
mnLIED . 9y When I was three I was showing my cousin the creek in our backyard and ended up lost in the woods for six hours. Не was a few months older than me, but he cried the whole damn time and I just remember trying to keep him calm. We were eventually found by some guys on four-wheelers. There were about a hundred volunteers looking for us. It made the local paper. I still have vague memories of coming across abandoned appliances in the middle of no where and wondering how they could have got there. ... 13
tedy4444 . 3y one time on a hunting trip i got out of my stand a little too late. was walking the trail in near total darkness. then it got dark and i missed my turn. i realized i was lost, tried calling the others that were at the truck waiting on me. finally got through and told them i was lost. i stood in that exact spot waiving my flashlight around until they found me. turned out i was only about 20 yards from the main trail but had no idea. it's crazy how everything in the woods is
yeastybeast 9y TL;DR Skated across the country, Got lost in the desert, ate a hotdog, it was glorious. A few years ago I decided to test a new tent out by skateboarding out of town. I had so much fun I just kept going and skated clear across the country. The story got around a little bit and Warren Miller (Ski God) even wrote about it in the Vail Daily. While skating through Utah I decided I would skate across the salt pans and desert to cut off a few miles of road. Growing up in Massachusetts I was used
markymarkDPT 3y I was hunting in a place I know very well. Had a very eerie feeling throughout the 3 hour hike. I kept hiking up the mountain but never reach the road that cuts straight across it. I knew that if I just kept going I would hit the road since it spans the entire mountain and I have hiked it for 30 years. All of a sudden the woods did not look the same as they usually did and I felt like I was being watched and became a little worried. I knew I needed to get to
The wind swept them away. How? It's been like 10 minutes, tops! I'm screwed. I start moving in the direction I think is right, when suddenly I see someone coming. It's a goddamn ranger. A northern badass wearing a fucking hoodie, with his rifle on his back and a cigarette in his leathery lips. In a blizzard. Не leads me to the convoy. The entire convoy. Turns out the group behind me did pass right by me and we didn't notice. We keep going like nothing happened. And that was the most terrifying experience of my life. ... 12
HyooMyron 9y Me and my friends love outdoorsy stuff. One day we decided to drive a few hours to do some spelunking (caving). This particular cave is near a river, so it has a maze of streams inside of it and a waterfall! Being young and stupid, we didn't have much of a plan and took off. Well turns out, it started raining while we were inside. The rain partially flooded the cave and sealed off a lot of passage ways. It was unreal; you could actually see the water levels swelling up. Needless to say, we shat bricks and
funnygreensquares. 9y I was deserted in one of Virginia larger cities. Snow will do that. Nobody could rescue me so for hours I just sat and slowly got colder and colder. I tried making arrangements to get help before my phone died so I wouldn't have to spend the night there. Thank God for the hand warmers in the console. A kind of primal fear had sunk in. One daring rescue later, I was trapped in a hotel for 3 days. Much more preferable.
iamkokonutz 9y I got stuck on a mountain for a night. Tried to make shelter in a hastily made snow cave, but got too cold. Temperatures were below -20c and winds were up around 50kts, so we were forced to call for rescue. 3 hours later, Canadian SAR, 442 squadron picked us up. So, basically I failed at 1 night of mountain survival and only lasted about 8 hours. Caused me to completely reevaluate everything about my winter survival plans and equipment. Fairly pathetic really, but in my defence, it was the coldest night in the recorded history of the
 9y Hmm, I was in New Orleans shortly after Katrina to do volunteer work. It was weird because all the road/street signs were gone after all the flooding etc. Also at that time, I didn't have GPS and when I left to do some quick survey of the area at night, I decided not to bring a map of the city. As you imagine, I got lost pretty fast and when I realized I was circling around the similar looking area, I started to panic. Remind you, it was shortly after Katrina so no street signs, barely functioning street
 . 9y Not me. But my Aunt was stranded at sea for 4 days in the Caribbeans after her boat sank during a nasty and unsuspected hurricane. She didn't have enough time to grab necessities except for crackers. So her and her boyfriend at the time rationed crackers and accepted the idea of death. Until they washed ashore in Jamaica. ... 60
Scunytz70 . S 9y When I was a teenager my friends and I would drive to the mountains trying to get lost. One time, as night was falling (we had really gotten lost this trip), we got stuck on this road. I couldn't figure out how to turn my car around, so we just continued down the road. It was starting to get dark... this is when it happened. The entire dirt road started moving. There were tarantulas everywhere!. 100's of them. I figured out how to turn around fast! I have no idea how many of them I ran over, but
SovietDomino 9y I once swam too far and ended up on a part of the Croatian mainland. I was stuck there for about 6 hours, and my family thought i was dead. That was a strange experience. ... 15
Rearranger_ . . 9y This happened when I was 7-8 years old. I was ice fishing with my dad in the middle of the lake when a blizzard hit. We lost all visibility, and it was -20C outside. We got lost for 5 hours and somehow miraculously found our way back to land. Although we had to walk quite a while afterwards until we found our car.

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