A guy on the Lost Coast Trail told me he'd been hiking it for 30 years and still gets turned around at Punta Gorda.

He pointed at a specific notch in the cliffs and said 'aim for that, not the cairn, it washes out every winter', which saved me a good hour of backtracking last spring.

3 comments

3 Comments

rowan_reed6811d ago

I mean, getting turned around once in a while on a coastal trail seems pretty normal to me. That area is all fog and shifting sand. Maybe the guy just likes making it sound like a huge mystery, but idk, people get off track hiking all the time. It's not that hard to pull out a map or a GPS if you're really lost for an hour. Maybe it's just me, but it sounds like a regular hiking story, not some legendary navigation puzzle.

gracethomas11d ago

Yeah but that's the thing, the guy said his GPS and compass went totally haywire. Like the compass needle just spun in a circle and his phone showed him walking in the ocean while he was on solid ground. That's not just normal fog, that's some weird magnetic thing going on. I've been turned around before too, but my tools still worked. His didn't. That's the spooky part.

miasanchez11d ago

Ever have a spot that just feels wrong no matter how many times you see it? There's a bend on the old logging road near my place where the light hits the pines at a certain angle in the evening... throws off your sense of direction completely. I've biked past my own turnoff there like three times, convinced I was going the right way. Some places just have a weird vibe that messes with your head.