Ha, I thought I wrote that. But I think I meant in the context of planned off trail exploration, especially on Defiance when you mostly knew where you were (and certainly, unlike the part of Defiance you were on, the Gorton area is "one of those places" where heading north world be bad); it's definitely not a solution to being lost if you're unprepared. And we were talking about going north, not just downhill - I really have no idea which direction this guy went, because I have no idea where he even left the trail. (I don't even know where he was going... Was he trying to loop the full Gorton to Nick Eaton, or go up one of the cutoffs? I've done the Gorton cutoff in the last year, but isn't the Deadwood cutoff nuked...?) There are lots of downhills that do not lead north, and I did not get the impression this guy was using a compass...Chip Down wrote: ↑February 4th, 2021, 6:05 pmA post in one of my TRs:
My reply:Why would you need to backtrack if you couldn't find the trail down? Very few places in the Gorge would require this, since north takes you back towards the river.
There are countless horror stories of hikers saying "I'll just go north, it will surely take me back to the river".
I don't have FB either, so if he posted more answers about where he went, please share!