I haven’t been properly lost in a while. Years actually. I mean, I haven’t had an organic panic that wasn’t kid-related since, well, at least since I had a kid. 

Now, I don’t mean that sort of “where the f*** are we?” lost where I’m fully aware of the boundaries of my preserve and know at any time I could hike to a road in that direction, or a trail I know is in this direction. I find that kind of controlled exploration to be fun actually. I’ve never minded some bushwhacking or hiking through a cutblock or three. 

The first time I ever remember being truly lost was as a kid hiking with my family in the UBC Research Forest (MKRF). I was probably around nine or ten but I couldn’t tell you for certain. I was being a little asshole and between running ahead and choosing my own adventure I ended up separated from my group. No gear, no food, no water, no sense – instead of staying in place I just kept roaming. 

I’m not someone who vividly recalls much about being a kid but I certainly remember the shock of coming across an idle construction site. I remember the intense sense of being all alone. I remember crying until I was out of tears. I remember being furious with myself. I remember eventually finding myself at the front door of the forest ranger’s cabin. I remember the look on my mom’s face when we were reunited.  

In my early 20’s I was once lost-lost riding at McNutt. I’m not sure how it happened as I’d ridden there many times. In the trees, I ended up heading West parallel to any opportunity I would have had to discover familiar ground. I certainly discovered signs of humanity – an engine block here, an old truck frame there, some long-abandoned logging equipment. But the combination of age and unfamiliarity of these set pieces didn’t invoke confidence. Eventually, I came into an opening with some massive MX jumps. Then I was on a ridge overlooking a car farm. 

My food and water long exhausted, never mind my mind and body, I emerged out of the dense forest into a new upscale neighbourhood. A homeowner doing some landscaping let me fill my bottles from his hose. And, with a strange, maybe even untrusting, look he gave me directions to ride to Dewdney Trunk Rd, which in turn would allow me a long, tired, pedal back to my car. 

I was lost once off the Baden Powell at the base of Mt. Seymour. It was pitch black. We had decided to cut our ride and take a quicker way out of the woods, but one that none of us had ridden regularly. Fully flipped around in terms of where we were and where we were going we ended up in the forest significantly longer than we would have been sticking to the actual plan. One of my companion’s lamps had already gone out and I had less than half an hour on my backup. At the low setting of what was already a lame light compared to today’s standards.  All banter had ceased and everyone was mentally preparing to bunker down cold-and-hungry until the sun came up the next morning.

Finally, out of desperation, I hiked up a steep ridgeline we had been skirting and came across some abandoned ladder bridges. We followed the long-abandoned trail until finally, in the distance, we could make out the shape of the water tower I had no idea sits at the top of Blue Ridge. Elated. I’ve carried a bivy blanket on every ride since. 

And now that I think back, that may have been the end of it. I could go on to moments of wandering past bullet-marked no-trespassing signs off the side of Galbraith, or riding by moonlight well after dark at Glacier or giving myself the full city-boy in Terrace but all those adventures had a certain unpanicked reality to them. I’m prepared to sleep in the woods until morning. I have water. I have food. 

Now that I dig into it, I suppose that I’ve found that when you’re prepared it’s hard to get too fussed about being lost. So maybe being properly lost is just an experience we grow out of?