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Lost in the Wilderness

Here’s an activity to practice with your kids and family that will help prepare them if they ever find themselves lost in the wilderness.

It’s a frightening experience when you realise that you are lost, and usually sets off an adrenalin stress response that kicks in your “flight” mode that ironically compounds your disorientation.

Practice the STOP acronym with your family as often as possible to help engrain the method on how to remain calm and control the stress response if they ever find themselves lost in the woods. As a bonus it’s a great mindfulness and grounding exercise to deepen your appreciation in nature.

S – stands for STOP when you realise that you are lost. If you keep moving without knowing where you are headed then you will most likely drift further and deeper into lost and potentially dangerous territory.

T – stands for THINK. This is the opportunity to think about when was your last contact with anyone, estimate how long it’s been since your last known position and any features / indicators / clues that you may recognise about finding your way back. For example, it could be camp site that’s positioned along a stream; swimming hole; waterfall; carpark; etc.

O – stands for OBSERVE. The first step to take is to ground yourself, which can be sitting down on the ground with your hands touching the earth. It may sound a bit strange, but I like to connect with the earth to help calm my mind.

The next step is to close your eyes. Removing the sense of sight intensifies yours other senses of hearing, touch and smell.

When you close your eyes you may hear sounds that your brain may have otherwise filtered out in a stressed response. You may hear the distance bustling of a stream; or splashes at a swimming hole; or waterfall; or distant traffic from a road / carpark; or any other familiar sound that you may recognise from the above THINK step.

When you close your eyes, you sense of touch also intensifies. You might feel the breeze coming from a certain direction, that may be a prevailing wind in the area.

Your sense of smell also intensifies, and you might be lucky enough to smell camp fire smoke or BBQ if you are not too far off track.

Open your eyes and look out for any features that you might recognise. It may be a familiar mountain peak, terrain feature, communication tower, or perhaps jet streams from a regular flight path.

Using all your senses may help give you a greater awareness of your Positional & Situational Awareness.

P – stands for Plan. This is where you plan your next move. This could be drawing your attention to rescuers if you think that they may be close by and in hearing distance of a call for help, or SOS whistle blasts. (If you don’t have a whistle there’s a neat little trick that I teach how to use a blade of grass or leaf into a whistle). The options to follow in the PLAN step is infinite, but is essentially split into a decision that is either Self Rescue, or Wait For Rescue if you can send signals. Signals can be technology based or improvised with the resources at hand. This can be infinite depending on your knowledge base of survival and wilderness skills and resources at your disposal.

The STOP method is a guarantee by any means to find your way back to safety, but it may improve your chances in finding safety or being rescued.

I’ve practiced this many times, and really enjoyed teaching this to my kids at every given opportunity as a mindfulness exercise. It also helped them to find their own creative solutions and build their self confidence.

If you got this far and read this thread, then please let me know what your thoughts and feedback on your experience when practicing this.