While completely lost in the woods and convinced I was about to get eaten by a bear, I decided to take the closest thing resembling a trail I could find.
As my luck would have it, the one I chose grew more and more narrow until it eventually faded out entirely, which meant I could either follow it all the way back to where I’d just come from and try another way (nooooooo), or just plow through, charting my own course through the woods.
I went with the latter option, feeling fairly confident that trail or no trail, I would at least be heading in the right direction.
Plus at this point, my water supply and cell phone battery were both sitting at less than half, and I could feel a low-key panic start to take hold.
I halfway considered using my remaining battery to record my (sad) story or goodbyes, or whatever I’d seen in nature movies where the protagonist always dies, or at the very least has to saw his own arm off. But I wasn’t ready to admit defeat just yet and instead focused on getting out of there as fast as I could any way I could.
After pushing my way through thickets and brush for more than five long miles, I came to the edge of a steep hill covered in pine trees. I started to stumble down it, my own momentum taking over as branches brushed my face, and needles got caught in my…
