Gut feelings, compasses, and course corrections just in the nick of time

When I was a teenager, I worked summers at a Boy Scouts of America camp nestled right between Teton and Yellowstone National Parks.  I have always loved the outdoors, so the nine weeks I spent each summer living in pristine forests were heaven.  One of my favorite jobs at the camp was as a back country guide to groups of scouts and their leaders.  We had to be well versed in a lot of skills- group management and motivation, first aid, survival skills, and winging it.  We offered a unique hike that started in our camp and ended 5 miles away on a peak that offered a vantage of the Grand Teton Mountain Range and surrounding areas.  This was one of my favorite hikes.  In the early summer there was enough snow left on Survey Peak to slide on; later in the summer the meadow at the base of the mountain was full of wildflowers. The hike itself was mystical- we hiked through evergreen forests that appeared untouched- trees towering overhead, shafts of light shining through, and pristine mountain streams were to be found everywhere.  It remains one of my favorite hikes, except. . .

. . . it terrified me every time.  There is no trail that leads to Survey Peak from camp.  We got to the peak by taking a compass bearing and trying to stay true to that bearing while hiking through deep forest with no distinguishable landmarks to reference.  If you aren't careful, hiking by compass bearing can get you lost quickly without you realizing it.  When I guided hikes on trails, we would occasionally venture off trail to explore and getting back on course was easy- you just headed back in the direction you came till you found the trail again.  On the trip to Survey Peak, if you got lost, you likely wouldn't know you were lost till hours had passed and you hadn't reached the destination.  We were constantly scanning for landscape features that would indicate our position relative to the camp or the peak, but it was an inexact science to say the least.

On one trip to Survey, I was with a group of other experience staff members.  On our return trip, we got the feeling that we were off a bit in our bearing, but because of the thick canopy of trees we couldn't really verify the feeling by observing the surrounding landscape.  We started paying attention to every clue the landscape could offer- the slope and grade of the ground, clearings in the canopy we could use to get a view of the landscape- anything, but in the end, all we had was a gut feeling that we were significantly off course.  We had guessed that we had been drifting to the east as we traveled from the peak back to camp, but we couldn't be sure- without knowing if we had drifted or by how much we had drifted, we couldn't determine how to correct our course.

Going off the group-gut-feeling-consensus we determined that we would adjust our bearing to compensate for an eastward drift over an estimated distance of 3 miles.  If we were correct, after about 30 minutes of travel we would run into the valley the camp was in, or we would be horribly lost.  Fortune was on our side and we soon emerged on the far end of the valley from camp and were able to get back safely.  Without the course correction- we would have overshot the camp and gone approximately 4 extra miles before we hit the road that would have told us we were off course.

This story comes to mind when I am confronted with the realization that life has been off course, out of whack, unbalanced, chaotic, overwhelming, or otherwise less than ideal.  I frequently see people (myself included) come to this realization and determine: "That was a wasted trip- time to start over from the beginning so I can get it right this time."  If we had taken that logic on the hike, we would have been able to find where to start from again, but there would have been no guarantee of a different outcome.  It's easy to get hung up on the "right", "easiest", or "best" way to do things.  When I am focused on whether or not I am making the journey the "right" way, I tend to discount the value in the ground I have already covered.  A course correction- no matter where it happens in the journey- is a sign that I am paying attention, open to feedback, and in tune with my best self.