Making Your Way, Successfully

When you initiate a task, what are the ways you guarantee success? Whose advice do you seek before you start? How do you handle obstacles? How do you decide when to give up on an unsuccessful strategy or when to keep on keeping on?

Those were some of the questions that went through my mind when I got lost on a WV mountaintop the last day of vacation.

We had taken the ski lift up the mountainside of Canaan Valley Resort Ski Lift. In company were wife Barbara, father-in-law, 2 brothers-in-law, a spouse, and 5 cousins. One way to handle failure is to point fingers. Yes, that's it. It was my father-in-law's fault because he mentioned that it was possible to hike back down again. So, I announced that I would be hiking back. Barbara immediately said no to the idea, but when I confirmed from the lift operator that it was possible to do and not very difficult or time-consuming, she lost the argument. The laconic operator confirmed that the time it would take was neither as short as 20 minutes nor as long as 2 hours, the extremes I posed. So I was off. It may be easy to point blame at others, but ultimately no one made me hike. I made the decision myself—for better or for worse. In this case it was for worse.

In exploring the mountaintop, we had crossed from the top of the ski lift run that we ascended clockwise 100 feet to the top of the next ski lift run. I started down that run thinking I would cross over to the original run a bit further down. I trotted down to what was ostensibly the first bend in that run and ducked into the woods.

When you begin an endeavor, how well do you think through your options? I should simply have walked back across the top of the runs to the one under the ski lift we came up on, but I liked the idea of disappearing down the wrong path and appearing again on the right one. It's awfully easy to make decisions that on first glance seem reasonable that instead after consultation with wise and trusted peers one would make differently.

I hiked into the woods expecting to see the clearing to the next run quickly. I chose to stay on approximately the same altitude lest I waste too much energy descending parallel to both runs in the ruggedness of the woods. The clearing didn't appear. I got a call from my wife after half an hour checking on my progress. I knew it wouldn't work to hide my situation, so I reported that I expected to be into the clearing in less than 15 minutes. Barbara felt—in her own words—put out and hung up saying she would return to our cabin 10 minutes away. I could call her when I reached the bottom. Fifteen minutes later she called again to tell me she sent everyone on and she alone was still waiting for me. I had made progress, but still could not see the clearing. I told her to go back to the cabins. I would call her with status reports every 15 minutes.

I lost the cellphone signal after my next call-in.

How do you handle doubt over a decision? I never entertained the thought of turning back because I was convinced that I was right and I would reach the clearing for the next ski lift run in moments. Perhaps this is part of makes men refuse to ask for directions. It's not pride but self-confidence.
Well, what happens when you actually make that bad decision? How do you minimize collateral damage? I was hiking through the woods navigating sizeable rocks and rotten tree debris on a weak ankle that I'd twisted at the beginning of the week (but was managing very well, thank you) in sandals. Say what you want about idiotic decisions, but my sense of adventure demanded a hike and no one else's sense of adventure was accommodating enough to join me. Beside that was my absolute confidence that this detour was foolproof. Of course, that just means I was somewhat south of being a fool. Still I did awfully well under the circumstances. I became more conscious about grabbing branches to balance myself noting what could break under my exertions. I couldn't avoid stepping on possibly slippery moss-covered rocks, but I quickly learned which rocks were level enough to keep me from taking a spill. I stepped carefully into depressions that could just be leaf debris covering deeper voids.

About an hour after I lost my cellphone signal, I came across a vehicle path. I noticed right away that there were fresh tracks on it made by an ATV. Anything older than a day would have been washed away by recent rain, and none of the tracks had had time to begin drying out. I hiked down it still expecting at any time to see the ski lodge. Before long it crossed a gas pipeline right-of-way, one of those broad swaths of grass you occasionally see running up and down otherwise wooded mountainsides. In 40 minutes I got to a meadow at the base of the slope, crossed it, and waved down a passing car. In another 15 minutes, I got a cellphone signal, got a text message from my wife saying a park ranger was looking for me, left word about my status, and was back at the cabins. As thanks to my rescuing couple, we used the cabin welcome information to help them get to the tourist destination from which they had themselves gotten waylaid by a bad turn.

If you're fortunate, when you make bad decision, there are people around to cover your heinie. Even while I was traipsing around in the sylvanous, I thought the one big help to me would have been some guidance from someone who really knew the mountain. I had as back up the intervention of several such people. After an hour without contact from me, my wife drove back to the ski resort with my father-in-law. A lift operator offered to look for me. His ATV tracks preceded me on the trail by no more than 30 minutes. The facility staff had also notified the ranger staff of my plight. The ranger that arrived to get my report back at the cabins confirmed his hunch about where I would end up by my explanation of the path I took down the right-of-way. In the car with my rescuers, we had seen his vehicle pass as he sought to pick me up. He said he was never really worried about me because he had gotten the information from my wife that I was a healthy adult who was a former Eagle Scout. One wisecracking brother-in-law made it clear that he try to get that rank pulled from me for this escapade.

There were several ways I failed. That I embarked without water or proper shoes was relatively minor. I wasn't exposed enough to dehydrate and all I developed was a large blister on my foot. The big failing was in my determination of direction. When I looked at a satellite image of the mountaintop, one of a host in the Monongahela National Forest, I determined that what I thought was a slight clockwise turn from the ski lift run, turned out to be a 270-degree turn. Apparently being near the summit of the mountain exaggerated the extent of our wandering. When I thought I was turning counterclockwise toward the original ski lift run we ascended, I was actually exactly 180 degrees off. I learned later that no one could have corrected me because I began so abruptly in my haste to beat everyone down the mountain that nobody actually saw me take leave. Paradoxically, my haste also made me continue deep into the woods thinking the clearing was just ahead when sense should have told me the copse I thought I was traversing wasn’t more than 100 feet wide. With clearer thinking, I would have turned back promptly. It sickens me to realize how badly I had deviated from where I thought I was going, but Providence shown upon me because I could not have traveled more than a mile and a half without encountering either a different clearing or that right-of-way to lead me down the mountain.

The points as far as decision-making is concerned is the importance of proceeding with enough input from people you trust and of not acting hastily. I was closer to the long end of my estimated time of descent at 2 and a half hours, but aside from a late start on our return journey home and some angst on the part of my mother-in-law, I was little worse for wear and sated with a last morsel of food for thought.

The original ski lift run stretches from the parking lot to near the arrow. I started at that arrow and went directly down on the image to the right-of-way. The road where I flagged down a passing car is down just a bit further.

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