Camp and Trail

MANY people have asked me what, all things considered, is the most valuable quality awilderness traveler can possess. Always I have replied unhesitatingly; for no matter howuseful or desirable such attributes as patience, courage, strength, endurance, good nature, and ingenuity, may prove to be, undoubtedly a man with them but without the sense ofdirection, is practically helpless in the wilds. The Sense of DirectionA sense of direction, therefore, I should name as the prime requisite for him who wouldbecome a true woodsman, depending on himself rather than on guides. The faculty islargely developed, of course, by much practice; but it must be inborn. Some men possess it;others do not-just as some men have a mathematical bent while to others figures arealways a despair. It is a sort of extra, having nothing to do with criterions of intelligence ormental development, like the repeater movement in a watch. A highly educated or culturedman may lack it; the roughest possess it. Some who have never been in the woods ormountains acquire in the space of a vacation a fair facility at picking a way; and I have met afew who have spent their lives on the prospect trail, and who were still, and always wouldbe, as helpless as the newest city dweller. It is a gift, a talent. If you have its germ, you canbecome a traveler of the wide and lonely places. If you have it not, you may as well resignyourself to guides. The Sense of DirectionThe sense of direction in its simplest and most elementary phase, of course, leads a manback to camp, or over a half-forgotten trail. The tenderfoot finds his way by littlelandmarks, and an attempt to remember details. A woodsman adds to this the general "lay"of the country, the direction its streams ought to flow, the course the hills must take, thedip of strata, the growth of trees. So if the tenderfoot forgets whether he turns to right orleft at a certain half-remembered burnt stub, he is lost. But if at the same point thewoodsman's memory fails him, he turns unhesitatingly to the left, because he knows by allthe logic of nature's signboards that the way must be to the left. A good mountaineerfollows the half-obliterated trails as much by his knowledge of where a trail must go, as bythe sparse indications that men have passed that way. I have traveled all day in the Sierrasover apparently virgin country. Yet every few hours we would come on the traces of an oldtrail. We were running in and out of it all day; and at night we camped by it