<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When photos were posted of eight year-old Nante Niemi being piggybacked out of the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park on Eli Talsma\u2019s back this past spring, a combined sigh of relief and shouts of joy echoed far beyond the Western Upper Peninsula.\u00a0 NBC\u2019s <\/span>Today Show<\/span><\/i> led off the parade of national media stories.\u00a0 Later the same day, NBC followed up with\u00a0 extensive coverage on <\/span>The Evening News with Lester Holt<\/span><\/i> as did multiple media outlets far and wide.\u00a0 It was a feel good story many needed to hear with the rash of less than good news that seems to permeate the airwaves these days.\u00a0 It was also a bitter reminder to the families whose loved ones have disappeared in the U.P. wilds and were never again seen alive.\u00a0 With this happier ending, we can now look back at Nante\u2019s \u2018adventure\u2019 in May of 2023 as a reminder one should never underestimate how quickly things can go south when one treks or wanders into the wilderness unprepared.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0During the 25 years we took our Ontonagon Area Schools eighth graders orienteering in the area northwest of the Lake of the Clouds viewing area, we had multiple educational lessons in mind.\u00a0 We spent a good deal of class time learning the ins and outs of using topographic maps and compasses.\u00a0 Using this knowledge in the field was an ideal way to connect the \u2018in class learning\u2019 with actual boots on the ground practice.\u00a0 There were years when we would have nearly 100 students and chaperones assembled for lunch on Green Mountain Peak (and later, a small hilltop NE of that peak).\u00a0 After our lunch break, we prepared each group to depart back to the Lake of the Clouds parking lot by saying:\u00a0 \u201cLook at how many of us there are.\u00a0 Each group will be taking different bearings (routes) back to the Escarpment.\u00a0 Take note how quickly everyone melts into the forest.\u00a0 It is another reason we want your group to stay together.\u00a0 Never travel faster than the slowest group member because it does not take long for one person to lose track of the whole group out here.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In our first couple of years, we trained upper class volunteers by taking them on the same hiking routes the eighth graders would take a week or so later.\u00a0 These volunteers came forth because most of them were interested in being outdoors and were comfortable being in the wilderness.\u00a0 No matter how skilled they were, we had incidents where their younger charges got \u2018misplaced\u2019 (yes, we consciously avoided the term \u2018lost\u2019).\u00a0 Eventually, we changed our plan by having a couple of adults with each group.\u00a0 How did they get \u2018misplaced\u2019 if they had older students (and later adults) guiding them?\u00a0 We told the guides they were there to be the safety valve and they should let the students do the map and compass work.\u00a0 Our early outings were set up with a forester trained to run these kinds of events and he wanted the program run with student guides.\u00a0 When he was no longer involved in the program, we decided we needed a little less \u2018unpredictability\u2019 in our hike day outcome and moved to the \u2018adults with each group\u2019 model.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0How can a planned hike have an \u2018unpredictable outcome\u2019 you ask?\u00a0 Let me give you an example from the first year we took this hike.\u00a0 Our adult chaperones shadowed groups to Green Mountain Peak, meaning, we traveled behind and out of sight so we could sweep up any groups that got way off track.\u00a0 My groups had the longest paths to follow so I arrived at GMP well after everyone else had settled down for lunch.\u00a0 The forester gave me a light hearted ribbing (\u201cWell, look who finally got here!\u201d) until I looked around and asked, \u201cWhere is Group 1?\u201d\u00a0 We did a quick chaperone huddle and discovered there was indeed one group not yet at the lunch spot.<\/span><\/p>\n The foester took half a dozen of the older students and sent them out on a sweep toward the Escarpment to look for this group while the rest of us headed back to the buses.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The missing group was supposed to hike to a point on the Escarpment Trail where there is a large dip, or saddle, between the Escarpment and Miscowaubik Peak.\u00a0 At the bottom of this dip, they were supposed to take a new bearing toward Green Mountain Peak.\u00a0 Even with that spot flagged with brightly colored forestry tape, the group marched through this valley and continued up and over Miscowaubik Peak.\u00a0 The upper class guides missed their mark and they had hiked all the way to Lafayette Peak before they took their new bearing.\u00a0 They proceeded to cross a good size creek and ended up on the opposite end of Green Mountain Peak from where the rest of us were having lunch.\u00a0 The guides could not agree on anything up to this point but when they took a bearing on Lone Rock (they were told to take a bearing on this to confirm they were in the right location), they finally realized they were a mile and a half farther west then they should have been.\u00a0 We learned an important lesson about how student guides work, or don\u2019t work, together.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0After doing just about everything they could do wrong, one of the guides finally sat down with a map and figured out where they had ended up.\u00a0 When her safety training kicked in (we taught them \u2018if you get misplaced, do this\u2019), she then took charge and they (finally) did everything they needed to do.\u00a0 The guide showed the group where she thought they were and told them, \u201cWe need to follow our reverse compass bearing, recross the creek, and find the trail at the top of the ridge.\u00a0 Then we will hike out the way we came.\u201d\u00a0 About the time they began descending Miscowaubik Peak back into the saddle they had missed, they encountered two of the more experienced woodsmen the forester had sent out to sweep that area.\u00a0 The other groups hiked nearly five miles that day, this group ended up going closer to nine.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They were tired and happy to be back on the bus, but they could not have been happier than we were to have found them.\u00a0 We adjusted our plans accordingly by adding adult supervision to each group and portable radios so we could be in contact with the other groups.\u00a0 We went through a couple of types of radios but found in this rough country, the more powerful units we borrowed from the Porkies Ski Patrol were the most effective.\u00a0 With that said, there wasn\u2019t a year that went by when one of the radios lost the will to live, but with each group having an embedded adult safety valve, we never worried like we did the first time we misplaced a group.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Misplacing a group wasn\u2019t terrible once we knew we had guides with each group who knew the country and how to get them back to the starting point if they got turned around.\u00a0 I will venture to say some of our best lessons about map and compass work came courtesy of the groups who did get turned around.\u00a0 It got to be a running gag that one group would probably not make it to the lunch spot – a prediction that came true just about every other year.\u00a0 A couple of us involved in the program had hiked all of the potential routes over the years so it made it much easier to troubleshoot the groups who got misplaced, especially if the radios decided to not play nice.\u00a0 When we lost radio contact with a group, we were always glad to know they had their embedded safety valve with them to make sure they got back to the buses on time.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The most fun I ever had on this hike happened one of those years when it was my group that got misplaced.\u00a0 Our primary route was to go to our original lunch spot on the eastern end of Green Mountain Peak.\u00a0 After we left the same saddle Group 1 missed the first year, I gently reminded the kids hiking out front that people tend to drift \u2018uphill\u2019 when traveling diagonally down a slope like the Escarpment.\u00a0 This was the second time I had a group lead me into a lovely little valley between the Escarpment and Green Mountain Peak so I was not at all surprised when we topped GMP well west of where we needed to be.\u00a0 We sat down with our maps and I showed them where we probably were and reminded them how we got there (\u201cRemember the reminders about drifting uphill?\u201d).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At this point, the group made a decision:\u00a0 if we were indeed on Green Mountain Peak, we should follow it until we hit the end and then take a new bearing from there to the lunch spot.\u00a0 It was a good plan but the going was not good so we moved down the north face of GMP where it would be easier to navigate.\u00a0 Unfortunately, as we traveled toward the east end of the peak, they again began getting off bearing, only this time they were drifting downhill and away from our intended check point.\u00a0 We crossed some small streams and got into some of the most dense balsam fir and cedar thickets I have ever seen.\u00a0 It became obvious they were getting farther and farther off track.\u00a0 Finally, I said, \u201cOkay, Lefties, (the nickname I coined on the spot for their tendency to always go off bearing to the left), let\u2019s sit down and figure this out.\u00a0 It is 80 degrees and muggy and we are already supposed to be at the lunch spot.\u00a0 Take a rest and I will radio them to let them know why we are not there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The first contact I made was with another group that had topped GMP and were just about to leave for the lunch hill.\u00a0 Ordinarily, having someone yell to find them isn\u2019t the best way to go as sound can travel in funny ways in hilly terrain.\u00a0 None-the-less, I had the group on GMP\u00a0 give a big yell and to my ears, we were now directly north of where we were supposed to be.\u00a0 Looking at the map, I showed the group where we probably were and asked what they thought we should do about it.\u00a0 One hiker immediately responded, \u201cOh my God, we\u2019re lost!\u201d and I assured her we were not.\u00a0 Pointing to the map, I showed her what we had covered in class:\u00a0 \u201cIf we take this exit bearing, no matter where we really are, we will come back to the Escarpment (which is hard to miss as it is hundreds of feet tall and two miles long).\u00a0 On top of the Escarpment is the trail back to the buses.\u00a0 Before we resort to our exit plan, let\u2019s see if we can get to the lunch hill.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0We laid out one of our maps and I made contact with my daughter who had come home from college for summer break and volunteered to guide a group.\u00a0 We repeated the \u2018holler as loud as you can\u2019 bit with the groups eating lunch.\u00a0 \u201cOkay,\u201d I asked my group, \u201cwhere did that sound like it was coming from?\u201d\u00a0 Each and everyone pointed in the same direction so we aligned this information with our map and plotted a new bearing to follow.\u00a0 Rested and hydrated in the brutal conditions, we literally put our heads down and crashed through the heavy balsam underbrush in the direction we had plotted on the map.\u00a0 Would it surprise anyone that this group of \u2018Lefties\u2019 repeated their previous mistake and kept shifting to the left of our actual route?<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It took about 15 minutes for us to reach the base of the lunch hill.\u00a0 I had reminded them we were looking for a sharp upturn in the landscape but they were content to keep traveling past our intended target.\u00a0 A half hour after we set out to find the lunch hill, I called a halt and asked the crew who were now done with their lunch (and resting at the top of the hill) to yell one more time.\u00a0 \u201cWhere did you hear that coming from?\u201d I asked and to my dismay, each and everyone pointed back from the direction we had just come.\u00a0 \u201cOkay, so no one noticed the base of the hill we hiked by 15 minutes ago?\u201d\u00a0 Hot and exhausted, my group had now been hiking for nearly an hour more than everyone else so I radioed we would take our lunch and rest stop right where we were.\u00a0 The other groups were instructed to take their bearings on the Escarpment and head out while we took a half hour rest\/lunch stop.\u00a0 \u201cSee?\u00a0 We ARE lost!\u201d\u2026 it was the voice that had made the same statement thirty minutes earlier.\u00a0 \u201cNope, that is the Dismal Swamp over there (the name we bestowed on a several acre size cedar swamp one of my groups had wandered into a few years earlier – we were on the rock ridge just north of that feature).\u00a0 The lunch hill is that-a-way.\u00a0 We will eat lunch and then take our exit bearing to the Escarpment after we rest up a bit.\u00a0 We are not where we wanted to be, but we are NOT lost.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Right after I made this encouraging pronouncement, we began hearing voices and the cracking of brush from the opposite side of the Dismal Swamp.\u00a0 A couple of hikers wanted to yell to them but I said, \u201cNo, they are on their bearing and you do NOT want them to try and get to us.\u00a0 That would require them to wade through the Dismal Swamp and having done that once, I would not recommend it to anyone else.\u201d\u00a0 We could hear individual voices for a little while but the swamp between us was so dense, we never saw any movement or flashes of color from them.<\/span><\/p>\n A few others wanted to head our right away and catch up to them but I again reminded them, \u201cWe also do not want to go through the swamp and we have been hiking an hour longer than anyone else.\u00a0 Eat, rest, and then we will set out on the most direct route back to the buses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There was one more hazzard we needed to avoid.\u00a0 If the \u2018Lefties\u2019 kept at it, it was possible for us to end up paralleling the base of the Escarpment and come out by the little park ranger\u2019s hut on the road up to the parking lot.\u00a0 \u201cWho can follow a bearing without going to the left?\u201d I asked.\u00a0 Two hikers stepped forward so they were charged with getting us to the base of the Escarpment The others were told, \u201cIf you feel they are drifting, you better say something because I am not going to do any more course corrections today.\u201d\u00a0 Okay, it was a bit of a lie, but it seemed to put the group on alert and all of them took a keen interest in getting back with no more diversions.\u00a0 We did just fine but to say this group was tired and drained by the time we got back to the parking lot would be an understatement.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The day after these hikes, we would always dissect what happened to each group on the way to and back from the lunch hill.\u00a0 I summarized what the other groups had done and had just started on our adventure when a familiar voice blurted out, \u201cWe got lost!\u201d\u00a0 I pointed out that \u2018lost\u2019 means calling out Search and Rescue and maybe spending the night in the woods.\u00a0 \u201cDid we need to call out Search and Rescue?\u00a0 Did we spend the night in the woods?\u201d I asked. \u00a0 To underscore my point, I passed out \u2018I hiked AROUND the lunch hill\u2019 buttons for my group of \u2018Lefties\u2019 and thanked them for a most entertaining hike.\u00a0 As I said earlier, sometimes getting \u2018misplaced\u2019 made an even better map and compass lesson than actually making it to the lunch spot.\u00a0 There would be other groups \u2018misplaced\u2019 over the years, but we never had anyone spend the night in the woods or have to call out Search and Rescue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As I was getting this article prepped, my wife talked to a friend who had recently hiked to O-Kun-de Kun Falls.\u00a0 On her way back to the parking lot, she encountered a young couple who said they were thinking about going cross country to get to the falls.\u00a0 She encouraged them to stay \u2018on the map and follow the trail\u2019 because, she reminded them, \u201cThere have been too many people who have disappeared in the woods around here.\u00a0 To start crashing through the brush off trail is one sure way to become one of them.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Thanks are due to everyone who helped find Nante Niemi.\u00a0 Not needing Search and Rescue is the preferred option, but we are always grateful when we know they are but a phone call away when needed.\u00a0 Congratulations on a job well done!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 \u00a0It isn’t a song about getting misplaced, but Mark Knophler’s\u00a0Sailing to Philadelphia\u00a0<\/em>is a wonderful tail about the two men whose lasting claim to fame is the Mason-Dixon line – refer to your United State’s colonial history if you missed that lesson!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When photos were posted of eight year-old Nante Niemi being piggybacked out of the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park on Eli Talsma\u2019s back this past spring, a combined sigh of relief and shouts of joy echoed far beyond the Western Upper Peninsula.\u00a0 NBC\u2019s Today Show led off the parade of national media stories.\u00a0 Later […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2866"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2869,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2866\/revisions\/2869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}