I was doing what I normally do during the week and that is looking for places to fly fish. This last week I tried out a new area on the South Mills River via the Turkey Pen road and trailhead. Drive on a short gravel (2 miles long) road to the trail head, then a short 1/2 wish mile downhill trail to the river and suspension bridge over it.
Once over the bridge there are rough trails (very) on the banks of the river for accessing campsites and fishing spots. easy right?
This is where the trouble started...
The terrain in the Appalachian is quite hilly and twisted as the forces of erosion continue, the rain abundant and the river contains many twists on its downhill run. The foliage on the banks is quite thick and deep so, even from 25 feet away, you may not even see the river. These two factors make location awareness a bit tricky as the same foliage, twists and terrain keeps repeating along the banks. When I crossed the suspension foot bridge I failed to make a mental note of what was unique about that spot, was you could not see the bridge (or river) from the intersection unless you where facing a specific direction. Same with the only trail sign at that location which could only been seen when traveling upstream.
Upon crossing the bridge I started going upstream on a trail, safe in the knowledge that I just needed to reverse back down to get to the bridge. I should have stopped and looked around at how that spot would look when I headed back down the trail. I didn't.
Found lots of fly fishing locations as I worked my way upstream and dipped my fly again and again. This being the heat of summer, I was expected very little fish action but still enjoying myself. I had a time limit as I had a doctor appointment later this afternoon and was planning on 45 min hiking back to the car and 1 hour drive back to the house. I gave myself plenty of time and when I had reached my upstream high point I turned back downstream to reach the bridge. I started walking downstream with an occasional dipping of a fly.
I kept walking, until realized I'd been walking too far. Things looked the same until they weren't. I'd missed the bridge. When a view of the stream opened up I had looked for the bridge (both up and downstream) and never saw it. I missed it. This was a new area for me and I was not familiar with it at all. For a moment I was confused of just were I was. Did I not walked long enough, or too far and how far? Not a clue. I was thinking of the time.
It was interesting being confused and a bit disorientated. This was rare for me and I paused a few minutes and pondered my condition. Did I mention that there is no cell service in this area?
OK, I was not total unpaired for this. Before I left, I preloaded both the maps for Apple maps and Gaia GPS map app. I pulled up the Gaia app and the map was still loaded and showed that I had overshot the bridge by about 1/2 mile (remember this is very rough path I'm on) and would have to backtrack upstream to get to the bridge. And that is what I did.
I has assumed (wrongly) that when I got the bridge junction that it would be on the bank of the river and the bridge would be in full view, nope, nada. There was only a sign that could only be seen going upstream that pointed to the bridge direction. I had missed this and the junction completely, but I was now back on track.
It was an interesting and very unpleasant feeling of being off track at best and lost (hey I was following the river) for a bit at worst. I was prepared but I could see how others might be a bit worried about this.
I was very confused for a bit but got this story out of it. No fish but I'll be back when it cools down and the fish wake back up.
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