"C. James Strutz" wrote:

> Sorry, I don't buy it. There's no way anyone with reasonable intelligence
> and awareness couldn't find their way "a couple hundred yards" away to some
> kind of civilization. Anyone who can't follow the noise of traffic or the
> lights of the city must be incapacitated somehow. MOST places are
> sufficiently developed now that it's not hard to walk in a straight line and
> run into something or someone.

You might be surprised how inept some reasonably intelligent people are when it
comes to getting lost in the woods. It is not always easy to determine the
direction of traffic noise in the woods, especially if it is hilly. The forest
can absorb sound, or deflect it. The places where a lot of people go deer
hunting are often not well developed. In fact, many developed places have
restrictions on the types of guns that can be used. Rifles, due to their range
are usually restricted to the undeveloped areas. To someone who is not used to
the forest, a tree is a tree, and remembering land markets by the species of
tree or the shape of a tree or clump of trees is difficult. The in this area is
hilly, with a lot of trees and streams. It is virtually impossible to walk a
straight line in any distance in the woods. If the sky is clear you can figure
out which way is north and south, but not if it is overcast, and during the
fall the sun is a lot further south than it is in the summer. Assuming the sun
is directly east or west can throw you off course enough over a mile or so that
you can get really discombobulated.