Know Your Location
January 30th, 2025
“To survive, you must find yourself.” –Laurence Gonzales, Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why
Our packs were heavy and with each step, our feet sunk a few inches into the rain-soaked tundra. We were backpacking in Alaska’s Brooks Range. It had rained for the last two days, but now the sun was shining and we were excited to be in motion.
There were 10 of us, and we were part of a 14-day National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) expedition. The Brooks Range of Alaska is a 700-mile-long mountain range that stretches from West to East across the far north of Alaska and into Canada’s Yukon Territory. It is a vast wilderness.
During our time in the wilderness, we’d have no contact with our family and friends, or civilization for that matter, and all we’d have was the 50-55 pounds of food and gear we carried on our backs.
There were no roads or trails so each day, we’d chart our course through the arctic tundra and hopefully arrive at our final destination, which was marked on our map with a giant “X,” and was approximately 160 miles away.
On day two, after reviewing the maps, we charted our course. We estimated we had about
an 11-mile day ahead of us. After hiking for a couple of hours, my coursemates and I acknowledged that while we didn’t necessarily think we were lost, we weren’t feeling assured that we were on the right course. It was already going to be a long day; we didn’t want to make it any longer.
We decided to stop. We removed our hefty packs, unfolded the big topographical map on the ground, and began the process of trying to determine our location.
We did this by trying to match our physical surroundings to the features on our map and we struggled. At this point of the expedition, we were rookies, and still very much strangers. There were many tall mountains but they all looked the same.
My NOLS course in 2011 continues to positively inform my life.
After about 45 minutes of not figuring out where we were, a couple of us grew impatient, myself included. I stood up and put my backpack on. I was tired of not going anywhere and eager to get moving again.
But as I fidgeted, one of my coursemates said:
“With all due respect, I don’t think it’s a waste of time to figure out where we’re at, so we can figure out where we’re going.”
I never forgot his words, because first of all, if you’re in the wilderness, and you think youcould be off-course or lost, you should not keep going. Instead, you should S.T.O.P., which stands for Stop, Think, Observe, and Plan.
But mostly, I remembered his words because of how deeply they resonate with life. If we don’t know our location—who we are and how we want to be—it will be virtually impossible to achieve our goals, and to live a life that feels authentic.
I’ve learned that even when you don’t know the path forward, as long as you know your location–as long as you know who you are–you can never be lost.
If you’d like to read more stories like this one, I hope you’ll consider subscribing to my Substack, Epic Field Notes. (It’s free, and I’ll be sharing a variety of content there.)
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Next story: Pay Attention
(In April, I’m publishing my first book, Wayfinder: A Field Guide To Living Your Epic Life. The book is long overdue. As a writer, I’ve been toiling with it for years. But then last June, during a long solo hike in my beloved Wind Rivers, I had an epiphany: l had to become the person I wanted to be before I could write the book I wanted to write. And, well, it took a while! Going on 15 years to be exact. I hope you’ll consider reading the book when it comes out. But mostly, I thank you for being here.)
- Categories: Adventure, Life and Leadership, life coaching, Travel
- Tags: alaska, authentic life, authenticity, coaching, epic life, epicadventures, finding your way, know your location, Leadership, nols, self awareness, self-reflection, shelli johnson, wayfinder, wayfinding
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