He was cold and had no strength to walk. Keep this in mind if you’re going mushroom hunting
A mushroom picker from Silesia will surely remember this trip to the forest for a long time. The police and family were looking for the man. Everything ended happily, and now foresters remind you how not to get lost in the forest – even if you don’t have your phone with you or it goes flat.
The mushroom season is just beginning, and there are already the first cases of forest loss. This includes the story of a mushroom picker from Silesia who went to the forest near Zakliczyn (Lesser Poland) together with a person from his family. In the forest, mushroom pickers lost contact with each other and when the 66-year-old did not return, his relatives notified the police. A chilled and tired man was found in one of the forest gorges. There are more such cases and each year, usually in the mushroom season, foresters and police officers inform about people who lost their orientation in the forest and were unable to return home on their own.
Are you going to the forest? Take your phone with you
Foresters remind you that whenever you go to the forest – regardless of whether the purpose of the trip is mushroom picking or just a simple walk – take a working and charged mobile phone with you, and if the trip is to be longer, also a powerbank. It is also worth using free applications that allow you to determine the location. Before the trip, you can also save offline maps of a given area on your phone – then you will have access to the map, even if you lose coverage and network access.
What to do if your phone goes dead in the forest?
What to do if your phone runs out in the woods? The State Forests have prepared a guide that helps you find landmarks to help you find your way out of the forest.
“First of all, let’s not panic. It is worth straining your ears, because sometimes you can hear the noise of a main road or a train from afar” – write the foresters. They also advise you to try to determine the directions of the world. When going to the forest, it is worth having a forest map with you (you can print it out or ask for one at the forestry inspectorate), on which the numbers of forest divisions are marked. Being in the forest, it is easy to determine which department you are in, because there is always a post in the south-western corner of each department with the numbers of neighboring departments written in paint. Therefore, the bar will not only determine where you are, but will also help determine the north direction (when there are four branch numbers on the bar, the corner between the two lowest numbers points north). If you get lost and you have no way to call for help, it is best to keep walking in one direction – then sooner or later you will reach the road.
