Friends who have hiked with me — or learned their lesson and always seem to have "other plans" whenever I suggest an expedition — know I have a dangerous combination of flaws: a sense of direction best described as "navigationally challenged," and an innate curiosity that often leads me to veer off the beaten path.

Consequently, I have spent more than one night lost in the woods without a tent, including one particularly dismal mountain misadventure when it poured to beat the band. When our muddy, sodden group finally found the trail in the morning and emerged from the wilderness we looked like war refugees. Now that I think of it, none of us has hiked together since.

Anyway, I can sympathize with the plight of a perpetually peripatetic, nature-loving buddy I'll simply call George, who sent me an email about his experience in East Haddam a few weeks ago. I've known George for years and we've taken a few walks together.

George, as it turns out, also lacks the Vasco da Gama gene and not surprisingly, the last time we hiked together near Mount Misery in Voluntown's Pachaug State Forest we somehow wandered off the main trail and wound up semi-bushwhacking for a while before regaining the course back to the car.

Anyway, George and his girlfriend, whom I'll simply call "George's girlfriend," had decided to hike in the Burnham Preserve near the home of the late Richard Goodwin, a celebrated naturalist, botany professor and former president of The Nature Conservancy.

"We parked at the entrance, headed down the blue trail to Burnham Brook (I make a practice of selecting a hike's route for its ease in the beginning, its difficulty at the end), and then veered off the trail to an overlook in southeastern Devil's Hopyard," George writes.

"As is my wont, we left the marked trail from the lookout back to Burnham Preserve, enjoying the difficulty of hiking without a trail and anticipating discovery of things off-the-beaten track. No compass, no GPS, dusk descending," he continues. You can see where this is going.

"We became lost in a tangle of uplands and wetlands as the sun set and I decided the best tack was to achieve the highest ground, in hopes I could get up a tree and get a fix on something for direction. We had a single headlamp (hers), our cigs and matches, some toilet tissue, a half-liter of water, and insufficient clothing for an overnight stay in the woods. Reluctantly, I decided on 911. The dispatcher at Troop K in Colchester told us to stay where we were, help was on the way. It was pitch dark. We managed to start a fire."

George goes on to describe how a dozen or more volunteers from East Haddam and Salem, some carrying chain saws, tramped through the woods and bounced along in a rescue vehicle called a "six-by." They eventually found George and his girlfriend by tracing the GPS fix on his girlfriend's cell phone.

"Officer Griffith of East Haddam police was the on-scene point man when we emerged with our rescuers from the woods. An EMT was standing by in East Haddam's fire ambulance to check us out," he reports. "Then we were driven back to my car on Dolbia Hill Road in Salem, where I had locked the doors but left the keys in the driver's door keyhole."

George notes that Officer Griffith had came upon the vehicle earlier and pondered the significance of keys left in the door of a locked car. I know what you might be thinking, but you would be wrong.

"Neither of us was under the influence of anything other than our enormous zeal for hunting native flora, which has become our shared hobby since we met four years ago. Never did I imagine I'd enjoy a romantic liaison with a woman who would crawl through laurel, muck through wetlands, and snub her nose at marked trails with me. Sober as judges we were. Dumb as a donkey was I," George writes.

"As I'm sure you can guess, I gushed with gratitude and hung my head in shame. I made a point of shouting out my gratitude and offering an apology to the knot of rescuers," he writes. "I cost both towns much by way of this rescue and am further mortified by the fact that the rescuers, with the exception of police, were entirely volunteers."

George writes that he is trying to get the names and addresses of the East Haddam and Salem fire chiefs for letters of thanks, and also plans to make donations to both departments.

"When I think of those men and women who answered the call, gratitude exceeds embarrassment, of course. The bottom line, however, is that their placing themselves at risk to find us is something for which I cannot escape responsibility as a man who certainly knew better than to do what he did."

Above all, George wanted me to help him publicly thank all those who rescued him and his girlfriend. Consider it done, buddy.

And next time, at least leave a trail of bread crumbs.