lost in the barrens

When Chuck Fipke first discovered diamonds out on the barrenlands it set off a staking rush that hasn't been seen since they found gold in the Yukon.
Claim staking is a very labor intensive activity. Then once a claim has been staked and recorded, the company or individual, as the case may be, must "work" the claim. This usually means moving around the claim with a big drill, and taking core samples of the rock at certain depths to see what was there.
When working out on the barrenlands you stay in tents, big canvas tents. Usuallly four guys to a tent.
I was working as a cook and camp man. It was my first trip out on the barrens and I was jazzed!
My day started at about 4a.m. and usually ended at about 9p.m. There was nothing to do in camp, there was no TV, just books, magazines and newspapers.
One night after supper, it was about 6p.m., I decided to go for a walk and check out the lay of the land. It was just coming up on twilight but you could still see pretty good as there was not a cloud in the sky and about a 4/5ths moon just coming up. It was about -35 and there was a stiff breeze(the only kind you get out there).
So I'm walking along, the cold air biting my nose, back of my throat, and lungs.
At the end of the last Ice age as the ice sheets retreated back northward, they left behind these big, long tall piles of gravel and rock called eskars. These eskars are pretty much the only physical feature out there (no trees or anything) They wind along, stop, start, turn back on themselves. I guess I had climbed over a few went and around a few more. I figured I'd have a cigarrette and then head back to camp. I crouched down in the lee side of a boulder and lit my smoke.
As I watched the wind grab the smoke and my breath and instantly carry it away I got a funny feeling. But I didn't know why....until I looked down and saw my feet buried in the snow.
I looked at my tracks in the snow and saw them filling like a time lapse film.
I stood up and stepped out from behind the rock. My tracks were gone. shit. okay.
It was considerably darker out by this time. I kinda remembered which way I approached the boulder from, so off I went. Around the end of one eskar, over the top of the next.
I was breathing heavy, and decided to stop and have a look around, I climbed to the top of the eskar and looked. Nothing. In every direction. Right to the horizon, nothing.
My gut crunched up to the size of a walnut. I had no idea where camp was. My tracks had been obliterated by the blowing snow. I was lost in the barrens at night, in what was quickly becoming very bad weather.