Cleon Skousen states that he has personally been in deep mountain gorges where perpetual cloudcover made it virtually impossible to keep track of directions without a compass. The high Andes of South America have many such places, and there are others in Central America and Mexico. [W. Cleon Skousen, Treasures from the Book of Mormon, Vol. 2, p. 2164]
Mosiah 22:16 They were lost in the wilderness ([Illustration] Tree-covered mountains in the state of Huehuetenango near the border of Mexico and Guatemala. The Book of Mormon refers a number of times to parties who became lost in the wilderness. Dense jungle growth soon covers the tracks of travelers here, and in the mountainous terrain tracks are quickly washed away in an afternoon downpour. [Scot and Maurine Proctor, Light from the Dust, p. 67]
Mosiah 22:15-16; 23:25-35 The Lamanites pursue Limhi, Discover Helam ([Illustration](John L. Sorenson)
Mosia 22 15 16 23 25-35 The Lamanites pursue Limhi, Discover Helam ([Illustration] Proposed Land of Amulon in relation to the proposed Valley of Almolonga
Geographical [Theory Map]: Mosiah 22:15-16; 23:25-35 The Lamanites Pursue Limhi, Discover Helam (Year 480)
“Lost in the Wilderness”
The Lamanite army pursued Limhi’s group into the wilderness, but after two days found themselves “lost” (Mosiah 22:16). Would the mountain wilderness surrounding Kaminaljuyu be dense or confusing enough to disorient people in two days, especially when the armies of Noah had pursued Alma and his 450 followers and had returned without incident (Mosiah 19:1)? Perhaps the Lamanites had originally become “lost” because they could not find Limhi’s tracks, and not because they couldn’t find their way back. I find it hard to believe that they immediately tried to find their way back home or were even worried about it because of the following:
1. Later on the text says that this same Lamanite army was lost in the wilderness for “many days” (Mosiah 23:30). Once they realized they were lost (after only 2 days), a concerned Lamanite army would have immediately headed back toward the general direction of the land of Shemlon by following the path of the sun, so that after “many” days they would have not only made up for their original two days of pursuit, but probably bypassed Shemlon going in the opposite direction from when they first started to pursue Limhi if they were still lost. In other words, if they originally started tracking Limhi in a northerly direction from Lehi-Nephi, after “many days” of travel and an attempt to return home after “two days,” they would have probably ended up still lost but in a southerly direction from Lehi-Nephi. Keeping this in mind, it is strange that when the Lamanite army eventually found Alma in the land of Helam (Mosiah 23:35), this land was at the most only 13 days away from Zarahemla (see Mosiah 24:20,24-25). Why is this significant? Well, if it took Ama’s group a little more than 21 days to travel from the land of Nephi to the land of Zarahemla, and if the land of Helam was 13 days away from the land of Zarahemla, then the land of Helam could only be a little more than eight days journey from the land of Nephi. If the Lamanites were lost after two days, then they would have had to continue to travel at least 6 more days away from their Lamanite homeland of Shemlon in order even to reach the land of Helam.
2. A Lamanite people that “did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey” (2 Nephi 5:24) would know the surrounding countryside for at least two days’ distance away from their homes. Thus, the Lamanite army might have been “lost” due to factors other than a two day distance away from their homeland of Shemlon or from Lehi-Nephi.
[Alan C. Miner, Personal Notes]