Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
The missus signed us up for an intro to map-n-compass course at REI. I’m okay with a compass, although I love me some GPS. However, as you know, technology (esp. .gov controlled technology) is only good for as long as it works. So while I think the GPS and UTM system are the best things to hit land navigation in a hundred years I still try to maintain my proficiency with map and compass.
The course was, in my opinion, pretty lame. The problem wasn’t so much the material but rather that the instructor wasn’t really terribly talented as a teacher. He may have known his stuff, and I believe he did, but he was just not very good at presenting it and teaching it. He claimed to have an extensive military background, including time as a SERE instructor, and he seemed like someone who had a good bit of military experience. However, his teaching skills left a bit to be desired. He apparently does some adventure racing and orienteering recreationally on his own with some buddies and invited those in attendance to come along some time. That may have some potential.
Im the first to admit that Im a major ‘gear queer’ or ‘geardo’. The instructor, if he was to be believed, was a professional wood tick…spending a good deal of time in the sticks and a large chunk of that following his compass. His compass? Same as the one I use and same as the one I gave the wife to use – Silva Ranger. Only difference was that his had a paracord lanyard and mine had the one that came with the compass. For some reason I am always gratified when I discover that the equipment I use turns out to be the same stuff the hardcore guys use.
Anyway, the instructor made his way through the course and I could tell the missus was just getting more and more confused. Understandable since theres some parts of land nav that still confuse me. (Which is one of the reasons that every year or so I re-read my land nav books.) It was frustrating to me to sit through the class because I could see people looking confused and I knew that the problem wasn’t the material, the problem was the presentaition, and I wanted to re-explain what the guy was saying and hopefully get some understanding going on. But…it was his show and I wasn’t about to get involved.
Compass work isn’t that difficult. 80% of the time its just knowing what general direction youre going in or want to be going in. For example, the area I hunt in has a highway running west to east at its edge. The area I hunt is north of that highway. If I get lost I don’t really need to know an azimuth to the truck…I just need to know that if I go south I’ll hit my baseline (the highway) and Im not lost anymore. This is probably the most simple method of using a compass to keep from getting lost. Another example – about ten years ago I was coming back from a morning of hunting and the valley filled with fog. No problem, Id hunted there for may years and figured I’d have no problem knowing my way around. So Im walking back to the truck and suddenly I come to a stream that wasn’t there when I started that morning. I checked my compass and thought for sure that I had broken my compass because I was absolutely positive I was heading in the right direction. But the compass said I was off by 90-degrees. Turns out that the creek bordering my hunting area ran south to north. My course should have paralleled the creek but somehow I got turned 90-degrees and instead of walking along the creek, I wound up walking across it. At that point I had to believe that the compass was right, I was wrong, and alter my course accordingly. That’s the most simple form of land navigation with a compass…establish a baseline and stay on one side of it and know what general direction you have to go to get back to it. It can’t get much simpler than that. You may not get back to your point of origin (like your truck or gate) but you will wind up not being lost.
The trickier stuff..things like taking a bearing and following it…well, that’s a bit more work. About the only time I use that sort of skill is for trying to locate my previously-unkown position on a map. Shoot a bearing to a couple of landmarks, track it back, and try to find my position by intersecting a few of those bearings. It isn’t as precise as GPS but its usually enough to tell me where I am on the map with a usable degree of accuracy.
Reccommendations? A top quality compass..dont try to save a few bucks in this regard. Silva, Suunto and Brunton are the most common of the big names and although I am sure theyre all good, I usually go with the Silva or the Suunto. Buy two..a simple, plain, less expensive one to carry as a backup secured to you with a lanyard or pouch and the more expensive one that you’ll use as your primary compass. If you take a tumble, lose your gear, or otherwise have a Bad Episode you can always fall back on your backup compass to at least show you the direction to your baseline. I like a compass with a sighting mirror, measuring scale, adjustment for declination, luminous points, protective cover, lanyard attachment and full 360-degree scale on the bezel. Plan on spending between $50 and $100…it’ll be worth it for the peace of mind a quality compass affords and it should last you at least twenty years if you take care of it and don’t abuse it. Newer compasses may have a UTM grid built onto them and those are handy to have. After the compass, buy a transparent UTM overlay that you can use with your maps. Make sure the overlay is scaled for the scale on your map (often 1:25000 or 1:24000). Pick up a good protractor while youre at it and use it to mark your maps for your local declination.
A compass can be a delicate piece of gear so treat it like you would a cellphone or iPod – keep it in a protective pouch or other place safe from impact, vibration, and damage. Use your head – a compass relies on sensitivity to magnetic fields. Don’t store your compass near metal objects. And especially don’t lay a map across the hood of your truck, place the compass on top and think youre going to get an accurate reading. Think, man!
GPS? Love ‘em. Buy a quality one and use lithium AA batteries in it. They won’t degrade over periods of inactivity like the other AA batts will. What does that mean? It means when you put your GPS away in the fall the batteries won’t be dead or nearly-dead when you pull the GPS outta the drawer the following summer. I normally use GPS when Im afield but always take a compass and establish simple baselines anyway…just in case.
Books? Best I’ve found for the beginner is Compass and Map Navigator: The Complete Guide to Staying Found. The classic text is Be Expert With map And Compass by Kjellstrom. To round out your knowledge base, get the military map reading text as well (FM 21-26 Map Reading is the one I have.)
Finally, there is no substitute for actually using the stupid thing. Head out to your local shopping mall when the parking lot is empty and go practice taking bearings and following them, navigating around obstacles, that sort of thing. Theory is no substitute for hands-on experience. If you really wanna go nuts and get some major experience and knowledge under your belt, take up orienteering and geocaching. Orienteering is great for learning map and compass skills while geocaching is excellent for familiarizing yourself with GPS (and its limitations) and the UTM system of map coordinates.
