PSK Basics #5 - Navigation

pict

pict

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Jan 7, 2003
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NAVIGATION - I have never been completely lost without a compass. I normally have a pretty good sense of direction. My Recta DP-2 rides in my top pocket with the string passed through my buttonhole. The DP-2 is a box type compass with flip down mirror and sights on top. It is very easy to use for sightings; the mirror slides inside the box for reading on a map through the clear bottom.

The times I have been lost the compass proved it to me. I once set up camp in a forest I had hunted all my life. In the evening the sun broke through the heavy overcast to set 90 degrees from where it should have! Oh, the humanity! The planet was out of alignment and my home in Brazil was going to turn into a frozen wasteland. In the morning the sun rose 90 degrees off as well.

That morning I was so convinced I was right that I broke out my PSK button compass to verify that the Recta DP-2 was still pointing north. Two compasses in the hand over-rule the one in my head. I had to admit to my 12 year-old daughter that I was wrong.

The key to getting lost is to know that you are at the first opportunity. If you know where you are and where you are headed then you aren’t lost yet even if you are seriously wrong on all counts. You just get “loster” until some indisputable evidence destroys your confidence. For me this is the true value of a backup compass.

I have since moved away from the button compass and include a 1.5-inch liquid filled medallion with two scales marked on it. The inside ring is marked in 40 principal direction marks; the outside is marked in 360 degrees. I also plan to thread small beads onto my compass neck cord for use as a pace counter.

I plan to buy a Suunto M-9 wrist compass for my PSK. The M-9 has a window on the edge that displays the baring. You just hold it up at eye level in your direction of travel, rotate until the correct reading shows in the window, select your next landmark and keep moving.
 
Pict,

I believe you're still soliciting "lessons learned" stories.

Here's one on navigation.

A compass and a map?

Good idea: Best thing in the world when navigating. Spread your map out, figure which way you're facing, and then take your reading.

Bad idea: spread the map out on the trunk of a car, figure out which way you're facing, and then take a reading by putting the compass on the map.

Because my compass was on the metal deck of a car trunk, the compass was about 13 degrees off.

Fortunately, things began to look strange within the first couple of minutes: I was able to figure out the problem, took another (correct) reading before we'd gotten very far, and then had that forehead-slapping moment when I realized what I did.
 
I have a military type compass that I've used a few times in 15 years. Even though it's a cheap Japanese import, it works great, but is bulky. My PSK includes a belt pouch that contains a match safe with a compass stopper lid. I have used it in unfamiliar areas on long cross country hikes and it got me back to point A.

When heading into areas that I'm not familiar with, I take maps. I plot my course and study the surrounding area well in advance of arriving. Of course, the following probably wouldn't be possible in an emergency survival situation, but is highly recommended for leisure outtings. I check in with Ranger, etc., and leave them a copy of my intended travel route, as well as intended return time and emergency contact numbers in case of a mishap. I also leave the same map with my wife and have the intended route of travel marked out for her, as well as instructions on who to contact in the event that I havn't contacted her at an agreed upon time.
 
Watchful,

Yeah, that all-steel magnetic car thing will rise right up and bite you if you forget. I haven’t done it yet mainly because finding the car is the very reason I decide to break out the map and compass. I was in a shop the other day that had a pocketknife with compass in the handle scale. Of course magnetic north was always in the direction of the pivot pin. They also had a lighter/compass combo that always told you where the thumb wheel was located. I think I could get that far without a navigational aid.

I’m very careful on unfamiliar ground. It’s the places I’m sure about where I end up passing through the wormhole. It’s not me of course; it’s some type of Stephen Hawking quantum twist in time and space. I just never see them coming.

Magnetic declination is another huge error people overlook. I’m in the habit of putting pencil lines right across my map every inch just so I remember.

South America messes with my head. The sun rises I the east and sets I the west but travels through the northern sky. In my natural sense of direction north and south are always swapped and it shocks me when I look at a compass. I’ve lived here for seven years of my life and this has never resolved for me. My subconscious programming just doesn’t get it. Mac
 
Pict:

I'd love to actually need the whiz-bang features on the expensive compasses I own. Alas, all I really need and use is my simple Suunto Clipper.

I typically hike along an established path, find a nice oak grove that meets the path, then head off into the grove for the night. I use the bezel on the Clipper to record the bearing at which I head off, and keep roughly to that bearing. Getting back to the path is as simple as pointing the needle N to the bezel S.

Some of my kits have plain button compasses. Some of them have the Suunto Clipper with the bezel, some with just the compass part -- it pops out of the bezel housing. I find the velcro wrist band that comes with the Clipper handy to secure Altoids tins that aren't taped.

My experiences with getting lost... Only three times, and each time a short duration or moment of doubt. I've never been lost for more than a half-hour or so.

It's important for me to acknowledge that I'm lost as soon as possible, and to make sure I STOP and determine the direction back to the last blaze or landmark I sighted. Every time I've realized I'm lost, I've felt panic rising, but I've been able to calm myself.

I mark the place I stopped at, take a recorded bearing back to my last blaze, and try to find the correct direction to go. Hasn't failed yet, so I've never needed to to return to my mark and search for the last blaze or wait to be found.

It really pays for me to notice all the little details along the way. I was amazed to discover that I can remember a stupendous amount of detail unconsciously. If I take in the color or position of a particular cluster of wild flowers, I'll know that cluster and can use it as surely as a bright orange blaze on a tree to find my way back.

It also pays to stop and look behind me from time to time.

Finally, I get more and more confident of my ability to find my way unconsciously. I just have to believe I can do it, and "listen" to my instincts as well as my conscious mind when attempting to get unlost.

For example, I once worked through to the back of a grove and found a game trail. I stepped onto the trail, turned left, and followed it for hours (eventually coming up behind a doe). It was only when I was returning that I realized I hadn't noted where I first entered the trail, so I wouldn't know when to get off of it and head back through the grove to camp!

When I got back to the first landmark I could remember, I marked the spot, preparing to have to do an extended trial-and-error search for my exit point. Before I started though, I just ambled along a bit farther (counting paces from my marked spot) until it felt like I'd reached the exit point. I marked that and headed into the grove. Within minutes I knew I was right, and spotted my tarp ahead.

So I try to trust my instincts, but I make sure I back them up with good practices.

Other things I've noticed about navigation...

The sun doesn't actually rise in the east and set in the west. Of course, it varies as the year progresses, but I'm surprised at how many degrees off it can be. Seems like 30 degrees or more at times.

I trust that I could use a shadow stick to find an east-west line, but I've never actually tried it. (Shame on me!)

I finally found a way to locate Polaris, but I have to start with Orion, not the Big Dipper. Everything looks like the Big Dipper to me. But I can recognize Orion. He points towards the Big Dipper. I can confirm the Big Dipper by scanning west to Cassiopeia. Halfway back to the Big Dipper, and there it is.

Bear
 
pict said:
...I was in a shop the other day that had a pocketknife with compass in the handle scale. Of course magnetic north was always in the direction of the pivot pin. They also had a lighter/compass combo that always told you where the thumb wheel was located....
Click to expand...
Absolutely priceless. :D
 
I always have map and compass with me, and make sure I know where I am, and where I am going. The compass I use mostly is a Brunton mapping/sighting compass consisting of a clear baseplate with a rotating besel and a sighting mirror.

The baseplate is ruled in both centimeters and inches and has a magnifier on it (good fo reading map details, finding splinters or even starting a fire). The mirror can be used (as well as sighting) to signal or to treat injuries on my face that I can't otherwise see. The compass is adjustable for declination, so I can set it for the area, and not worry about it everytime I take a bearing. I also have a clinometer on it which I use regulaly climbing (evalute avananch slopes) and for my work as a mapping geologist. Under the baseplate are several cards with survival tips, trig tables and a UTM overlay. The compass is on a lanyard which gives me an extra length of cord as well.

On my wrist I have a top-of-line digital altimeter which is mandatory for navigating in the moutains, but often useful in area of more moderate topography. It also has a digital compass which is surprising accurate and is my back for the Brunton.

I grew up using map and compass, and am quite good with them, and never really took to GPS units until recently when I started using them for mapping (my job with the geological survey). They are awsome little things, and I just went out and bought the smallest one on the market to use for myself when I hike and climb. They make mapping a lot faster and easier than having to sight everything in with the compass and triangulate my position.

Under no circomstance should a GPS be a substitute or a map and compass and the ability to use them. But the GPS is alot of fun, and makes finding the truck at the end of a bushwake a million times faster an easier than doing it the old fashion way. Unfortunatly if you are depending on the GPS to track your route, and it suddenly fails for whatever reason (malfunction, batteries..), you are SOL....unless you have been paying close attention to the map along the way and plotting your route. Then all you need to do is whip out the compass and take a bearing. Sadly, I emagine most folks using GPSes out there have no idea how to read a map and depend on the GPS. Which works just fine until it fails. Up until now all my GSP use has been mapping so I knnow where I am at all times (since I am making a map) so I don't need to force myself to keep checking a map. Now that I have my own GPS, when I use it just for hiking or climbing (no map making) I will need to pay close attention and plot my route and position on the map.

Metal things (like car, or belt buckle) are not all that distort the compass. Beware of power line which create a magnetic field, they will really cause the needle to go nuts if you are right under them. Running water creats a weak magnetic field so be careful about taking bearing standing on a bridge or over a culvert. Many rocks (especially ingneous) have magnetic signatures so don't take bearing close to the ground. If the rocks are strongly magnetic (put the compass next to them and see how the needle behaves) the reading will be distorted even if taken at eye level.

-Will
 
Great info keep it coming!

It seems like most of us who navigate use serious compasses (compi?) when we do. I think it really puts the little PSK button compass into persepctive.

Here's a link to FM3-25.26 Maps and compass navigation.

http://rewild.dyndns.org/docs/fm/3-25.26/index.html

Thanks for the input (and long posts...) Mac
 
Here’s another link that has been alot of fun regarding navigation. Terraserver can give you topographic maps and aerial photos of just about anywhere in the lower 48. Just keep clicking in towards your favorite location and when you arrive at the resolution you want you can usually click between several maps and sets of old photos.

This past spring I did a few days in east central PA with a full set of maps and photos. Most of this was off trail in order to get practice in navigation. The photos were really neat. We could locate many features that were not on the map, actual borders of swamps, man made waterholes, old trails, rock fields, vegitation types etc. This site is kind of like taking a black and white over flight of the area before you get on the ground.

Unless you have plenty of black ink don’t bother to print out the photos on regular paper. I did but found that just studying them online was good enough. I printed out the maps and marked them with features that I spotted in the photos. We had a great time locating these features on the ground.

http://terraserver.microsoft.com/

We also had the weather report printout for the entire time we were going to be out there. It even gave it to us in hourly increments. It was dead accurate. I forget which weather service I used but it was worth carrying the printout.

On my Alaska trip this past fall I was able to get a weather history going back several years for both Slana and Nabesna AK for the two weeks I was going to be there. We were going to hunt the area between the two. Having never been to AK I found it helpful to plan for my trip. It gave me the best case/worst case scenario for that time of year and place.

With these two websites you could have maps, photos, and the specific weather history and prediction for any place you’d care to plan an adventure in the lower 48. Alaska maps are kind of sketchy on terraserver. Alaska weather is even sketchier; like they say up there, “If you don’t like the weather, wait a few minutes.” Mac
 
www.maps.com used to sell custom USGS/National Geographic topo maps. You could choose the size of map you wanted, the scale and the grid system (UTM or Lat/Long). You were able to center the map how you wanted and have it printed as either landscape or portrait. They were printed on waterproof/tearproof paper, and had shaded relief as well. All this at a reasonable price too!

I bought one map from them a few montha ago, and it is the best quality map I have. Unfortunatly the site seems to have changed and I can no longer find this option which is too bad.

A google search using terms like "custom USGS topo maps" yeilded many results, the best of which so far seems to be www.mytopo.com. It doesn't seem quite as good as the other. You can't zoom in to help you decided exactly where to center the map. You can choose your grid system, and the size, but you can't seem to choose the orientation, and I am not sure shaded relief is available either. I think the prices are a little more than the other place too.

Now if I could just find a place like that to order topos maps of Canada...
 
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