to find your way home or to a location w/o a compass? List them all if you please.
- Thread starter Gunfighter14e2
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Being from Louisiana, I just followed the Mississippi River.
Paying fucking attention to my surroundings and keeping a mental compass in my head. My Old Man would suddenly stop while hunting and ask " where is..." and he expected a direction, approximate distance and time of travel.
Prominent Terrain Feature
Sun
Moon
Stars
Water
Time
Steps
Prominent Terrain Feature
Sun
Moon
Stars
Water
Time
Steps
I am part of a fabled indian tribe. We navigate by wandering around the woods. We check our positions at the crest of each hill and exclaim our tribes name "we're the fuckarewea."
The amount of people who could not find their way home or to X spot these days w/o gps is astonishing. When you ask them to point to north, most fail that simple task. Had one guy say I don't have my compass, yet he was wearing a watch? Just hand the average person a map & compass and ask them to give you the direction of march between where you're at an another place on the map, & watch what they do. Yet those same people can tell you all about XYZ and how stupid you are for not knowing it. Basic life skills, are quickly going to shit everywhere. There are so many different ways to find the correct direction. Why learn those when, XYZ will always be there though, right?
I will admit that I would be fucked if dropped by parachute at night into unfamiliar terrain.
But most anywhere I've ever been, my sense of dead-reckoning and direction has been close enough to get me home.... so far anyway.
But most anywhere I've ever been, my sense of dead-reckoning and direction has been close enough to get me home.... so far anyway.
Naw, its just a matter of thinking & learning. Time of year plus sun angle/stars will give you a basic start point. Your watch day or night will refine that. Many other methods can refine it farther. All of which are just basic life skills anyone can learn, of which most are available via key strokes.
If my Grandson could learn them at 10yo anyone can, because that is one hard headed boy. Just like the father of his mother.
At any given point in time when I'm out and about I usually have a pretty good idea which directions are N/E/W/S
I'm also probably one of the few that pay attention to the angles of the sun in the horizon and the shadows on the ground.
I'm also probably one of the few that pay attention to the angles of the sun in the horizon and the shadows on the ground.
That one simple trait saved my ass from certain death long ago, but that's not for this thread.
And, I gather, without other "compass like" aides such as GPS or "Google maps" or whatever?
Absolutely, the solution for me is to make mental pictures of what the surroundings look like as I'm proceeding into a place (being sure to turn around and visualize what it looks like on the "way out." Trust me, we cave divers have to do this all the time. We are trained for it. You either find your way "home" (i.e. the cave's spring entrance), or you die.
We enter the cave via the spring entrance/opening for it. We'll tie a reel line to some rock or other formation at the entrance. We then unreel our reel line as we proceed in so we know how to get back to our starting point (sort of like a hiker dropping pieces of something along the way or marking trees, etc.). Either that or we proceed to the first "permanent/main line" that stays in the cave, and tie off on that, following that line. When we come back we find where we tied off, untie, and go back to our surface entry point. That said, we still make mental pictures of what it looks like, going in (looking back towards our way out), in the event we lose either line, or it's cut or something like that.
If it's a new place I've never been, or I'm "traversing" (i.e. one way only, no round trip/return), I'll study a map if one's available, or I'll go with someone that's done it before and knows the way. Failing that, if it's really that difficult, I simply won't do it.+
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not sure about dead reckoning though
I think most people who like the outdoors just pay attention to their surroundings more.
Kansas isn’t Wyoming but down hill there might be water compared to up hill, streams find population
Just generic stuff like that is true no matter where you are.
Like you know what the sky looks like when you’re hungry or tired, so you know what time it is as it’s usually certain parts of the day. …you know the sky looks like that and that direction is north etc.
Now if you 200 miles in Siberia…I’m fucked lol
Dead reckoning
Terrain association
Position of the sun during the day
Stars/constellations at night
Position of the sun during the day
Stars/constellations at night
Topo maps, pacing, chaining, ect.... A compass makes life much much easier and work great in concert with the others. After working on Forest inventory plots in National Forests I do not go to the field without a paper topo map, field map and compass tucked in my vest. Knowing north is one thing, knowing the main forest road is north is a better thing, knowing which will take you back to the main road is even better, however SWAG on where in relation the truck is on that road vs where you are is not a great way to spend the day.
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I can dead reckon to anywhere on the planet as long as my destination in next to a Carls Jr.
Strictly the sun and stars.
Learned of the North Star many moons ago.
Landmarks are another reference I’ll use.
Learned of the North Star many moons ago.
Landmarks are another reference I’ll use.
Sun and stars. If it's noon and Summer in the South, the sun is straight overhead so you might have to sit down and wait for it to move. Winter in the Southern States is easier due to the sun's arc across the sky being in a southerly direction instead of directly overhead so you can easily determine which direction is South, even at noon.
I laugh when people say they keep "a mental compass". If it's heavily wooded and you can't pick out any landmarks in the distance you won't likely be seeing that guy again.
If you're in the woods, you can make a little mound of dirt next to a few trees you pass, or notch them with a pocket knife if you have one so you can backtrack if you get turned around. You'll also be able to realize that you've been going in circles if it's overcast with no celestial objects visible.
It's not that hard if you remain calm and keep your shit together. Especially if you're in an area where you've never been before and don't know any of the topography or locations of rivers, landmarks, etc...
I laugh when people say they keep "a mental compass". If it's heavily wooded and you can't pick out any landmarks in the distance you won't likely be seeing that guy again.
If you're in the woods, you can make a little mound of dirt next to a few trees you pass, or notch them with a pocket knife if you have one so you can backtrack if you get turned around. You'll also be able to realize that you've been going in circles if it's overcast with no celestial objects visible.
It's not that hard if you remain calm and keep your shit together. Especially if you're in an area where you've never been before and don't know any of the topography or locations of rivers, landmarks, etc...
Here in the Ozarks I am never very far from a road. That said, out in the National Forest areas you can go for miles & miles and see nothing but trees.
Here, everything water related runs downhill, so follow a saddle, ravine, draw or whatever and you will eventually get to a stream, which will empty into a river, which will go under a road or through a town.
At night, the big dipper is usually pretty obvious, and points north all night long. Sunrise in the east no matter what.
In Army training we always used a compass for land navigation, for example, finding a license plate nailed to a tree in the woods. We were given a starting point and had to walk a course of 135 degrees & 450 meters to the exact tree, write down the license plate number, then navigate to the next, next, next and so on. Sometimes the cadre had false targets nearby which would try to throw us off... the hardest part was to keep an accurate count of how far we had moved.
Without a compass, but only having a topo map, easy. Just use terrain features & orient the map to the ground.
Here, everything water related runs downhill, so follow a saddle, ravine, draw or whatever and you will eventually get to a stream, which will empty into a river, which will go under a road or through a town.
At night, the big dipper is usually pretty obvious, and points north all night long. Sunrise in the east no matter what.
In Army training we always used a compass for land navigation, for example, finding a license plate nailed to a tree in the woods. We were given a starting point and had to walk a course of 135 degrees & 450 meters to the exact tree, write down the license plate number, then navigate to the next, next, next and so on. Sometimes the cadre had false targets nearby which would try to throw us off... the hardest part was to keep an accurate count of how far we had moved.
Without a compass, but only having a topo map, easy. Just use terrain features & orient the map to the ground.
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