30 Things Everyone Should Know How to Do Before Turning 30 by Siobhan Adcock

Author:Siobhan Adcock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780767916431
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2003-06-09T16:00:00+00:00

Using a Compass Without a Map

1. Know where you’re going, or know where you’ve been. A compass is all you need to get to someplace and back again without getting lost, which makes it ideal for a rambling day hike cross-country. If you say at the beginning of the day, “Hey, let’s just hike and see what we find,” you can use the compass as described below to make sure you don’t accidentally wander off course. If you use a compass to keep track of the direction you’re heading, you can simply reverse your bearing at the end of the day and know exactly how to get back to where you started.

2. Aim the direction-of-travel arrow in the direction you want to go.

3. Rotate the housing until the compass needle points to N or 360 degrees.

4. Walk in your chosen direction, keeping the compass needle steady at 360 degrees.

5. Note your bearing. Your bearing is the degree that touches the direction-of-travel arrow—usually there’s a little pointer that says “read bearing here.”

6. To get back to where you started:

• Rotate the housing halfway around, or 180 degrees in either direction.

• Rotate your body until the compass needle points to 360 again.

• Walk where the direction-of-travel arrow is pointing.

Troubleshooting

I want to keep walking east (or west or northwest or whatever) but there’s a big lake (or rock or marshland or whatever) I have to get around. What do I do? Pick a direction to walk around the obstacle—to the left or the right—and turn your body 45 degrees in that direction (watch the compass). Follow your new bearing, keeping the needle steady and counting every time your left foot hits the ground, until you’ve passed the obstacle. Then turn 90 degrees in the other direction and walk the same number of paces. When you’ve finished your paces, turn 45 degrees in the same direction you turned to walk around the obstacle. (So if you turned 45 degrees left then 90 degrees right, you’ll turn 45 degrees left again when you’re past the obstacle.)

All that said, if you’ve got a map and you plotted a course right through a lake you’re not using your head. The shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, but not if there’s a something big along that line that you have to navigate around. Use the 45-90-45-degree trick to get around smallish things that crop up on your path, but if there’s a lake or a marsh or something equally big and unwalkable between you and your destination, do your hike in two parts: plot a course that skirts the obstacle at an angle, then angle back to your destination. Depending on how big the lake or whatever is, this will probably save you time compared to walking up to it and then around it.

What if I’m hiking with a compass and no map and I don’t want to travel in one direction all day? Don’t go switching your bearing too often because that’s a really good way to get lost.

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