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How are you at map and compass reading??
montanajoe
Forums Admins, Member, Moderator Posts: 60,002 ******
I use to be really good both in my youth as a Boy Scout and in the Army a little later on. I found a navigation course to be fun and easy for me, even with back azimuths. Just something I haven't thought about in many years but I thinking I need to brush up and pass this on to my grandkids. How about you, ever do much mapping /navigating??
Comments
Not much since I sold my plane.
We do lots of that in Scouts, setting up geocaches and looking for them. We have a troop geocache, I put it in the evilest possible place. There's a trail through the woods and it splits into two that run parallel, one side is up on top of a ridge and the other is easier and topos along the side contours. The boys always take the easy way and choose the lower trail, and halfway along it your compass bearing is perpendicular to the trail, straight up this killer steep slope covered in Devil's Club bushes. A couple have actually climbed that slope, most are smarter than that and double back. Then it occurs to them to take the more strenuous side of the split up onto the ridge, and once you're up there it's a flat walk to the geocache full of snickers bars. As they munch their snickers I always tell them to use your head before your feet out in the woods.
Glorious fun!
Learned map reading in the scouts. REALLY glad I did. Has paid off MANY times over the years.
A skill I learned a very very long time ago. I guess it is one of those things that if you don't use it you will lose it, and I sure have at least misplaced it somewhere along the way. I certainly need to do some refreshing!
We were hunting and I tried to show my grandson where we were on a map and got out the compass to show him which way we should go. He pulled out his phone an laughed, said we are right here grandpa and here is where we should go. LOL.
When we went on a trip I was the designated map reader. The first time Dad got lost I was about 10 years old. I asked him to hand me the map in the glovebox, and in about 5 minutes I figured out where we were and how to get to our destination.
A couple of months ago we went to a town where my wife used to work. I was driving around just looking at the scenery when she asked me if I knew where I was. I said, "I have no idea". That kind of freaked her out. I just kept driving in the general direction of home and within 10 minutes we were back on the highway to home. She never said a word after that.
Joe
Since my time as a pilot, I have doted on maps. There were times when being able to pinpoint coordinates down to 100 meters or less from the air was literally a life or death situation. Reading topo lines was the key to that skill. Today, the consequences are much less dire, but finding likely spots to catch fish via lake maps is still challenging.
I navigate through the woods this way all the time.
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
I have a poor sense of direction to the point that I could get lost inside of a phonebooth. If I have to go somewhere I map it out carefully and don't budge from the route.
When I met up with Locust Fork, we agreed on a specific location. When I was about 15 minutes out, she phoned and suggested we change it to a coffee shop. That's a change in plan. PANIC! PANIC!!! I have no map. Never mind the GPS function on the phone, I can never get it to work when I want it to (although inside the car it sometimes turns itself on for no reason).
We ended up meeting where planned and everything was good.
Yep, did it in BSA and when in service to UNcle Sam.
How about celestial navigation.
The USAF used to be big on celestial navigation before Y2K. Sextant ports disappeared on newer airplanes to be replaced with redundant GPS systems.
A little in BS, an some in the USN.
Tougher in the Navy, as there is not much in the way of landmarks 1,000 miles out to sea. Became adequate with a sextant, but don't know that it would come back to me now.
Brad Steele
Here's a challenge... how many have used Universal Transverse Mercator on maps? I teach that to the Scouts too and they usually think it's easier than lat / long.
Now for a REAL mind blower... here's a "Location" where I was 2 weeks ago for the powerboat races. "Submit Cherry Forest" on the "what three words" map. It's a Godsend for people that are useless with maps.
Never could, still can't. Just don't get it really. However like all men I never need directions I am never lost!
About 50% of my work involves maps. While my employees are struggling with maps and boundaries, I can drive past an area and put everything into place w/o much effort and then go back to my office and replicate the map.
I use satellite maps a lot and prefer those to paper but there's no substitute for a well protected paper map if your life depends on it.
I'm VERY good at map reading and following map directions w/o constantly referencing the map. Part of this goes back 50 years when within a group of guys walking around in the dark, there was one guy stumbling around with a map and flashlight AND HE WAS THE FIRST TARGET. I learned to not be that guy.
I learned it in Scouts as a boy and helped teach it to my sons and other scouts during that part of my life....you got me thinking it might be a good skill to brush up on again...
sadly I would be lost if I had to use a map and compass , another skill I would have liked to learn but now not really going any where I can find my way around the house and Walmart lol
I think if one is mathematicaly inclined it's an easier course to follow (no put intended). I did alot of surveying when I first got out of school and I really think it has helped me in direction finding etc.
haven't even thought about it since basic training..........back then I did ok.
Our son was home on leave after completing his USMC Infantry training. We were sitting out back having a beer. He said "You know- i always thought everyone's dad taught them to shoot, use a map and a compass. BOY was I wrong!"
Big quiet grin on my part..........
I always know exactly where I am. The location of other people is where things disintegrate.