Land Navigation?

[jhg]

You will be in for a treat terrain associating at night when its about to storm, or in familiar woods back east. At night its hard to stay oriented.

I don't mention this to disagree or dispute anything mentioned above. Only that at night when there are few things to see other than whats 10 feet around you having all the skills under your belt will pay off. And those skills may be just to get you far enough to make a safe shelter until daylight.You might need to navigate away from danger (like above treeline) in a storm, but don't want to walk off a cliff. That danger can be very real out West.
Its great to hear so much good advice regarding an important and FUN skill. Rock on!

Joshua

[Covey]

Sweeny3, went to inlist back when I was 18, had a booboo I did not know about,"hernia" would'nt let me in. 37 now and done alot of hiking and camping and have a good idea about the map and compass but the technical stuff is what I'm interested in. For all you guy's that served, my hat is off to you, could not do what we do if it was not for you!! Thank's for all the help! Jason

[ChuckC]

You can do it, it really isn't that difficult to do.  Practice at home until you get it.

ChuckC

[Elkchaser]

I agree with George. I find I get turned-around (not lost, just misplaced) more when I'm in flatter heavily wooded country than I ever do when I'm covering lots of miles in the mountains around where I live in Montana. With my topo map, I can generally locate peaks, creek junctions, trail intersections, etc. I usually have my GPS with my pickup or camp marked. I find it fun to see how far I am away when I sit down for lunch, or if I find a wallow and want to easily locate it in the future, I'll mark it.
As others have said, study maps of the area and learn the proper use of a compass. Then just go have a great time.

[Spectre]

Do yourself a favor and take a basic course in land navigation. The local search and rescue probably puts one on for free----or at least, pick up a military land nav/dead reckoning manual.
 I'm prior Navy SpecWar, and we would always use dead reckoning as our primary nav, GPS is secondary----always. A QUALITY compass is your very best friend, just remember to look at the magnetic variation on your maps, and know it, before you set out.