Best! Christmas! Ever!
My best friend is an avid geocacher. She finds great delight in the ability to walk to within nine feet of any patch of ground in the world, just by looking at two lines of numbers.
I can’t do that. Oh, sure, I know how to get from here to there. I got lost while camping a few times, and so taught myself the art of land navigation. At least that is what they called it way back when I developed the skill: “Land Navigation“. Nowadays they call it “Orienteering”, or some such thing. I figured that they changed the name so they could charge yuppies big money for lessons.
But I’m not one of those map reading, ultra-precise navigators. If there isn’t a path or road, then I can only move in eight directions with any certainty. Not only can I find and move along the four cardinal compass points, North South East West, but I can also aim in between two of them. This works surprisingly well, because the secret to navigating without instruments is to try and run in to something really long.
If you are out for a day hike and realize that you don’t know how to walk back to where you parked your car, but you remember that you parked it next to the river that is South of your current position, then you trod South until your feet get wet. After that, it is a simple manner to walk upstream or down until you see your car looming in front of you.
Such slipshod, shoddy, imprecise, rough-and-ready methods to get where I need to be has rankled Kathryn’s sense of efficiency. (She’s currently serving in the US Navy. Sloppy pisses her off!) So she gave me one of these as an early Christmas present.
Amazing machine. I’ve been noodling around with it for the past day. Waterproof, runs off of regular AA batteries. Fantastic gift! Looks like I could find my way without having to rely on rivers any more.
Bet this means Kathryn wants me to get some coins made up so I can run around and distribute them.
Although I know it is old, and so you have probably seen it before now, I think you might find this to be funny. I certainly did.
December 5th, 2009 at 8:01 am
I navigate the same way you do when driving. We are here, and we need to get to highway “x”. If we head north, we will hit it eventually…works every time. Nice that most cars have digital compasses now too.
Also, being an avid bicycle rider, I have been lost more than once on long trips and just use the sun to get my way back - I always think in my head “well, I rode south and east to get here, guess I need to ride north and west to get home. Also works every time.
December 5th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Try the river method in Nevada with the Humbolt River.
You will end up in a quicksand laden salt flat in the middle of nowhere.
Or the Salmon River/ River of no Return in Idaho.
Not all rivers run towards civilization.
December 5th, 2009 at 5:53 pm
“Not all rivers run towards civilization.”
Good point, Kristopher. But I always make sure I know the general lay of the land wherever I go, so I’d probably be thinking about staying out of the dangerous areas.
December 6th, 2009 at 2:03 am
A couple friends of mine and I took a New Jersey City boy backpacking in the mtns years ago. We parked the car and hiked about 45 minutes north up a fairly well defined dirt hiking trail. Then we stopped and I asked him - How would you get back to the car if we weren’t here? He looked around then pointed straight to the east (perpendicular to the trail) and hesitantly asked “That Way?”
I told him to start praying that I don’t get eaten by a bear, have a heart attack or just get fed up and leave his ass. Then I pointed out the trail we had been hiking on. He seemed genuinely surprised that we had been following a trail.
Scary!
December 6th, 2009 at 2:50 am
Like you I would love to get my hands on one of these James, but I would not take for the basic navagation skills from Boy Scouts. With a compass and a aviation sectional chart, or Texico Road map for that matter I can get anywhere the map covers.
The problem with the gadgets is what if the batteries die, or the thing breaks. I trained with a lot of folks (1970’s - civilian light planes) that had to take a second check ride because they relied too much on eletronic navagation.
Kristopher made my day mentioning the Humbolt River. My family spent 5 years in Winnemucca, Nevada when I was a kid. I havn’t thought about that place in years!
December 6th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Wow. The language in the post and the following comments is amazing! That aside…it’s pretty funny. I probably wouldn’t appreciate it so much if we hadn’t just been visiting my son and he insisted on loaning us his Tomtom to make sure we got back to the hotel from his house.
Then we did some traveling, and my map beat his Tomtom…!
I don’t like to go to strange places without a map. I sort of collect maps. I don’t even like mapquest unless I have a way of getting a general layout of the area…either I’m a lost person or a savvy person - I’m really not sure which!
December 7th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
My sister is a kick-ass geocacher. Meanwhile, I can’t go to the toilet without getting lost.
February 22nd, 2010 at 5:27 am
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