Hey Buddy... Are You Lost?

[Bolt]

I grew up in eastern NC, we have some large swamps that I spent many hours in, mostly at night. No different than dark timber everything looks the same so I learned to use the moon, stars, or sun if it was up, now that doesn't help you if there is cloud cover and in that case I would bring along a compass but no map. If I got turned around " this was often" I would use the moon or compass to navigate to a known landmark road, river , ect and then I would regroup from there and find my way back, usually within 50' yards of my intended mark.
When it comes to applying a map to the equation, I can do it but I always brush up before my trip, just dont use the skill enough. I also find three land marks in my general hunting area to triangulate if I get turned around out west, I simply walk uphill to a point I can find one or two of them and I can get out every time. I have a GPS with me on all of my hunts but it only comes out if I am trying to get an understanding of the topo to get around on an animal fast, the other times I use the sun and or moon and on occasion a compass. 2.5 with compass and a 3 or 4 using the moon or sun.

Oh and I have one leg that is just longer than the other so I have to make sure I dont walk in circles, that always sucks!!

 

[Maverick1]

Good question.

I smashed my GPS screen once about 2.5 miles back into the wilderness one year. Set my backpack down on top of a rock that caught the screen at just the right angle. That kind of sucked.

I hunted for 3 more days using a map and compass. With a bivy on my back and a week's worth of food with me, I wasn't too bothered by the situation and just kept hunting. (One of the nice things about bivy/tarp hunting: you bring it all with you and don't have to worry about finding your way back to camp every night!).

However, I decided to head back to the vehicle and get my backup GPS when I gave it some thought and realized I would have a REALLY hard time locating a downed animal when I was several miles into the wilderness. (All of the aspens and pines kind of look the same, and finding the way in - and then back - well, probably not a good idea.)

Hiked down on Saturday, swapped GPS's, hiked back up the mountain, and filled my tag on Sunday. Turned out ok.

 

[Laramie]

1 in most areas I hunt. 2-3 in unfamiliar terrain. I would be a very happy man is GPS was outlawed for hunting. Point creep would reverse instantly.

 

[Idaho4x4Bronco]

Just curious to see who feels they are ready if their GPS croaked on them deep, deep in the elk woods. Individual, non-electron, land navigation skills i.e., using a compass, map, and terrain association (minimum skills) are essential in the elk woods in my opinion. Possessing good non-electronic based navigation skills can certainly help avoid some bad things if the GPS decides takes a dump. Army Field Manual 3-25.26 (Map Reading and Land Navigation) is not classified and you can actually download it for free from many sites. If a hunter does not possess some of the basic "non-electronic" land navigation skills, he/she probably shouldn't venture too far from a road/trail system until they do. These are my opinions and may not reflect yours.



Soooo.. let’s do this kind of like a poll. "I rate my map/compass skills as follows":



1. Exceptional - I am a human compass needle.. Just follow me.

2. Good - I use a map/compass effectively with no issues.

3. Poor - I'm a bit too reliant on my GPS. Need some work on my map/compass/map reading/terrain association skills.

4. No so good - Call for the search party; I'm not making it out of the woods if my GPS dies.

5. Other… (please provide comments).

6. Does RJ do anything productive besides starting these threads?

3.5ish?

I was using Onx last year following what it showed was a trail, and it turned out to be the exact opposite and actually gave me a little bit of anxiety for the first time ever. Real eye opener for me. I can honestly say I wasn't prepared to spend the night if weather went south and I wouldn't of made it out there before mid day the next day if my phone had died or Onx maps quit working.

At my age with how much time I spend hiking and camping, it was a real shock to me that I could've gotten stuck down in this hell hole unprepared for the night.

 

[Gerbdog]

3
I carry a compass with me, but then i also carry my phone with basemap on it AND a garmin GPS just incase any of them shit out. I always keep track of "if it all goes to hell i need to head East to find the river and follow that" which is where the compass comes in.

I do wish i practiced map and compass skills more though, i know how its done i just have basically never done it.

 

[cal30_sniper]

I believe a 1 on your list. I aced every Land Nav course the Marine Corps ever threw at me (except night land nav, but I still did marginally well at walking in a straight line for 1/2-1 mile in the dark), and I have been doing terrain association navigation using topo maps since before handheld GPS and smartphones were common in the civilian world. Whether it was hiking with a pack in the rough stuff or running a low-level at 500kts, I've never had a trouble staying oriented based on terrain features.

These days, I carry my inReach and an iphone with Basemap. A rechargeable portable battery pack also joins them with cords for both. I usually leave the phone set to satellite imagery on basemap and topo imagery on the Garmin app that links into the inreach. The inreach is more for its communication/SOS capability in no cell service areas than anything else. I've never been worried much about situations on foot, but I do take my old Suburban into some places getting to and fro that could be a nightmare with a hard mechanical breakdown and no comms. I carry a small Coleman compass/thermometer in the bag usually, but I've only ever really used the compass portion at night when I don't feel like blinding myself with a phone screen.

I agree with the previous answers that GPS ruins your sense of orientation/direction. I've noticed it especially when driving. If I study directions beforehand and drive without the GPS, I remember the route forever. If I'm just following GPS directions, it takes me several times to commit the route to memory unless I consciously focus on doing so.

USGS Topo maps are free on PDF. I usually print one of the area I plan to cover, with the most likely alternate egress route on the back side, 'laminate' both sides with some clear shipping tape, and throw it in the pack somewhere. Electronics do glitch/fail, batteries go dead, and things get wet, so the final backup is nice to have. Typically I find that I do enough map/terrain study before I go into a hunting area that I rarely need to reference anything once I'm boots on the ground.

 

[11boo]

I’ll call myself a 2. Infantry training in the 70s on land nav has stuck well, I still play around with a map/compass/protractor. OnX for me now though.

 

[chasewild]

3
I carry a compass with me, but then i also carry my phone with basemap on it AND a garmin GPS just incase any of them shit out. I always keep track of "if it all goes to hell i need to head East to find the river and follow that" which is where the compass comes in.

I do wish i practiced map and compass skills more though, i know how its done i just have basically never done it.

Those OTC CO elk units are tuff to navigate aren't they.

 

[Gerbdog]

Those OTC CO elk units are tuff to navigate aren't they.

Depends... my mule deer hunting spot is a bit of a monster to navigate into but thats because your trying to thread between some private plots and there isnt really a marked trail to get up onto the mesa. The GPS is huge in that situation for me. For my elk spot ... no. In that setting i could find my way back to camp just using landmarks and going up or down hill. The GPS comes out to see how close i am to a wallow i have marked so i dont accidently bump anything off of it because i approached too fast and everything looks just about the same to me in the deep timber: more steep and deadfall to navigate. That said... GPS sure can be deceiving. Last year on the pack out i looked at the GPS and thought "hey this looks like a shortcut down to the trail" .... boy was i wrong if it was any shorter i didnt notice and the terrain got terrible. Should have re-traced my steps back.

 

[Squincher]

Solid 2. I don't really have a natural sense of direction, but I learned Land Nav in the Army before GPS was a thing. Give me a map, protractor, and an M2 compass and I'll bring you home. Guaranteed.

 

[5MilesBack]

I hunted for years without a GPS without any issues, so I'll be fine either way. I don't really ever get "lost".......maybe "turned around" would be a better description. But I can always find my way out if need be.........at least in the mountains. But I also always have my compass and maps as well, so not worried about it at all.

I also have a pretty innate ability to re-find places that I want to find again even without a GPS, maps, or compass. My first GPS somehow hit the default and I lost all my waypoints. But after a couple seasons I had them all back that I wanted after finding them again.

 

[elkster]

Always have map and compass

 

[wyosam]

Use GPS for some other stuff, but I don’t even carry one while elk hunting. There are a few places I might consider it, but my regular haunts have easy to read terrain with a map and compass. I’d consider myself a 1.5.


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[22lr]

Super easy if I'm just trying to hit around a section of road, trail or river, gets more challenging to find a precise point in unfamiliar terrain, without the help of a good land feature.

Back in my younger days I hunted a Air Force base that had a system where you could claim a 100yard circle around a stand to hunt. It didn't give your exclusive rights, just the right of dibs basically. I was looking at their map and saw all these red X's marking what I thought were the possible spots. So I spent a Saturday scouting out the best areas. I navigated my happy butt to at least 8 of these red X's, and every damn one already had a stand set up. I was more than pissed ! But fealt like Lewis and Clark for my nav skills (didn't use a GPS). Drove back to the DNR office to look at the map again, and read the directions again... the dang red Xs were areas already claimed... I ended up throwing a dart on the map, and I shot 2 does, and my wife shot 1, from our stand that year! I learned an important lesson, im a decent navigator with a compass and scouting is highly overrated in some areas.

 

[Back Country Hunter 2]

OnX and programs like this make things super easy nowadays. If my phone just stopped working I have a compass, but no map. Most of the places I go, I've been going for years. I went shed hunting on the opener and only used OnX to tell me my elevation line. I grew up doing multiple backpack trips a year with my dad and brother. My dad was trained in land nav in the Army. He taught me a lot. If I was forced to go back to a map and compass it wouldn't be too bad.

 

[Squirrel Sniper]

I'd put myself at a 2.5 like a lot of others here. If I can't scope an area out in person, I at least try to familiarize myself ahead of time via sat and topo maps. Most topo apps for your phone allow you to download maps for offline use and work just fine in airplane mode. That being said, these only work as long as your phone does, and there is no substitute for a physical topographical map and compass. Found this out the hard way a couple times.

 

[Brillo]

I am terrible in new areas. That is why I carry a GPS, In Reach, compass and phone. In mountainous terrain the scale is huge and wrong turns can be deadly. The problem with the GPS is that the first time into an area I tend to wander a bit and that is not typically the best exit. Therefore backtracking sucks. Plus the screens are tiny and hard to read to plan the best exit. Also, once it gets dark and everything looks the same that compass is an agnostic regarding the BEST way out of an area. Do NOT follow me.

 

[IAMRAJ]

I'm terrible in eoods but ONX tracking feature is a blessing. Spare batteries are good. I've been lost once in coatal nw woods...5 hrs going round and round in circles, panicked but than picked one direction and walked..not even 30 minutes...saw a skidder road...looked familiar and started walking...well la dee daa...ran into my truck...how that happened...don't know but it happened

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[Warmsy]

Id say a 2. If I knew how to navigate by stars, I'd say 1.

 

[Illinihunter]

2.5, there's always room for improvement and you should never stop trying to learn