1. Wilderness Navigation
Purpose: Get you there and get you home
Fundamentals
Basic Navigation
Advanced Navigation

2. Navigation Fundamentals
Pre-Trip Planning is ESSENTIAL !!!!!!!
Required by EVERY trip member
Easy and fun to do
Discuss plans as a group, including contingency plans
Get familiar with general area (mental image)
Get familiar with specific route (mental image)
Know closest roads, escape routes, route dangers
Always Carry a Map on Yourself !
Convenience allows frequent location checks to prevent getting lost
During the Trip
Keep track of progress and location
Consider return trip at all times

3. Basic Navigation
Guidebooks provide maps and trail directions, distances, elevations, hints
AMC White Mountain Guide
Topographic Maps indicate contour of land through lines of constant elevation and are essential for identifying key landmarks
Compass indicates direction to magnetic North and can be used with or without a map

4. Topographic Maps Legend indicates:
Title
Scale
Contour interval
Magnetic declination
Trails, rivers, roads, etc.
Important land features are identifiable by their pattern of contour lines

5. Typical Topo Map Land Features

6. Typical Topo Map Land Features

7. Typical Topo Map Land Features

8. Typical Topo Map Land Features

9. Typical Topo Map Land Features

10. Advanced Navigation EASY !! Just learn and practice !
Bearings are the direction from one place to another measured in degrees of angle with respect to true North
A simple technique to allow consistent travel from one place to another

11. Advanced Navigation cont’d
Orientation through bearings allows you to locate your exact position

12. Advanced Navigation cont’d
Magnetic Declination is a discrepancy between magnetic North and true North
Must correct for this effect by adjusting compass by a known offset

13. More Advanced Techniques
Intentional bearing offset
Hiking to intermediate objectives
Back-bearings
Gain perspective through elevation
Altimeters and GPS
Much, much, more !
Intentional bearing offset: Intentionally aiming to one side of your objective, so you know which way to go when you reach an intermediate objective. For instance, aim for south of the parking lot, so that when you hit the road, you know for certain that you have to go north.
Back bearings: Bearings from a known location to you, rather than from you to a topographic features (offset by 180 degrees).