When the GPS dies...

Eight of you asked about navigation in the multi-day readiness quiz last week. More specifically, what to do when GPS fails and you're standing there with just a map and a compass. One reader put it as "how to navigate using landmarks or a compass when GPS fails." Three more asked how to use a compass at all.

The honest answer is that it starts before the GPS fails. Well before.

Years ago I crossed the Frankland Range in central Tasmania and on day three we had to do it in a complete white-out. Thick mist, no horizon, visibility down to a few metres. This was early in the handheld gps days. We had a map, a compass and our own eyes.

Every so often the mist thinned for a few seconds and we could see the same three small hills off to one side. That was all we had, so we used them. Each glimpse gave us a fix, and those three hills lined up with a ridge we needed to reach. Move on the bearing, wait, watch for the hills, confirm, adjust. We never rushed it and we never guessed.

We reached the ridge as the mist lifted, and there it was, running away in front of us exactly where it should be. My buddies, Ferg and Gordo grinned, as did I.

We were never lost in that white-out because we never stopped knowing where we were. The mist took away the view. It did not take away the last known position, because we had been keeping it the whole way.

A GPS failing is only a problem if you were letting it do the knowing for you.

The habit is simple. Keep your thumb on your position on the map and slide it along as you walk. Every time the ground changes (a creek, a junction, a climb, a saddle) look up and confirm it against the map. Five seconds. Then walk on.

Do that and a dead battery, a cracked screen or a phone that will not wake up in the cold is an annoyance, not an emergency. You already know where you are, you know which way you were heading, and you know what the next feature should be.

If you only open the map once you feel unsure, you are starting from your last guess. If you have been checking all day, you are starting from your last fix. That is the whole difference.

This is the one people miss.

It is not enough for one person in the group to know where you are. The one with the map is the one who slips on a wet root and does their ankle. Or walks ahead. Or gets cold and stops thinking clearly. If nobody else has been following along, the group's navigation just walked off with them.

So on your next trip, hand the map around. At each break, ask someone else to put a finger on where you are and say what comes next. It costs a minute. It means the group knows, not just a person.

Now the question three of you actually asked: how do I use the thing?

I have just finished the second edition of my book Pathfinder, and Chapter 4 is where all of this lives in full. But it comes down to two ideas and two drills.

The first idea is red Fred in the shed. The red end of the needle is Fred. The outline arrow inside the dial is his shed. When you turn things so Fred is sitting in his shed, your compass is lined up. Every step after that is a version of putting Fred in the shed.

The second idea is the two norths. The top of your map is grid north. Fred points to magnetic north. In Tasmania the gap is about 15 degrees east, and it is printed in the margin of every good topographic map. Walk 1 kilometre on a bearing that is 15 degrees out and you end up about 260 metres to one side of where you meant to be. In scrub or fog, that is enough to miss a lake you were planning to camp at. A compass with adjustable declination fixes it once. If yours does not adjust, you allow for it yourself, and you must allow for it every time.

The two drills are lining up your map and walking a bearing. Three steps each, and they take longer to read than to do. Practise both at the kitchen table with any paper map, five or six times, until your hands know the moves. Then on your next easy walk, run the thumb-on-the-map habit the whole way, even on a clear formed track where you cannot possibly get lost.

Staying found is a routine you build on the quiet days. By the time the mist rolls in, you want it to already be there.

THAT’S ALL FOR THIS WEEK

Thanks for reading Mowser’s Musings. I hope this helps you hike further and happier.

Until next week, keep exploring.

Mowser

Discover more. Hike further.

P.S. The compass pages from the new edition of Pathfinder, with the diagrams, are yours free. Download them here: Finding Your Way with a Map and Compass. Six pages. Print them, take them outside with a compass and any paper map, and do the two drills for real. If you want the rest of the book, it is at mowser.com.au/pathfinder-book.