Best Backcountry Navigation

[hoyden]

When I was a kid and would go out with my grandpa and a compass. It was great learning!

While I quite like a lot that modern technology affords us, I've had batteries die on devices often, rain or lakes make cell phones obsolete...

Having analog tools is often more reliable.
GPS is easier ... except when it isn't.
I like to have both for backup of each other.

In my truck, I have built in Navigation, my cell phones (work = Sprint, personal = Verizon), downloaded maps on my phones and iPad, hard copy bound maps, and I also print out maps of where I am planning to go and put those in a 3-ring binder.
(overkill, but I like maps )

Sucks when the dog accidentally rips up your only map in exuberance for seeing a deer through the window.... (haven't had that happen, but close enough to make me have back-ups)

 

[takesiteasy]

Which model do you have? http://store.silvacompass.com/compass-with-baseplate

It looks closest to the Explorer or Polaris models- it's probably 40 years old. Your question prompted me to do a little research and I learned that due to a trademark dispute back in the 90s, Silva compasses sold in North America are no longer made in Sweden by Silva- news to me. Some evidently now are made in China and elsewhere. Knowing this, I would probably go with the Suunto brand now- made in Finland and also well regarded. The one linked above looks good to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silva_compass

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Outdoors

edit: added link to Johnson Outdoors/wikipedia

 

[hoyden]

It looks closest to the Explorer or Polaris models- it's probably 40 years old. Your question prompted me to do a little research and I learned that due to a trademark dispute back in the 90s, Silva compasses sold in North America are no longer made in Sweden by Silva- news to me. Some evidently now are made in China and elsewhere. Knowing this, I would probably go with the Suunto brand now- made in Finland and also well regarded. The one linked above looks good to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silva_compass

Wow! Thanks for that info!

 

[craig333]

So I'm in the Eldorado NF last weekend. Pull out my map case. No Eldo map. Pull out the other map case. No map either. Oops. At least I was in somewhat familiar territory and my memories haven't completely failed me. Oh, and I'd left the gps at home /doh.

 

[ski3pin]

Hi all!

After doing some searching and reading through this thread... what specific compass do you have?
My (step) brother recommends this military compass, but it's pricey ... what recommendations have you?

thanks!

hoyden, the Lady & I love land navigation and have been teaching classes for over 25 years. As many of the topics posted on WTW attest, with advances in gps technology the world of recreational land navigation has changed dramatically. But, from my perspective, the basic skills remain the same and should not be overlooked.

In looking for a compass, things to consider -

a rectangular baseplate allows the compass to be used as a protractor on your map. This allows quick exchange of information from map to field and from field to map. Declination adjustment allows for eliminating the math involved in the ever changing difference between magnetic north (the language your compass needle uses) and true north (the language your map uses). A mirrored compass helps provides an accurate handheld reading in the field - as well as giving us an emergency signalling mirror and a mirror for putting in our contacts in the morning.

This is the compass we use, recommend, and provide to the students in the classes we teach -

Silva Ranger

 

[highz]

I agree it is worth it to get a compass that lets you set the magnetic declination. Here's a nifty calculator you can use to find the declination anywhere you will be headed.

I should add that you don't need to spend extra on a global needle unless you plan to travel to the southern hemisphere, but I've discovered it has an added advantage. The needle settles on north quickly, and doesn't stick if you are a little off-level.

I also have a mirrored compass, but have found that I can sight pretty accurately without the mirror, and wind up taking the Suunto without a mirror on most hiking trips because of its smaller form factor. Just my experience. As always, YMMV.

 

[MarkBC]

....This is the compass we use, recommend, and provide to the students in the classes we teach -

Silva Ranger

I've owned a Silva Ranger for many years....decades now, I guess. It lives in my daypack, so it's always with me on a hike. (This is probably the second one I've owned -- the first one replaced when an air bubble in the liquid got too big and interfered with the needle.)
I learned of the Ranger during my college summers for the US Forest Service surveying road routes -- it's what they used (when not using transits/theodolites).

I learned map & compass skills in the Boy Scouts, so...getting on towards half a century ago now. Same skills still apply in this millennium.

I don't remember the last time I used my compass for actual navigation -- yes, I use and like modern electronic tools. But just a couple years ago...
...While in the White Mts of California I used my Silva Ranger to take a bearing (enabled by the Ranger's mirror as Mr 3pin points out) on an unknown peak in the Sierra -- across that 10,000-foot-deep chasm of the Owens Valley -- and then laid my Ranger on a paper National Forest map of the region, applied that bearing from my known location, pointing with the edge of the Ranger, and identified the peak!
Many years ago, while backpacking in the Trinity Alps of northern CA (long before GPS existed), I did use my compass -- along with a 7.5-minute USGS quad map -- for actual navigation: I took bearings on 2 known peaks and triangulated to find where I was along the trail. I know there were other times, too, but I still remember that one, for some reason...I can still picture that bare mountainside that made sighting on landmarks easy.

 

[takesiteasy]

...
In looking for a compass, things to consider -

a rectangular baseplate allows the compass to be used as a protractor on your map. This allows quick exchange of information from map to field and from field to map. Declination adjustment allows for eliminating the math involved in the ever changing difference between magnetic north (the language your compass needle uses) and true north (the language your map uses). A mirrored compass helps provides an accurate handheld reading in the field - as well as giving us an emergency signalling mirror and a mirror for putting in our contacts in the morning.
...

I agree with all Ski's comments, although I don't have contacts...

...
I also have a mirrored compass, but have found that I can sight pretty accurately without the mirror, and wind up taking the Suunto without a mirror on most hiking trips because of its smaller form factor. Just my experience. As always, YMMV.

I like the lighter non-mirror compass as well as it hangs around my neck most of the time and doesn't weigh as much- just personal preference. You can sight fine with a little head bobbing, haha. I might feel differently if I was gallivanting around the Sierras like the Ski3pins do. A bonus is that they are less expensive if you should lose it, although I've never lost mine, probably because it is always hanging around my neck.

 

[Smokecreek1]

Then there was the time in the pre GPS era when the compass didn't work because of certain geological conditions blotted out magnetic north. We were working in a new-to us- area in the central Sierras where we had been warned our compasses would not work. Well with compasses in hand and as experienced "back woodsmen/ladies" , we sort of brushed off the warnings and headed into the area. We had been told that magnetic north was indicated by painted rocks, bench marks and on "K" tags. After wandering around with maps/compass in hand for a while (we were looking for an old cabin that was to be our main survey reference point, we started finding our foot prints in the sand and it looked we were almost where we had started from-hmmmm -something is wrong here !

Not to be deterred, we headed off again-ignoring our basic outdoors skills-west we thought! After a while, the newest member of our survey team said "hey, how come if we are going west the sun is at our back?" I guess he had a point and we swallowed our pride, sat down, looked at our maps and the land-what nature provided us to use- and figured out were we were. Yep if the old way of doing things was good enough for our ancestors, the locals and geese, it was good enough for us . Ya know you can never be to smart not to (re)learn something new-even if it is old fashioned!

Smoke

 

[ski3pin]

After a while, the newest member of our survey team said "hey, how come if we are going west the sun is at our back?" I guess he had a point and we swallowed our pride, sat down, looked at our maps and the land-what nature provided us to use- and figured out were we were. .................................................................. Ya know you can never be to smart not to learn something new-even if it is old fashioned!

Smoke

Great story Smoke! We always stress (because we all are prone to tunnel vision) "Don't forget to stop and look at the big picture."

 

[Smokecreek1]

Yep, you got that right Ski, still remember that experience--and it happened in 1973--to a then very well qualified field experienced outdoors man (and army vet too), crew chief and his experienced survey crew , who thought he/they knew it all !

Smoke

 

[Foy]

Gee, Smoke, I'm a little disappointed your newbie was even around to make that comment. SOP on our field geologist crews, populated by guys from NC and Virginia colleges and having no experience in the Public Lands Survey System, was to send the newbies off on an urgent mission, on their first day in the field, to solve a problem with the rig over in Section 37. We'd make sure he knew he was to remain in radio contact with us on the open work channel all the way there and report when the rig was found and the problem solved.

Good times!

Foy

 

[Smokecreek1]

Foy

To pick up a sky hook, I bet! !!! Maybe a left handed wrench too! The "newbie" got a PHD several years later, so he showed potential early on . Yep, those were good times!

Smoke

 

[takesiteasy]

Smoke, great story. I can relate as northern Minnesota is filled with magnetic rocks. I have a picture somewhere in the archives with two compasses on opposite sides of a rock pointing north towards the rock. Not good!

 

[Foy]

Smoke, great story. I can relate as northern Minnesota is filled with magnetic rocks. I have a picture somewhere in the archives with two compasses on opposite sides of a rock pointing north towards the rock. Not good!

The iron oxide magnetite (actually a ferrous-ferric iron oxide) is itself magnetic and is a fairly common component of igneous rocks. Its presence in outcrop or beneath thin soils can foul a compass right up. Ditto rocks rich in non-magnetic iron such as the oxide ore of iron known as hematite and the hydrous oxide ore of iron known as hematite.

The Long Range Desert Group used sun compasses to navigate trackless sand seas in the Libyan Desert since compass errors caused by their vehicles' mass of iron and by local magnetic disturbances could be fatal in terms of missing a remote spring or well oasis.

Foy

 

[hoyden]

hoyden, the Lady & I love land navigation and have been teaching classes for over 25 years. As many of the topics posted on WTW attest, with advances in gps technology the world of recreational land navigation has changed dramatically. But, from my perspective, the basic skills remain the same and should not be overlooked.

In looking for a compass, things to consider -

a rectangular baseplate allows the compass to be used as a protractor on your map. This allows quick exchange of information from map to field and from field to map. Declination adjustment allows for eliminating the math involved in the ever changing difference between magnetic north (the language your compass needle uses) and true north (the language your map uses). A mirrored compass helps provides an accurate handheld reading in the field - as well as giving us an emergency signalling mirror and a mirror for putting in our contacts in the morning.

This is the compass we use, recommend, and provide to the students in the classes we teach -

Silva Ranger

I wanna come take classes from you! :-D

thanks for the recommendation!

and Smoke - great story!