Sense of direction?

my good sense of direction has had it's ass kicked too many times....

A little Bit that maybe you all will find helpful using the GPS... change the settings to show a bearing most of the defaults just have the cardinal letters (N,S,E,W).With a bearing you can set your compass and shut of the GPS...save on batteries or if they run out you are still good to go with the bearing..you also can pan with your pointer to a track line or known way points and get the bearing...you can pan to a know physical reference(river or road on mapping soft wear) as well .....it is a real handy tool. If you can get maps with the UTM the GPS is especialy useful cause you can easily set up the gps to show the UTM and plot yourself exactly on the map and when you know where you are it is easy to take a bearing to get where you want to be.
 
My sense of direction is good but in the woods, I would not hunt or travel alone and have all the tools handy just in case.. getting lost even for a short time was enough for me..
 
I personally have never been lost in the bush, but I have spent the night under a big fir tree on Admiralty Island with a good buddy who was hopelessly lost ;):D As someone said earlier we just went for a little afternoon walk, cut a deer track in the heavily falling snow and wandered aimlessly for miles expecting to jump the deer any second. Having been a Boy Scout, I knew all the little stuff about how to determine north when lost in the bush.....I was actually quite amazed at what I picked up in the 2 months I was a scout before they booted my precocious little a$$ out......No disrespect H, but on Admiralty Island the moss does grow all the way around every tree and all the way to the top from what I could see, but then I couldn't see the tops as they were some 3-400 feet up and in the clouds. In the heavy overcast and snow we couldn't even get a fix on where the sky was brighter. During the night we could hear ships in the shipping lane to the east, we knew they had to be east because we were on the east side of Admiralty, we took a fix on the sound and headed out when light came, it was still snowing. An interesting note at this point is that I am seriously right handed , footed and dominant eyed, my hunting buddy was left handed and footed, with a right dominant eye.....as we headed in the direction of the sound we heard the night before, the squabble started, I finally acquiesced as he was 10 years my senior and supposedly had much more experience in the bush than I. As I followed him, knowing we were headed the wrong direction, I figured it would be better to die with a buddy than alone in the wilderness. I watched him hop across a little creek and a whole bunch of scouting, orienteering and general knowledge flooded into my awareness........All water runs to the ocean..... which I immediately and very diplomatically pointed out to him and added that he may continue North by Northwest if he so chose, I however would be following the creek to the sea, and the beach then back to camp. Which we did, the fact that he was only carrying a handgun and I had the 375 H&H and a handgun might have had something to do with his decision as well, as we had cut several grizzly tracks during our adventure.
My greatest downfall during this fiasco was relying on my partner to keep track of where we were going, when I should have been taking my own notes as well. We had made many, many mistakes and were allowed to live and learn from them. Given the right conditions anyone can get lost in the bush, and do every year and usually one or more perish because of it.
I have spent virtually all my hunting years, hunting in the mountains of the Yukon, it is impossible to get lost for all but the Darwin Award candidates. I have flown over to Yellowknife and seen the flat featureless bush there and have no idea how one would navigate that country even with a topo map and compass, every pothole lake and rock hill looks exactly like the next or last............not for this cowboy thanks!!!
 
D, you never did tell us if a lefty turns left or right, when he loses direction.
I am basically right handed, but chop wood and bat the ball left handed. I can think of two prominent times when I made the 360 degree turn and found my own tracks in the snow. In both cases I turned left, but wondering if there is any rule to go by.
In one case I was in the featureless bush of northerly Saskatchewan and the other time was in BC, but it was in rolling, open alpine in a heavy snow storm, blotting out all features. That night was spent under a spruce tree because of the 360 degree turn earlier.
 
H, general wisdom says that we will stride somewhat longer with the dominant leg/foot, however he was doing a definite left oriented circle..........I was just arguing with him as he led, so I'm not sure if I would have circled left or right. That was the only time I have been totally disoriented in the bush and there were several factors complicating the matter, due to the heavy snowfall we were unable to backtrack ourselves very far but we were not totally lost, more just ran out of daylight and decided to hole up for the night. We knew we had moved north and west from camp and the next day we had only been going for 1/2 hour or so when we cut the creek. It was still very disconcerting not having a firm grasp of where camp was, but common bush sense prevailed and all was well.
Most nights I have spent under the stars (so to speak) have been due to over estimating my ability for the time frame allotted or bad weather making it impossible to see and questioning my position even though knowing deep down that I did in fact know where I was and exactly how to get back to camp. I have never struck out alone in country I was not familiar with or featureless country. Always have hunted with a local and almost always with a topo and very featured country. One of the decided advantages of being a devout mountain hunter I guess. But make no mistake about it I would be totally lost in the featureless flat wilderness around Yellowknife in a heartbeat, even with a topo map I'm afraid. The good news is there is nothing there I want to hunt. I was lost most of the time when walking in the Congo, but knowing I had trackers and a PH whose job it was to know where we were at all times allowed me to concentrate on being quiet and look for snakes and ants, rather than maintain my bearings at all times.
I must also say that after flying for years I have a much better innate sense of direction than before, but as Dogleg says that only applies to the northern hemisphere, I suspect you have found the same from flying. I think we just are more observant, even unconsciously, as being lost while flying is REALLY disconcerting.
 
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Rugdoc said:
I wonder how many hunters these days know how to walk into the bush for 500 yards without a GPS and find their way out.
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500 meters, that's it!?!? I try to get myself lost but I can't. LOL!!! The only gift that God gave me is a wonderful sense of direction............... I don't even take a compass, let alone a GPS.
 
track said:
500 meters, that's it!?!? I try to get myself lost but I can't. LOL!!! The only gift that God gave me is a wonderful sense of direction............... I don't even take a compass, let alone a GPS.
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Yikes... this is gonna be fun...
 
track said:
500 meters, that's it!?!? I try to get myself lost but I can't. LOL!!! The only gift that God gave me is a wonderful sense of direction............... I don't even take a compass, let alone a GPS.
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Famous last words f:P:2:







Anywhoooo...when it happens and it will (sure pal whatever) it scares/embarasses you something fierce.


I have been out a couple times and got a bit turned around and became quit discombobulated after realizing that night was right around the corner and I was kilometers away from my truck and in virgin territory. Of course you don't want to just turn around and follow the easy path back but take a shortcut that will have you back in no time at all. Of course I have my map, compass and Gps with me but hell, you dont' need that; you know where you are, why check? Just right over there, behind that hill..........or the next one past that lake (lake?) .........yep just across this golf course........


Lo and behold, all is not what it seems. Pull out the map/gps and my gosh! You over here and not over there! You have that nice internal conversation with yourself that you really goofed or that your gps is obviously running on low batteries and hence the wrong grid.



Too get truly lost try some map/compass in Wainwright/Suffield/Sarcee training areas during a nice cold cloudy wet night. Makes you pay attention right quick.
 
Well.... in the interest of keeping this on "track".... I would say I have as an excellent a sense of direction as one can get (thanks to natural ability and years of receiving and instructing cf recce training)..... providing one thinks this is a sk8ll that can be natural or trained....

BUT I have been turned around, come out 500 meters down the trail further than I wanted to.... and I must admit I have been in situations where I was more than worried to see the sun going down....

Gps is a nice back up to a compass imop...
 
Some great tips here. Was waiting for your post 37 Boomer and the tip to keep turning around and looking behind you so you can remember something of how the trip out will look. Would like to hear some more of your old trapper's tips H4831.

GPS is great, but creates total dependency. Surely it's better to navigate without it, but use it as a regular check along the way, or of course in emergencies. That way you hone your skills without risking getting lost. Relying on it alone is like going to sea without knowing enough celestial navigation to get you home. And speaking of which, a knowledge of the stars is very useful as well.

There are books on this stuff, but how many of us ever both to open one?

I wouldn't say that no one has a natural sense of direction. Look at the animals, even the Monarch butterfly. In some cases we don't even know what cues they are using, but the earth's magnetic field seems to be the consensus. There are probably people who are in some way better tuned in to this than most of us.
 
If nothing else, this thread should make us stop and think how damn inadequate we are, compared to animals, birds and even fish. Your dog can always find his way home and so can a cat. A few years ago a family from Vernon BC were in the west Kootenay and their cat got away from them. That was in August and one evening in the following January the cat meowed at the door of their home in Vernon! The cat was lost on the east side of the Columbia River system and Vernon is on the west side. The only way the cat could have crossed was on the Trans-Canada Highway bridge at Revelstoke, or wait until a dammed up lake on the river system froze, then cross on the ice.
In the old days on the prairie many people were saved because their horses could take them home, even in the worst of blinding blizzards.
A few years ago a grizzly was making a nuisance of himself in a valley in south western BC. They trapped him, put a radio collar on him and trucked him to a western state that wanted the bear. A month later the grizzly was back in his valley in BC!
Yet people have perished because they got lost in a blizzard going from the barn to their house.
In short, it seems like every other creature is better at finding their way around, than are people. It sure makes a guy think.
 
Mark the trees with a hatchet or tape and stop every time you turn to look behind you because that's what you see when you're walking back.
 
I pride myself on having the local knowledge to know where I am at all times.. That is until it gets dark an you are way up a creek system an You cannot see any Peaks ... (read 24 hour adventure -hunting thread)

until that day I didn't need a GPS, now im lookin into buying one for the sole purpose of incase I DO get lost again an darkness falls!

Cheers
WL
 
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