How to Use a Compass & Map • Compass Navigation Tutorial

Description

Krik of Black Owl Outdoors thoroughly yet simply explains how to navigate with just a compass and a map. Regardless of why and how you spend your times in the great out of doors, you should at least know the basic of map & compass navigation and basic orienteering.

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Tags: black owl outdoors,camping,hiking,backpacking,survival,bushcraft,wilderness,how to use a compass,compass,tutorial,map,topographic map,backcounty navigation,compass & map,orienteering,Navigation (Organization Sector),Survival Skills (TV Genre)

Video Transcription

so Turtles Creek here today black outdoors and I'm going to be doing a video simple basic how-to video of how to use a compass and a map and basically we're going to be doing is getting a degree or a line of travel from the compass or from the map using the compass and in the video I'm specifically showing how to understand the basic parts of a compass the working parts so you're going to be able to look and orient a map make sense of a map 3 you're going to be able to get a bearing from the map using your compass and 4 you're going to be able to transfer the bearing to the compass and navigate use that bearing to navigate through the woods and your line of travel now these are the basic working parts of the compass for the sake of this video we're going to be using now I've done review on this compass before the silver Ranger 515 CL which is a very feature-rich compass but for the sake of this video I'm going to keep it very basic and just get the sort of the logic and philosophy behind using a compass in a map starting here inside the needle housing I have there's the the magnet magnet eyes needle and as you can see when I'm going to move the compass this needle is going to stay pointed in one direction as I rotate the compass the needle is always going to point it's magnetized with the earth magnetic fields and that's important to know now up here the index right above where the north is there's a little tick a little V it snows notice the index and that's where you're going to be if you get a bearing or if you want to do east west south anything like that you're going to put your degree of the travel you want to put to this index right up here above the North tick on the dial and this compass has a sighting mirror which we're going to use for the video not all compasses have that some lower lower models are just going to be this clear baseplate I'm not going to have this but for the sake of this video I'm going to use this since it's here and then this the dial moving around that rotates is how you adjust your bearing or line of travel and these are the basic parts of the compass we're going to be using today alright now we have our map and this is a fictitious topographic map I've drawn just for the sake of this video it does possess a North arrow and a scale down here and I don't care what map what sort of map you get if you're going to get USGS topo map or a map of a boardwalk around a national park most important things you want to look for on a map is a North arrow which will tell you how to orient the map and a scale and I didn't really make this to scale or anything it's all made up in my head I'm topo lines and like I said now to start you're going to need to know where you are on a map for a map to be useful and to find your bearing and for the sake of this purpose I'm going to say we're right down here I'm going to make a little mark for the sake of this video I'm going to be doing it in permanent mark but if you have a map you can do it in pencil you can draw on it right on anything you want you can erase it in the maps good to go so you can use multiple different directions bearings nose anything you want and now I'm saying buddy I have no idea what's up here we're just in the forest we're going for a hike and this is where I know I am say the trailhead parked and spot whatever now as I'm looking at this map I'm not going to go in the great detail about how to read a topo map which I can do a video on if if it's desired but I can see this peak right here just the way these topo lines are arranged I know this is a peak elevation here there's one over here are probably gonna you know they're going to be probably beautiful views if there's no forest cover but for the sake of this video going to students is all forested and we want to use our compass to get a lot of travel and on this side of the water here I see there's some drainage is really flat over here maybe a few rolling hills nothing major but I have this river running here and I have this other leg of it coming down here okay that out of the way I'm standing here I want to figure out where I want to go as I'm looking at the map I see this island up here on the river and I can tell the river widens and he's really spaced out topo lines here is probably mean a floodplain which is going to be a really resource rich area by parrying species of you know flooring and have animals come in here to probably feed eat all that stuff so it's parking really cool setting and this is where I want to go so I'm going to just put a dot for the sake of right here on the side of this hill right here because once I get up here I can probably get a good view of the river and I'm going to have to traverse this mountain top or hill but it's forested maybe I'm not going to get a view up here to see where I'm really going but that's why we're going to have our compass and line to travel to help us get through the forest accurately and once I have my starting point my ending point I'm going to take my compass and I would I do have a pencil line drawn here but it's probably hard to see in the video but basically you're going to take line a or point a and point B with your compass get as parallel as you can it's tight to it and once you got that they're going to put a little bit of pressure on the compass and the map to make sure your compass doesn't move now the next part the North arrow on the compass of the dial which is here I'm going to rotate this until this North line of the compass is going to run parallel to my North arrow on the map you can imagine imaginary line coming up in Ordnung north and south out of my compass and the North arrow one of these two lines parallel I'm going to move this until I think that's right where I want it and there are smaller lines inside the compass to help you do that and this is a real topographic map you're going to have section lines township and range all these other lines to help you get really accurate they're gonna be closer to the compass but for the sake of the video I kept the map simplified and once I think I have my compass accurately on my on my line of travel I think I have my North parallel to the north on the map I'm going to have my degree and then we're agree is going to show up is the index which I've explained earlier what that is and looking about here it's about 30 degrees and that makes sense that makes sense because if we're looking at the map here's my starting point not know north zero degrees 360 I know East is 90 and 45 degrees north east and I can eyeball that so I know my line of travel just before I even touch my compass is going to be north of North East

and that's something you're kind of come with practice but it's a good skill to be able to have okay now that I have my compass and my bearing let's get the compass and show you how to use this in the woods

okay now that I have my degree or bearing or line of travel at the index where I need it my dial turned to the index I'm going to rotate the complex compass to get a rough direction of where that means when the magnetic needle the red part lines up underneath with the outline of the needle you see I rotate it rotate it and so roughly that's about where the direction going this way is where I'm going to be going so once I have that I'm going to put in front of my body and sort of square myself up with where with the direction I'm going to be going have a general reaction so look at the train before I even start moving kind of figure out where I'm going any obstacles in my immediate in my immediate path not to get really accurate readings with a compass to walk through the forest we're going to cut we're going to shoot a line of travel or bearing what I'm not going to do is I'm not going to keep the compass right in front of me right here and try to keep this needle lined up in the outline of the needle and trying to walk through the fork with each turn each step each step I take try to try to readjust

it's very inaccurate you're staring at the compass the whole entire time which is not going to afford you to let you observe anything around you so what you do is this is where the sighting meter comes in handy as its own this compost I'm going to use it I'm going to bend it about 45 degree angle maybe more depending on your height and your liking I'm going to hold the compass out in front of me at arm's length at eyesight and it's going to be out to be at the height of your eyes that's why you need the mirror to reflect the dial and once I accurately get the needle where I think it's right in I'm going to use this site right here where my fingers pointing almost as you would a firearm site when you're looking down the barrel of firearm instead of aiming this at an object that I want to hit with a firearm basically anything that's in my aim is going to be considered a target and now while I want to find the target that's farthest away from me that's directly in my line of travel being on my thirty degrees

and once I have that I can put the compass away I picked out a tree that's really that's really far off the distance as far as I can see I'm going to take a couple steps maybe take a couple steps look around look around this way that way make sure I'd really understand the object that I've chosen to walk to and I because you know if you pick a tree and I'm in a in a very forested area it's compain the but to do this method of travel with a compass it can blend in very easy and you could think it's one tree you know and you know in actuality it's a different tree and all that but you have to really kinda in brain what your objects going to be that you're walking towards and once I have that I'm going to just walk directly towards the tree that I've chosen or rock and also what that's going to really help you keep an accurate line is if there's a feature in front of me say there's a stream I can't cross or a bunch of blowdown I can't get across I can still pick out where my object is that I'm walking towards I can look at it before I cross the cross the you know debris or stream I can look ahead and see okay right there in my line travel or on that side of creeks where I need to be and this is where I came from and I'm look in here okay and there's a rock I want to get to and then I can walk around the object and get back on my line to travel without picking up my conference again and then once I've reached the point of where I want to go and say is going to be this tree for the sake of the video this is where I ended up this is the first object I've cited with this compass I'm going to reach here get my tompa's out on the degree of already chosen for my line of travel and do the same exact thing what I'll hold it up find out where my 30 degrees is pick a new object I'm a compass away and walk to that new object I'm just going to repeat this and repeat this until you get to your destination it's a very accurate way to travel but like I said in the forest it's going to be a little bit difficult because it's really thick a lot of things look similar but it's very accurate way of traveling and I hope this video is informative I hope it was helpful leave comments berate me anything you like anything you see fit

and this is Crick signing out back outdoors later Turtles