Learn Bushcraft skills by videos
watch the best bushcrafters explain techniques and skills

5 Minutes to Better Bushcraft 5 Navigational Aids

Description

http://www.selfrelianceoutfitters.com

The Pathfinder School,Bush Craft ,Survival skills, Historical Lore, Primitive Skills, Archery, Hunting, Trapping, Fishing, Navigation, Knives, Axes, Fire, Water, Shelter, Search and Rescue

Tags: Bushcraft,Survival,David Canterbury,Dave Canterbury,Pathfinder,The Pathfinder School,Archery,Hunting,Fishing,Camping,Primitive Skills,Fire,Water,Shelter,Navigation,First Aid,Search and Rescue,Signaling,Prepper,Preparedness,Self Reliance,Survivability,The 10 C's,Knives,Axes,Saws,Bow Drill,Ferrocerium Rod,Ferro Rod,Tarp,Hammock,Canteen,Cooking,Longhunter,Trapping

Video Transcription

afternoon guys I'm Dave Canterbury with self-reliance Outfitters in the Pathfinder school back in our Series five minutes to better bushcraft and today we're going to discuss five navigational aids stay with me okay real quick so you can write these down handrails backstops

attack points escape Asmus and aiming off I'm going to talk about them one at a time okay so we've got this map drawn on the whiteboard to discuss these different types of navigational tools our campus here and we're camped close to a waterway here this waterway flows up in here to a lake on our map and has a couple of confluences here where it comes in they cross the road over here to the west north being at the top of our mat okay let's talk about hand railing for a minute let's say that we want to go to this old broken-down homestead over here but we don't want to do the up the hill over the top and back down we want to be able to find an easier route to that what we can do is we can use this waterway in this valley or this valley over here as what's called a handrail we can navigate through that and stay on the low ground with high ground on both sides and until we hit this lake and then we know to go over here we could do the same thing on this side by coming up here and following this creek bed around and when we get to this confluence we know that the homestead is this direction all right so let's say for sake of purpose on this map that we've got an old homestead that we're showing over here on this map whether used to be some buildings but we know they're not there anymore and we want to go over there and possibly do some routing around for some artifacts do some metal detecting something like that maybe looking for some old bottles what-have-you we could navigate straight across here if we chose to do that go up the hill between the saddle and back over but we need what was called a backstop so that we know we didn't go too far and in this case we could use this waterway as our backstop knowing that once we go up here and go through this saddle and back down if we hit this backstop or this waterway we've gone too far we've passed our mark okay let's use this same model to talk about attack points an attack point is an area on this map that's going to be a known feature for us that's going to be easily identified when we get there that will give us a shorter distance and direct line asmath to our target area so if we're looking for this old homestead and we're at our camp we could hand rail our way up through here to this confluence which is showing on the map it's a known feature and we get to that confluence take a direct line distance and azimuth to the homestead instead of again having to try to navigate over the top of this okay let's talk real quick about escape Asmus an escape azimuth is something that you figure out before you ever leave and generally what you're going to want to escape azimuth to is a known feature that's linear and long like this road over here that we've got marked as road B we've got this road off to our West so anywhere that we were to get lost in here walking around if all else fails and we take a westerly direct West bearing since this is north we take a direct West bearing we're going to hit this road alright the last tool we need to talk about is called aiming off and aiming off is used to or in conjunction with your lateral drift so you have to know what your lateral drift is to aim off so let's use a quick example here between this camp and this homestead we talked about it earlier let's see if we get to this homestead we've done our stuff we've got to the homestead we've looked around and now we want to go back to our camp and we decided you know what instead of going back the way we came I'd like to explore this hilltop and see what's up there so what I do is I take an azimuth to my camp knowing that I have a backstop here of water in case I miss it and that's important that I have a backstop for aiming off and it would aim off in the direction of my lateral drift on purpose so if my azmuth to here was 180 I might aim over here at like 170 knowing that my lateral drift is in this direction so that when I get to here I know exactly which way to turn to get back to my camp okay guys well that was just a quick review of five navigational tools that you can use as a woodsman to help yourself

stay found and also help yourself navigate the woods easier I appreciate your views I appreciate your support I thank you for anything you do for school for family and for business all of our sponsors instructors affiliates and Friends and I'll be back with another video in a series as soon as I can thanks guys

About the Author

wildernessoutfitters

wildernessoutfitters

From the lore of bushcraft to all things related to self-sustainability, the Pathfinder vision is to pass on the knowledge of outdoor self-reliance. Providing basic to advanced self-reliance training and survival gear, our goal is to offer both practical knowledge and survival gear that will stand the test of time. From emergency preparedness to sustainability, the Pathfinder way is to share and educate.

Here you can explore the world of survival knives, survival kits and simple tips on outdoor self-reliance. We are always learning and enjoy passing on the knowledge we acquire.

There is no substitute for having a plan in the event of the unexpected.

More articles from this author