How to use a map and compass IN DETAIL

uh our map encompass our tools which will allow us to visit cool places and so i don't want you to lose sight of that the reason that we use any of these tools such as the gps your phone or your keen sense of direction is to visit these cool places but what i want to talk about specifically in this video is the compass and how that is going to be used in conjunction with the topographic map and so what i have right here is a topographic map of the santa cruz mountains in california and what we are going to be doing in this video is driving to a particular spot and then determining a landmark based on taking a bearing of it and then cross referencing that bearing with our map so before i go into the example though i need to explain really briefly the idea of the topographic map and how that compares to a map that you may find in a book like this right here where you have general trails and general landmarks depicted but not much detail and what the maps in these books typically lack as compared to a map like the one that we're going to be using in the example is this map has elevation depicted in detail but one thing i wanted to point out is with these maps you often have the relevant portions of your hike depicted so i don't want you to discount the importance of using a map like this in your trip planning but what i want to do is talk specifically about the topographic map and how to read these maps and then i'm also going to be going through the compass specifically and talking about each one of the parts what they all do how to set your declination and then also some of the idea around navigating on the globe and how the lines of latitude and longitude translate to your map so before we go into the example i need to make a disclaimer which is that this video is going to be a tutorial video and is going to be quite lengthy it is also supposed to be a video for beginners and it is going to cover off the basics there is quite a lot of detail that one could go into with regards to navigation and using a map and compass specifically and so then this video is meant to be the basics so let's go ahead and go through the items that you're going to need to bring with you so obviously you're going to need to bring at a minimum your compass and your map now i have right here a base plate compass with a siding mirror on it and we're going to be using the one with the siding mirror now there are some compasses that you can get and you can still use that do not have the siding mirror but the siding mirror is a feature which i think will benefit you greatly in your navigation career and one of the main advantages to the one with the setting mirror is that you can lock your bearing which will prevent your compass from losing its bearing as you hold it in your pocket we will go through quite a bit of detail on all this stuff in the example and obviously you're going to need to bring your map now i do want to point out one thing which is that i usually bring something called a map bag with me now a map bag is basically a mechanism that allows you to store your map and prevent it from getting damaged wet or creased now this map right here is a waterproof map but i have found that over the years even with a waterproof map you can still find that your map will get damaged so you will normally put your map into the map bag like this but i have found that the problem with putting your map in the map bag like this is that you cannot read it so what i typically will do is i will actually take the map and unfold it like this and this map what it does is first it folds out into thirds and then it does this whole accordion thing like this and just make a mental note of where you are going to be hiking so that you have the area down and ready to go when you go on your hike and so then where we're going to be going here is going to be a spot that i've planned out in the santa cruz mountains and it's this spot right here sempervirens point right next to castle rock state park and we're going to be standing at this overlook and observing the field and then finding a landmark and then taking a bearing of it and determining that landmark by looking at our map so because i'm going to need this quadrant right here primarily i'm actually going to go ahead and fold the map up into that quadrant and then i'm going to fold it over again like this and so then now i have this nice neat little square with the area that i need right here and so then i'm going to go ahead and take this square and place it inside of the matte bag like so and then what i do is i actually go ahead and i squeeze all the air out of the mat bag and then i do this whole ziploc thing like right up until the very end here and then what i do is i go ahead and i fold it over again once more so that i get all the air out and then i seal it and now i have a sealed map that i can pull out as a reference when i'm hiking and it will show me the area that i need at my disposal and the other thing about folding your map like this is that you can fold it over again like this and then you can actually carry this map in your pocket now your map is not going to do any good if it's stuffed in the bottom of your pack so i can't emphasize the importance of having your map and your compass readily available at your disposal during your hike so now that we have the map bag and the map out of the way and we've discussed the very basics of the compass now what we're going to do is we're going to go into the compass more specifically and we're going to discuss each individual part before we do that i have to make one more disclaimer which is the map and the compass are not meant to be a security blanket nor is your gps so the over reliance on any one particular device or navigation mechanism can lead you to problems for example if your gps runs out of batteries it is no longer functional if your compass is broken it is no longer functional so you need to be aware of a combination of skills that you will need in order to function properly in your hiking career so let's go ahead and dive right into the compass and i will show you how all the parts work on this specific compass okay so i'm now going to be explaining the parts of the compass let me first start off by saying that there are five major parts to the compass and so i'm going to go ahead and list these parts now and then go into further detail about each one specifically the first one is the base plate and this is the flat part of the compass the part that i'm holding down now with my two fingers and then on top of the base plate we have the bezel that is the circular part here that rotates and then on top of the base plate and the bezel and independent from them you have something called the magnetized needle that is this red one here on top of all of these you have a mirror which closes down and forms a lid that protects your bearing and your bezel and then on the bottom of the compass here you have the lanyard which is attached here and on that lanyard is a tool and that tool is going to be used to adjust a screw on the back of your compass which will change something called the declination adjustment which i will show you in quite a bit of detail in the next section so let's go ahead and start off with the base plate and the base plate has two major functions the first thing the base plate does is that because it has these straight edges on both sides it allows you to plot a bearing and then the other thing that the base plate does is that it allows you to look in a direction of travel or a line of sight so for example i'm going to pan down here to the bottom and show you there is something called the direction of travel arrow that is this right here and that is going to point you in the direction that you will be facing when you're going to be using the compass okay so as you're looking this way you see this marker here which i call the bearing and then on the other side you have something called the back bearing which is this marker here and so then this is the direction that you're looking and as you're looking this way you will find that you can see through this window here the siding mirror has this window and you can position a landmark in that window and then face your direction of travel i sometimes call the direction of travel the line of sight because there are times when you're going to be using it to determine a line of sight but not necessarily a direction of travel so for example if i was to place the compass on top of my head and then turn my head to the left like this that is changing my line of sight or my direction of travel and as i rotate the compass like this what you will notice is that the magnetized needle that would be this one that one does not rotate and that is very important to understand in the operation of the compass and the reason for that is because the magnetized needle is pointing towards magnetic north right now where i am in space in other words my exact location as i'm filming this north is this direction according to magnetic north i'm going to go over what the difference is between true north and magnetic north in a second but first i'd like to direct your attention to the bezel okay the bezel is located on top of the base plate that is the circular part of the compass the part that rotates when you turn it like this and you will notice that the bezel actually has a fair amount of stiffness to it in other words it doesn't glide around smoothly and that is by design so that you can lock a bearing into the compass and then when you close the mirror i'll talk about the mirror in a second that will keep your compass from losing its bearing the bearing that you have locked into the compass so there are a couple other things i need to point out about the bezel and the first one is that it's used to orient the compass and the map in other words let's just say north is going this direction on the map i also want to have the compass's bezel situated so that north that would be this marker here is facing that same direction and when i say facing north i mean you see these red lines here on the compasses bezel so these are called the meridian lines of the compass and on your map you're going to find blue lines that run vertically like this as well and you're going to want to align those lines so that they're parallel and that will help enable you to get a very precise measurement between your map and your compass so this is what that would look like if we had a map in front of us imagine these blue lines here represent the blue meridian lines of the map that run vertically in other words north is this way on the map and so then the compass's bezel is used to align those two so that you have north on the bezel situated in the same direction as north on the map so for example if i was to position the compass like this on the map then i would actually have to rotate the bezel itself in order to realign the compass's meridian lines with the maps however if i was to do that then i would no longer be facing on a north facing bearing if i was to hold the compass in this way that would be considered a north facing bearing because i am at zero degrees right now and my compass is facing and oriented in that direction i want to point out one other thing and that is the box that is this hollow needle here in the middle of the screen some people call this the dog house or the shed whatever works for you use that as long as you can remember what it does so this box is used to determine the magnetic north direction on your map so right now this magnetized needle is pointing to magnetic north where i am right now and that area has a 13 degree eastward declination adjustment so for example if i was to move the compass like this by rotating it then what you will find is that when i box that needle like that what this is actually telling me is that north is this direction right here if i was in an area that had zero degrees of declination however i'm in an area that has a 13 degree eastward declination adjustment so what that means is that this needle is actually shifted over this way 13 degrees and so i actually want to move this box over as well to compensate for this difference this is going to make a lot more sense when i go into the declination section specifically but i wanted to introduce you to this concept of the box so then there is one other thing i want to point out on the compass's bezel and that is this arrow right here this is called the clinometer and i am going to ask that you ignore this needle basically what it does is it falls down with gravity and it is used to measure the height of an object i never use this feature because your map has elevations listed and i don't want you to get confused by it so i'm going to ask that you ignore this arrow from this point forward so then on the compass's mirror i want to point out one other thing which is apart from the fact that it protects your bezel like this you know i can't tell you how many times i have bought the cheaper compasses and had them broken because they were in my pack and then the bezel was damaged that's why i recommend buying the compasses that have the mirror because it protects your bezel but then the other thing that the mirror does is that you can use it in an emergency situation to signal the sun with three consecutive flashes three consecutive anything in a row is a universal signal for sos and that can be a life-saving feature in certain situations and so then the last thing i want to point out on the compass is the fact that the bearing marker the box the needle the bezel and this marker which i call the back bearing are illuminated in other words they glow in the dark so let me go ahead and illustrate that by loading these up with light and then turning off the lights in my room here and you will see that these markers actually glow in the dark so not everyone knows this but your compass can actually function in the dark like this okay so now let's go ahead and take a deeper dive into how to do the declination adjustment so before we go ahead and do the declination adjustment in detail i first want to briefly explain a little bit about how declination works and how it is monitored over time so your declination will actually change throughout the years because of how the earth's magnetic poles are shifting around and so then at the time that this map was printed which was 2013 the approximate declination was 14 degrees east is what it says right here and then it actually says down here the approximate annual change is six minutes west i'll explain what minutes are in another section but basically they're an increment of degrees in other words you could calculate your declination with a fairly reliable accuracy based on the declination that existed in 2013 and 14 degrees it's actually shifted over now it's now 13 degrees approximately based on this map here but if you wanted to get really precise what you would need to do is you would need to go to magneticdeclination.com and here you will find that you can input a city's name or you can click on a point on the map and right now i've clicked on the point where we will be standing when we take our bearing and that location's gps coordinates are 37 degrees 15 minutes north and 122 degrees 9 minutes west and the declination in that area is 13 degrees and 4 minutes which is about 13 degrees so what we are going to do now is perform the declination adjustment i would like to pan down this way and show you something on the bezel and that is the fact that the box is positioned right now completely parallel with these red meridian lines this would be a situation in which we have zero degrees of declination adjustment in other words if we were hiking in an area where true north and magnetic north were the same then this is how the box would be positioned however we are going to be hiking in an area that requires a 13 degree eastern declination adjustment and so then what we want to do is have this box shifted over this way 13 degrees in order to compensate for this difference in other words the magnetized needle here when that is positioned like this in the area that we will be hiking that is going to be telling us that true north is this direction right here so let's go ahead and pan down to the bottom of the compass and i want you to see that there is this semicircular scale around the perimeter of the bezel here and that scale is actually printed on the bottom of the bezel so let's go ahead and turn the compass over onto the back side and what i want you to see on this scale is that there is a zero degree marking in the middle and then on both sides there are markings between 0 and 90 degrees all of those red hash marks are 2 degrees and all of the white spaces are odd numbers i also want you to notice the fact that this side is labeled as eastern and this side is labeled as western remember this is the back of the bezel we are looking at so everything here is going to be the opposite of what it is on the front i would now like to draw your attention to the black arrow on the top of the screen which is designating or pointing to this black hash mark this marker tells us what the declination is set to right now it is set to zero degrees and i cannot see any red on either side of that black hash mark that means right now we are at dead center or 0 degrees and so then what we want to do is we want to move this hash mark over this direction in order to get to 13 degrees and because each of these red hash marks are 2 degrees this one right here the longer one is 10 this one is 12 and so then what we're going to be aiming for is this white space right here this is 13 degrees let me go ahead and pan down this way because i want to show you how this mechanism is going to work you have to understand that black arrow is mechanically linked to this red box and it is controlled by this screw here when you place your tool inside this screw and turn it that is going to change the orientation of the box when you turn the screw clockwise that is going to cause an eastern declination adjustment when you turn the screw the other way counterclockwise that is going to cause a western adjustment so let's go ahead and make the declination adjustment now by placing the tool inside of the screw i do want to emphasize when you make this adjustment you do want to go slow so i am going to go very slow okay so i'm turning the screw clockwise that's two it's four six it's eight it's 10 and i do want to emphasize that i really do go this slow when i do it for real okay that's 12 and so then what we're going to be aiming for is that white space between 12 and 14 here okay so let me pan down here and i want to show you what that did to the box remember how the box was running parallel now it's shifted over like this so when i turn the compass over onto the front now the box is shifted over like this to 13 degrees and the reason that we have to make that adjustment is because the magnetized needle is going to be pulled into this direction right here and not this direction right here and so then when we box that needle when the box is declinated like this what that is actually telling us is that north is this direction right here the direction that we actually care about is here the reason we need to box that needle in a declinated manner like that is to compensate for the fact that there is this difference between magnetic north and true north now we can get accurate measurements when we plot bearings on the map what we are going to do now is take a closer look at the map this is map number 816 in the national geographic series of topographic maps depicting big basin santa cruz and what i want to do is i want to show you how to read these maps and how to understand the way topography is depicted in them so let's take a closer look and look at one of these sections what we are looking at is a topographic map the first thing i want you to see is the fact that the map has these lines on it and if you look closely you will notice they are actually rings or concentric circles you will also notice that every fifth line is bold if you count them you will notice these two bold lines for example are labeled what our map is depicting with these rings is slices of elevation so if i was to walk around the land in this shape where i'm designating with my knife around the bold line i would be walking around on a consistent elevation of 2750 feet if i was to walk up to this hill i would be walking on a higher elevation from looking at this map you can actually tell that the contour interval or the vertical distance between lines is 50 feet because this bold line is 2750 feet and this bold line is 2500 feet and there are five lines between them which means each line must be 50 feet so i know that this one right here the one in the middle must be 2800 feet because it's 50 feet higher than this one how do i know it's higher because i see this bold line is labeled and so is this one and by following this pattern down i can tell that this direction is downhill but even if this line wasn't labeled i would still be able to tell this one is higher simply by the fact that it is inside of this one indicating that it is a summit now you might be asking wait a minute how do i know it isn't a pit and the answer is that pits simply do not show up in nature very often and if you do have a pit and we call it a crater usually water will typically collect in that pit forming a lake for example crater lake in oregon but in most cases water is simply going to erode that pit and form a valley so let's say that we are hiking in this area and we have brought our map along with us let's say we start off at indian rock and then decide to hike up to this hill over here the one that i'm pointing at with my knife and suppose that i turn my head over and see summit rock off in the distance and i turn to you and i say let's go check out that rock but we have all these trees in front of us and a valley you say how are we going to get there you might ask then i pull out my map and my compass what we are going to need to do in order to get from this point to this point if we follow a straight line is determine our bearing and then follow it because the problem we're going to encounter is that as we move this way we are going to be decreasing in elevation as we enter this valley and when we get to this valley we are no longer going to be able to see our landmark because this hill will be in the way and even if that wasn't the case and this was flat land we will still have the problem of trees blocking our view as we are walking so we need to have some way of determining a consistent bearing as we walk from our place to our destination summit rock i would like to briefly draw your attention to the diagram on the screen this is a symbol that can be understood without any language or context and that is because it has what is known as a reference direction this direction i want you to notice that all the other directions look different on the map and this one is special this one is our reference direction or north so if i was to place my compass on top of the map like this imagine these blue lines are the blue meridian lines of the map and our landmark was over here what i would need is a way to determine the angle between this point and this point so now in our example what i'm going to do is i'm going to take my compass like this and i'm going to line it up with those two spots and then the other thing i'm going to do is i'm going to rotate my bezel until that bezel is aligned with my reference direction remember my reference direction is always north and we describe that reference direction as 0 degrees mathematically that way when i turn the compass a certain amount i can describe that direction the direction that i turn it using a precise number when we started out our compass was oriented like this with north on the top remember our direction of travel is always pointing this way and so then what happens when i rotate the compass like this is my meridian lines the ones that were aligned with my map are now facing the wrong way so when i rotate this bezel that realigns the meridian lines but then it also gives me my bearing see this meridian line here the red one and how it's next to this blue one those two lines are parallel that means the meridian lines of my compass are aligned with the meridian lines of my map that also means that this number the one that is in the direction of travel is my bearing the bearing that i would follow to go from this point to this point now it's important to keep in mind that after i measure this angle i have to make sure my needle is boxed so that means that the direction that i'm facing right now in space is this direction right here if i was to move my body like this you'll notice the magnetic needle is no longer boxed that means i'm no longer moving in the direction of my bearing in other words i need to readjust my body and turn my angle so that i'm facing the direction of my bearing it's important to point out that i have this number on the back or the opposite direction of the direction of travel this is sometimes known as the back bearing so for example if i was to go from this point to this point in order to head back to where we started i would need to have some way to reverse what i did and you might be tempted to put your compass on the map like this and just say well i'm going to follow this bearing 121 degrees and that is actually incorrect although it would be mathematically correct to do that the correct way to perform that is to actually move the compass like this and adjust your bezel again like this to your new bearing notice my meridian lines are parallel and the reason for this is because what you want to get in the habit of is thinking of your direction of travel as having a laser coming out of it in other words i'm going to tape a white line on the bottom of the base plate here you want to always think of the direction of travel as the way you are facing and you always want to think of your compass as pointing in the direction that you are facing so now i'm going to show you the maps key which is located on the bottom of the map and what the key does is it tells you different symbols and what they mean on the map for example this symbol right here means parking and this symbol right here means camping but i think the most important aspect of the maps key is going to be this section which tells you the maps scale and the contour interval so the map scale in this case is 1 to 40 000 which means for every unit of measurement on the map there are 40 000 of them in the field and the contour interval is 50 feet remember we were actually able to see that by comparing the topographic lines that were bold which were arranged in an interval of 250 feet so here we have a close-up view of where i will be standing when i take my bearing in the field i sometimes call this place the point of origin or the place where i observed the landmark and took my bearing so i am going to be parking my car in this parking lot right here where the red dot is indicating and then walking approximately 20 yards down the trail where there is a little bench here from there i will then look off into the distance and try to find a landmark so that i can take a bearing of it and then identify it on my map i would like to briefly draw your attention to the elevation so as you recall there are bold lines on the map which in this case are in increments of 250 feet and we have one bold line down here which is labeled and one up here which is not through the process of deduction we can conclude this one is two thousand two hundred and fifty feet which means the next line over would be two thousand three hundred feet and the next one after that would be two thousand hundred 350 feet and that one is pretty close to where we will be standing so i am going to go ahead and say we are going to be standing at approximately 2 350 feet when we observe our landmark in the field hmm all right first let me show you my position on my garmin gps here let me just go ahead and zoom out real quick so you can get an idea of where we are at so that's santa cruz on the bottom right hand side of the screen or southeast side and then the bay area is kind of on the northeast side of the screen so i'm kind of parked at this little overlook here so let me just go ahead and zoom in a little bit and remember this is a situation in which i know my position but i don't know the position or the name of the landmark that i'm looking at in the field so now that you have an idea of where we are on the map let me go ahead and show you what the fuel looks like [Music] all right so i'm standing here at this vista point and i'm looking out over the horizon here and what i'm going to do is i'm going to try and find a landmark that i can try to identify and in scanning i see this mountain peak off in the distance back there and so what i'm gonna do is i'm gonna grab my compass and using my compass and my map i'm gonna try and identify this landmark on my map okay so let's say that i have a peak in front of me here a landmark of some sort and i don't know the name of the landmark but i know my position on the map and i have a map and i also have a compass so what i can do is i can use my compass to identify the landmark on the map so the first thing i'm going to do is i'm going to face the landmark and i'm going to hold my compass out directly in front of me so that the direction of travel arrow is pointed at that landmark and so i've got my compass here laying flat and i can't emphasize this enough it has to be very flat otherwise you're going to get an inaccurate reading and so what the compass has is this nifty little feature it has this little sighting mirror and it has a window and with that window you can still see the landmark through the mirror and the mirror has this line down the middle there to kind of help you line it up and get it nice and even with that landmark so then once you have the landmark and the compass pointed in the same direction the next step is you're going to want to box the needle so let me just go ahead and rotate this down a little bit and then rotate this up so you can see so you see that top needle the solid red one it's kind of almost pointing to the top but a little bit to the right and it has a white rectangle inside of it and then directly to the right of it is a hollow needle that's part of the bezel and what you're going to want to do is you're going to want to rotate the bezel so that that hollow needle is boxed remember the magnetized needle is not going to move it's the hollow needle or the box that's going to move because i'm going to be rotating the bezel i want to emphasize i am not going to be rotating the compass i am only rotating the bezel so let me go ahead and do that okay so now i'm gonna just double check to make sure that i still have my landmark in my sighting mirrors window and then what i'm going to do after i have my needle boxed is i'm going to go ahead and rotate this mirror down a little bit so that i can see my compasses reading and your compass has that line down the mirror and that's going to help you identify a precise compass bearing reading it looks like this one is about 214 maybe 215 degrees if it's 215 degrees it'd be in that white space if it's 214 to be on the line all the lines are even all the spaces are odd so i'm going to go ahead and write down to me it looks like about 215 degrees i'm going to write down 215 degrees and that's going to be my compass bearing okay so now we just took our bearing and we're now going to log it into our log book the first thing we're going to do is we're going to write down today's date january 22nd 2022 and then we're going to write down a one after it okay this is going to signify this is the first bearing we are going to record on this trip if we were going to record multiple bearings on this trip we would record them in the order in which we took them that way we can reverse them in this case we're only going to take one bearing so this aspect of the log book is not applicable but i'm still going to get in the habit of doing it anyway so the first thing i'm going to do is i'm going to write down the time that i took the bearing and then i'm going to write down from which i usually abbreviate as f this is the point of origin or the point where we observed the landmark in this case i know it semper viron's point santa cruz and then we're going to write down 2 which i usually abbreviate as t and because we don't know what we're looking at i'm going to put a box here now i'm going to write down b that stands for bearing and i'm going to write down the bearing we just recorded of 215 degrees so on this compass that will lock the bearing and so even if i forget to write this down at least i have my last bearing locked and i can continue to follow it without needing to touch the bezel then what i do is i actually record the back bearing okay the back bearing is the number that is on the opposite side of the compass in other words on the opposite side of the direction of travel or 180 degrees from the bearing you can see that number here on the back of the bezel in the opposite direction of the direction of travel arrow in this case it is 35 degrees so i'm going to go ahead and write that down even though i can easily turn that compass around you never want to point your compass backwards when you are taking or following a bearing i find it quicker to actually see the back bearing in the log book so that way i can follow that series of back bearing numbers if i need to reverse my directions so now we're going to plot this bearing on the map and determine the name of our landmark all right so i just got back to the house and what i'm going to do is i'm going to take a look at the map and given the bearing that i just recorded and i have locked into my compass i'm now going to determine what that landmark i saw was based on viewing the map so let's go ahead and take our map out of the map bag we no longer need the matte bag and we're going to go ahead and unfold it here and for clarity's sake what i've done here is i've actually taped a tape measure to my desk and what this is going to do is going to help me to extend my line of sight that i normally would get from my base plate okay so i have two tape measures taped down to my desk like this in a perpendicular manner and i'm gonna be using these two tape measures specifically this point right here to indicate my point of origin on my map in other words everything that we see along this white line is going to represent the line of sight when i was in the field and i took my bearing so let me go ahead and take my map and slide it underneath these two tape measures and i will try to get north on the map positioned so that it is up on the screen in other words it's running that way and then i want you to see that we have our point of origin which is here and that is ultimately what we want to line up on these two tape measures like this but the thing is i need to determine the angle of how to position my map so that this angle matches the angle that i saw in the field when i took my bearing which was 215 degrees according to my log book but i do want you to take note of the fact that our compass has this mirror which locks our bearing and i have not touched the bezel since i took my bearing so this bearing that i have right now in the compass is the actual bearing that we actually took in the field which was a little bit less than 215 degrees like 214 degrees so anyway i'm going to actually go ahead and take this compass place it on the map so that north on the compass is facing the same direction as north on the map so this is north on the compasses bezel and it is also facing this direction and the first thing i'm going to do is i'm going to scoot this map out a little bit so i give myself some space and then i'm going to move my compass over so that it is positioned where the base plate is touching the point of origin now ultimately what i want to do is i want to get these meridian lines the red ones aligned with these blue lines the meridian lines on the map some people call these the orienting or the orienteering lines so let me go ahead and take a zoomed in view of exactly how that would look when i am aligning these meridian lines between my compass and my map all right so what i have here is the compasses base plate and it is aligned with the point of origin this is the point of origin right here and i have my finger on that point and i can actually scoot the compass around like this to try to find the optimal position to plot my bearing remember north is this way on the compass and north is also this way on the map the way i have it positioned right now but what i want is a really precise bearing and in order to do that what i actually have to do is align these red meridian lines on the compasses bezel with these blue meridian lines on the map and so i'm going to try and find some that are kind of close like maybe this one right here and i'm going to go ahead and basically rotate the compass not the bezel until i can get those lines nice and parallel and i actually like to see them a little bit spaced apart like this i actually do not like to stack them on top of each other like that because i can clearly see parallel lines easier that i can see lines that are like on top of each other so that looks pretty close to me right there i'm going to go ahead and plot this bearing on my map one more thing i wanted to point out is the fact that this magnetized needle is not relevant in determining how we're going to plot our bearing because if i was to move the entire map like this where the magnetized needle is now moving that does not change this angle here so i want to point that out real quick before i go ahead and plot this bearing okay so now i have my compass's base plate aligned in the same direction that i was facing when i took my bearing you will notice that the red meridian lines of the compass are perfectly parallel with the meridian lines of the map and so now i'm going to actually scoot the entire map with the compass on it over so that it is lined up with my point of origin marker here between these two tape measures and then everything running along this white line remember that's going to be my line of sight or the direction that i was facing when i took my bearing so i'm just going to move along this line until i find a landmark that looks like what we saw in the field all right so this is our point of origin and our compass is now facing the same direction that we were facing when we took our bearing and so i saw that there was a landmark down here that looks like it could be our landmark there is a mountain peak labeled 2208 right there in the middle of the screen and if i move the tape measure out of the way that is pine mountain our current hypothesis is that it's pine mountain but if i was to scroll over this way you will see that there is another landmark right over here called eagle rock and so because they're so close together i'm actually going to go ahead and take one more bearing from a different location and what that's going to do is that's going to give me more accuracy on my hypothesis that this actually is pine mountain okay so now that we've identified a peak on our map that lies along our line of sight and it could be our landmark we are now going to log it into our logbook so let's go ahead and write down the name of the peak that we think it is and that would be pine mountain and if it turns out that after we do our second observation that this isn't our landmark we're simply just going to cross that name out and i'll explain what this box over here is for in a second but first what we need to do is we need to close the trip so closing the trip lets the reader know that this is the end of the bearings we logged for this trip and then we're going to write down the time of day that we closed this trip which is 1 31 p.m so because we observed our landmark one time on this trip i'm going to write one tally mark here in this box and this way we can then determine the accuracy of landmarks we have cited based on how many tally marks we have in this box after we cross reference our subsequent bearings we will take of this landmark so because eagle peak was pretty close we're just going to want to provide the reader with some additional assurance that supports our hypothesis that this actually was pine mountain that we observed so the place we observed the landmark from was here but that place was pretty far away from the landmark itself so there is the possibility that we could have mistakenly identified an incorrect peak so what i'm going to do is i'm going to take another bearing from another location on the map and after examining the map i have determined that there is another overlook right here called goat rock overlook so i am going to drive to that location and then from the overlook i will take another bearing to corroborate the hypothesis that i observed pine mountain all right so i'm just going to check my gps here and verify my location which i believe to be goat rock so i'm gonna try and zoom in here and see if i can click this icon yep goat rock so now i'm just going to zoom out a little bit so keep in mind our last bearing was on the north west over there let's go ahead and take one more bearing all right so i'm standing here at the goat rock overlook and i'm scanning the horizon here and it looks like i see my landmark or what i think is my landmark right here so i'm gonna go ahead and take my compass out and take a bearing and then plot that bearing on the map and compare it with my first bearing that i took yesterday okay so i just took my bearing and now i'm getting ready to log it into my logbook today is january 23rd 2022 and it is 2 24 p.m and my only bearing that i took in the field today was from goat rock to an unknown location which we believe to be pioneer mountain but i'm going to put a box for right now using a bearing of and our bearing was uh 231 degrees so that would make our back bearing the opposite or 51 degrees and so that is going to be our entry for the day all right so now i'm going to clock the bearing that i just took onto my map this is the second bearing that i've taken so far but before i do that i just want to really quickly explain the idea around how you can plot your bearings i think i might have forgotten to mention this earlier but i actually do bring a tape measure with me to the field and the reason that i bring the tape measure is because your compass actually has the base plate which you can use to measure distances and which will actually work great for short distances and you can actually extend that with the mirror but i found that distance just isn't very long so one way to combat that is to bring for example a book which i often bring with me anyway and that will extend the distance that you will get from your base plate but even that distance could not be long enough for you that's why i often bring the tape measure to extend that distance and the other thing is if it's windy or if you don't have a flat surface like for example when you're hiking you're going to be on rocks and snow and dirt and trees and things and there's just not going to be flat surfaces that are going to be where you're going to be able to just lay your map out like this so that's why i bring the tape measure so i can tape one section to another section and have that straight line so i can plot my bearing without needing a flat surface so let's go ahead and plot this bearing onto the map all right so this is goat rock the place that i observed the second bearing from and i hope this is going to be the same landmark that i saw in the previous bearing so in looking along the line of sight here i in fact see there is a 2 208 marker right there in the middle of the screen and if i was to take the tape measure and move it aside like this you will see that is pine mountain confirming our hypothesis okay so now we have another observation of pine mountain so i'm going to write that down here in the log book and this is the second time we have observed pine mountain so i'm going to write two tally marks here and then i'm gonna go back to my previous bearing and add another tally mark here and that just provides the reader with additional assurance as to the validity of our claim that we observed pine mountain and so now because this is the end of the trip i'm going to write end of trip here to close the trip and then it is 401 pm and if i was to close the trip on a different day i would add the date here and then one other thing i wanted to mention was how you can describe the positions from and to you can use the gps coordinates which in many cases may be more beneficial for you but if the point of origin for example is a known or listed point on the map sometimes it's easier to just write that point down rather than the gps coordinates so after i am done using my map i am then going to put it back in the appropriate map box you will notice i have several map boxes and i have them organized according to geographic location on the globe so far we've been depicting true north as up on the map with parallel lines and i've been calling these lines meridian lines of the map that'd be the ones that run vertically across it and we've been aligning those lines with the compass's bezel that'd be the meridian lines of the compass but that's actually not entirely correct and that is because true north is a point and parallel lines do not converge to a point not unless you're looking at the globe so what we do is we divide the earth into different lines of latitude and longitude so the lines of longitude are the ones that go this way and they basically run from pole to pole forming kind of like a pinwheel pattern around the globe and those allow us to determine our direction going east to west think of that kind of like as a x-axis on a piece of grid paper and then the other axis is the y-axis or the lines of latitude and those would be the ones that go around the globe we'll see this in a little more detail in the next section but first i want to focus on the lines of longitude so now what we have here is a top-down perspective of the globe and so what i'm going to do is just try to get you to imagine the globe spins like this every day and so because we don't have a starting point we need to have some sort of a reference point from which to measure all of the other lines of longitude so it was determined that the reference line or the zero degree marker would be right here going through what is known as the prime meridian and that goes through london like this i'm going to designate that with a red line so you can see it what that does is this allows us to have a starting point from which we can measure all of the other lines of longitude so for example the area that we did our observation was over here and so if i was to lay down a green line designating that area approximately 122 degrees then it would look something like this and so now when i position the globe like this where zero degrees is at the top of the screen you can get a better idea for how these lines of longitude are labeled so this is the line that we're at or 122 degrees which is the same as how you would describe it on a circle all right so here we have the prime meridian which i have taped down with this red line here everything on the left hand side of this red piece of tape running through london here is going to be the prime meridian from which we will measure all other lines of longitude so if i was to scroll over this way and rotate the globe like this you will find that i have labeled our area with a green line like this which runs all the way to the north pole and this green line here is meant to represent the right hand edge of our map in other words this is a meridian line that on our map pointed to true north now the problem is imagine we have another meridian line on our map the one on the left hand side of the map remember our map was a two-dimensional surface containing parallel lines all of which claimed to point to true north but if i did that and i laid down another green line which also intersects that north pole then it would look something like this and then i would have a problem i would have to either choose do i want to have parallel lines or do i want to have those lines converge to true north and the reason that i have this problem is because of the fact that the earth is a globe and i am trying to represent that globe on a two-dimensional piece of paper so there is one other thing i have to explain about lines of longitude and that has to do with how they are described from zero degrees or the prime meridian so this is a globe we are looking at and if i spin the globe this way you will see that every 15 degrees there is a label on the globe for a line of longitude and so if we just keep spinning the globe over this way we were at approximately 122 degrees which is right about here on the lines of longitude but what i want to point out is i actually have to specify this is 122 degrees west because when they invented this system here is 180 degrees right here so this is halfway around the world from zero degrees rather than having the numbers continue they actually go backwards so this is 165 degrees east in other words every line of longitude is described as a 180 degree increment from the prime meridian and you have to specify whether you're talking about going in an easterly direction or a western direction so what i've depicted on the board here is a circle and how that circle is divided into 360 degrees and each one of those degrees is then divided into 60 minutes and each one of those minutes is then further subdivided again into 60 seconds so now in terms of navigation with a compass so let's just presume this is a compass and these red lines here represent your orienting lines you're very rarely going to actually have to be this precise in your bearings but where i think this concept really applies is in other areas of navigation where you're going to be using a circle for example in determining lines of longitude you need to be much more precise than just a single degree so for example here i've labeled the 0 degree line and i've further subdivided it between 0 and 1 degrees here and so that if we were going to describe the point halfway between 0 and 1 degrees we would call that point 0 degrees 30 minutes and 0 seconds all right so what i'm gonna do now is i'm gonna show you how to find a location on your map using the gps coordinates system so that would be this right here you see this black hash mark right here so this hash mark corresponds to this named line here this is 122 degrees 7 minutes and 30 seconds west remember this is a line of longitude so it is running this way and i want you to temporarily ignore these blue markings these pertain to the utm coordinates system which i will not be discussing in this video due to the fact that it is quite complicated so in this map we have markings every 7 minutes and 30 seconds so in other words if i was to go this way on the map and keep scrolling you will find the next gps coordinates point that is labeled is this one right here and that is 122 degrees and 15 minutes west so each one of these markings here represents 30 seconds of difference so let's just go ahead and count so i can show you how that's going to work if you need to find a specific line of longitude on your map using the gps coordinates system so let's go ahead and count these markings that would be the hash marks in between these black and white spaces so this one is 122 degrees 7 minutes and 30 seconds so then the next one over here would be 8 minutes 122 degrees 8 minutes and 0 seconds and this one would be 8 30 and then this one would be 9 and then this one would be 9 30 10 10 30 11 11 30 12 12 30 13 13 30 14 14 30 and then 15 right here so 122 degrees and 15 minutes west corresponds to this line here so far we've been discussing lines of longitude those would be the ones that run from the south pole to the north pole in kind of a pinwheel pattern across the earth's surface like this the other lines the lines that go this way from west to east are called lines of latitude and those lines are a little bit easier to think about the way you describe them is they're numbered from zero degrees where zero degrees is the equator up in angles all the way to 90 degrees whereas 90 degrees is right at the north pole or describing them as a negative number from 0 degrees to negative 90 degrees to describe a position towards the south pole so there is one other thing that i want to mention about lines of latitude and that is how they are named relative to the equator so this is the equator running across the screen here and i've positioned the globe so that we are at the 180 degree line of longitude or halfway around the world from the prime meridian and so then if we were to describe a position on the globe south of the equator 15 degrees then i would want to say 15 degrees south i could just call that negative 15 degrees but the best practice is always to indicate which direction you are moving relative to your reference point so in terms of latitude we were at approximately 37 degrees and 15 minutes north and this is how that would look on the globe so here's a look at where we were standing when we took our bearing and this is google maps so if i scroll down here and take a look at what the gps coordinates were you will see that they're listed with the latitude first and then the longitude so this would be 37 degrees and 15 minutes north and 122 degrees nine minutes west so google maps lists out the minutes as a percent or a decimal but i find that it's more helpful to actually list out the minutes themselves when you give coordinates so this is where we were standing right here approximately and so let's go ahead and list the latitude first so that would be 37 degrees and approximately 15 minutes north so this line over here corresponds almost to this line right here this is 37 degrees and 15 minutes north so just under 15 minutes is where we are and then if i was to describe the longitude next then i'm gonna actually move up here and it corresponds to we were standing approximately here so i'm going to go ahead and say it's closer to this line right here and uh that line corresponds to well this is 122 degrees west and 7 minutes and 30 seconds and so if i move over this way this is 8 minutes right here and this is 8 30 and this is nine so we were right about 122 degrees and nine minutes west which is right about there and we were a little bit used to that so probably just under 9 minutes west okay so i do have one additional caveat that i need to make and that has to do with these lines right here the blue lines running vertically on the map i have been calling these lines the meridian lines of the map and i do want you to think of them that way but what i want to point out is the fact that those lines are part of the utm system and not necessarily a true meridian line and when i say a true meridian line what i mean is a line that if you followed it it would take you to a poll so what the utm system does is it divides the world into a set of interlocking grids so from pole to pole you have these columns which are six degrees wide and each one of these columns is called a zone so for example this is zone five on this side here and this is zone six on this side over here and what i want you to see on this particular map which is a map of gates of the arctic national park in northern alaska is the fact that zone fives lines are going straight up like this perpendicular to the edge of this side of the map and yet zone six's lines are running slanted like this so the reason i'm pointing this out is because i want you to be aware of the fact that there is this additional reconciliation you will need to do between true north and grid north when you use these blue lines i do want to point out that this effect is going to be immaterial in areas that are lower in latitude or on maps with a closer scale such as 1 to 40 000 as in our example the map we have here is a one to four hundred thousand scale map and it is also in an area that is high in latitude so these two effects combined are producing the slanted line effect on zone six here so anytime we're going to try and translate a complex three-dimensional rotating object like the earth onto a simplified two-dimensional flat piece of paper like a map we're going to run into a problem and that problem is known as distortion okay on your map you're going to have lines running parallel like this pointing to true north but this is true north right here this is a point and as you can see all those lines that run parallel like this they all start to become more and more close to each other as you get higher in latitude and that is just one of the problems of translating a three-dimensional object onto a two-dimensional surface if you've ever seen a picture of the earth laid out flat on a piece of paper you will notice canada and greenland always look very large and that is because of the idea of distortion there really is no way to accurately portray the earth except for on a globe um one other thing i wanted to mention was the idea of the gps and how that might relate to your use of the compass now as i mentioned briefly in the beginning of the video this is supposed to be a supplement to your navigational skills i cannot cover every single aspect of navigation in a single video but i do want to briefly explain the idea of navigation using what i call the bump line method some people just refer to this as your intuition but i like to give it a little more tangibility so when i talk about bump lines i'm talking about if you're walking through a valley you have a wall on one side and a wall on the other side those are what are known as bump lines if you're walking along a river you follow that river and then that is your bump line basically what i'm saying is you have a reference point that you follow and that becomes your reference point for where you are on the map and what i mentioned briefly in the beginning of the video was i don't want you to rely on the gps because it is a an electronic device it can fail it has batteries and when those batteries die and it's the same thing with your phone too the reason you see me take notes in a real book like this is because i know it's going to work 100 of the time my phone if it runs out of batteries that's it so the only way you really you really know if you've got this stuff down is if you just start practicing with it and going out in the real world and and testing out your gear a friend of mine once said the only way you know if a relationship is real is if it's tested i actually take that a step further and say the only way you know if anything is real is if it's tested and so that is exactly what we're going to do now test what you have learned only this time i am going to give you the landmark and you're going to have to give me the precise bearing and it's going to be life and death so imagine we have a missile launcher at the east peak of mount tampis here and we have a group of bad guys located on alcatraz island and the problem is we have to aim our missile launcher at this target but we don't want to hit any civilians and directly to the right is san francisco and directly to the left is angel island and tiburon so we need to be pretty precise with our missile in order to hit our target of alcatraz island so the question is at what exact bearing do i need to aim my missile launcher to hit this target and for that i will need my trusty compass now i'm standing here at the east peak of mount tam and i need to determine the exact number that i will need to aim my missile launcher in order to shoot these bad guys so the question that i pose to you is what is that number [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Joey Young

Views: 24,941

Keywords: map and compass, navigation basics, beginners

Id: qAanVAKir_w

Length: 88min 22sec (5302 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 24 2022