Compass and Map Navigator: The Complete Guide to Staying Found

by Michael Hodgson

With this guide you will learn the basic steps that will help you to easily and confidently navigate through the wilds with or without a compass, with or without a map, and then will all the tools together.

Genres: Outdoors, Survival

141 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[DoctorM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent introduction to map-and-compass land navigation. Simple, concise, clear. My one complaint is that the illustrations--- the examples of USGS maps and their symbols ---could've been better (say, in colour, and with better reproductions). Nonetheless, a very valuable introduction and one I found easy to use with a compass. Worth having on your shelves if you're starting out hiking or backpacking.

[Anthony Meaney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Depending on how you learn this will be a great book for you or utterly useless. There are plenty of youtube videos out there that show the basics of map and compass reading. Some of them are pretty awful. Although REI has a very good one that easily shows how to set a bearing from a map and also how to triangulate your position. Which is really the essence of map and compass.

So if you learn better from videos than books then you should skip this one. Although I recommend watching the video referenced above and then reading the book - it's a great combination.

This book is written by an acknowledged expert in the field and thus there is a lot packed into here. At times this can be overwhelming for a newbie so your best to take it in chunks. The unfortunate part is the part where you actually learn how to use the map and compass together doesn't occur till late in the book and the explanation suffers somewhat as a result.

And also like ALL books or videos I've seen about Map and Compass they all assume you've can see some sort of recognizable landmark and then find it on the map. In the real world this is not as common as the books assume (or lead you to believe). So if you are in the field you would do well to be continually observant of your surroundings and how it relates to your map... (an also a back up GPS wouldn't hurt either)....