Navigating Without a Map

Warning: This is a overview of a method which takes a great deal of time and effort to learn. Wandering off the trail in a difficult area using this method literally takes 100's of miles of practice before attempting it. It's just posted here so some experienced people can review it for clarity.

Yesterday, I decided to do a difficult test of navigating without a map. The goal was to wander around in various directions for about a half mile taking the paths of low resistance. I did avoid the little trails and roads that were there. Along the way, I recorded only compass bearings and distances walked on thos bearings. I made no records of landmarks that could help me find my way back. At the end of 23 legs, I left an Altoid can with $10 in it under the edge of a bush. Then I walked out a different direction, again not looking for any landmarks to help me find it. Today, I went back to find the can by a more direct route which I calculated after I got home. At the end of the direct route, I was 14 feet from the can which I found immediately.

Here is the area. Notice, it's covered with non-descript tumbleweed and other bushes. There is no direct route through it. It's difficult to walk in one direction more than about 120 feet.

 First I went of to the right to get in the brush and make pacing difficult. Then I circled to the left behind the trees. Then back to the right and out. Then back in. The total walking distance was about 2,500 feet. Later I calculated my distance from the start to be 807 feet north and 87 feet west. I did not use a GPS at all. Just a compass and paper to log the

information.

After I got home, I drew a map of the course using a compass on the paper. I didn't use a protractor.

This is a conventonal method of resolving this problem. The only problem is, out in the field you need a flat surface where you can tape the paper down so it doesn't move. It also takes a long time to do accurately. Even then, it isn't accurate enough to find an Altoid can left in the brush. This one is off by a little bit. Probably because of some influence on the compass by metal in my kitchen table. Or perhaps the flashlight I was using to see the numbers better.  The dashed line is the direct vector to where I left the can which would be impossible to walk directly because of dense brush.

Here are the tables I used to determine where I went yesterday an how to get back today. First the tracking form which is filled out for the return:

On each leg, I calculated the vertical and horizontal distance I traveled. I picked my bearings to make them work out to my target distances. Nothing fancy. Just WAG's along the way. And going where the brush let me.

I got the horizontal and vertical distances from the table below which I made using knowledge of trig.It looks complex, but it only takes a few seconds for each leg to extract the data.