Navigation by Terrain Feature Association Part 1

Description

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Tags: Dave Canterbury,Survival,Bushcraft,Archery,Pathfinder,Navigation,Maps

Video Transcription

okay guys we are in the edge today we're doing a scout for an upcoming advanced class for the first exercise in movement by terrain association without a compass scout the route today I want to show you how to associate your map with terrain features and navigate without using a compass obviously you should have a map and a compass anywhere you go but there are many ways to navigate by terrain features without using a compass at all as long as you can tell general direction and we know that it's a.m. and there's the Sun so that we know that Sun rose in the east and it's about 10:30 in the morning so we're looking at the Sun we're facing a southeast direction and we know that the opposite that's going to be north so we can associate our map with these terrain features and once around us knowing where we've came from because we're about a mile from the Pathfinder school location so I can pinpoint that on the map I know where I've came from and - and we can talk through how to associate dream because what they look like on a map okay guys I'm hoping that you can see this map pretty good right here this small dot is my log home on my property and there's an access road that runs along here that goes back into the wildlife area that's no longer an AK it's no longer access really it's an old Township road it's basically closed down now and there's signs out here to say no vehicles beyond this point but we have walked down this road through my property this is all part of my property here we've walked through that to this hilltop and I know that we're on the right hilltop because I can see this hilltop off in the distance I can see this draw I know that the pipeline is over here from where I'm standing and I can see this Creek back here from where I'm standing so I know that by terrain Association I'm on this hilltop now what I want to do is I want to plan a route that goes over to this Slough and up the pipeline to a camp area over in here by this Creek that we're going to use I'm sorry by this Creek that we're going to use for the advanced class so that's the route that we're going to take without our compass so by associating terrain features what we're going to do is try to go from this bill top to the side of this hilltop over to this marsh follow this creek bed follow this Creek down across the pipeline and go to the fork of this Creek and then we'll be about what we want to be so we can do all of that by Associated terrain features and never use our compass as long as we understand all that now this map is 1 in 10,000 scale that means 1 inch on this map equals 10,000 inches on the ground if we were trying to paste count we could do that as well we're not going to do any of that we're going to use this map solely by terrain feature to navigate our way to this area stay with me guys okay guys so looking at our map again we started here and we walked down and across to this hilltop we are assuming now this hilltop is at a higher elevation than this hilltop because there's an extra contour line in here which means this hilltop is higher than this one so if we look back to this when it should be higher than this one also if we look off to this side okay there is should be a draw down here with a creek bed in it so let's look around us to see what we got going on stay on top of this stump right here real quick there's the old came off of it you can see that it's higher then we're standing on now but we're surrounded by downhill all the way around us and the draw should be over this side where the creek beds at so if we orientate our map to the terrain that we're standing on right now you can see that there is the hilltop that we're standing on

is right where my finger is my index finger is right here the creek bed should be right there so we're going to go down over this hill you see if we can find a creek bed and that will tell us that we're in the right spot okay if we follow this straight down in we should come to the Creek that's showing in this draw and we're heading down a draw I can tell by looking at it we're heading down into a draw right now we should be a creek bed down there and now should lead us out to the slough on the map okay and there's our Creek right down there in the bottom there's a creek bed down there so now we'll get down to that creek bed and look at the map again okay so here's our main creek bed there's a little confluence right here one two creeks are coming into it but this is the main channel of the Creek right here look at our map make sure that matches up sure it does but we'll show that to you and we're gonna follow this creek bed out to the slough okay so right there's our creek bed we're following pull out our map see what we got okay again getting the map so it's orientated to the terrain here was our first hilltop we traveled to the second hilltop and look back to make sure we had an elevation change because there was an extra contour line here which means this hilltop is higher than this one we walked down the saddle right here up to this hilltop we walked over this Ridge to where this Creek is this Creek should lead us straight to that Slough at the pipeline so we're just going to follow this Creek now until we hit that slow

getting there fellas you know it's just beautiful being out here and being an area we know that not too many people have been I mean you have to realize that this wildlife area it's 4,000 acres and it's really landlocked on three sides my property on one on the front side and then the property adjacent me on the front side and one whole entire side six miles deep and then on the other side of that there's a pipeline and my property extends beyond the pipeline but that pipeline is kind of a blocker because you can't drive down that pipeline either there's really no way in this front side there's really no way in the other side and then on the side that is to the southeast over here toward the Sun it's really landlocked hard by another historical area so the only way to get into this place really is to come from the other side on the backside as wildlife everywhere there's a main road that you can pull in and you can only Park there's no vehicle access to this thing at all so to get to this area you'd have to walk six miles deep to get here so you're walking through area right now we're not too many people have probably been you might get some hardcore serious deer hunters during the gun season that might come back this far but it's not very likely then anybody's been back here for a long time I'm walking around here and I'm looking and this is there's actually no trash I haven't found one single piece of garbage of human trash not a bottle not can not a wrapper nothing since I started since I got down to this creek bed and started hiking through I haven't seen one piece of human sign that's hard to imagine in this day and age that you can even get to an area where there wouldn't be any human sign but I'm in it right now

and it's a wonderful experience okay guys right there's the pipeline in this Creek

should get in tune and get in into a sleep out here we got our berry drink okay guys I've absolutely found the slough now without a doubt now we look for our next terrain feature or objective on the map here's the slough here's the pipeline we're standing right here right now and it looks like there's a creek bed or a creek here that runs along the pipeline but we want to follow and that should go lead us up to the fork up here which is what we're looking for and it's gonna cross the pipeline right there so if we just walk down the pipeline and find that crossing right there and then follow this down we should be in good shape okay so now back to the map for a minute here we have walked to the sloop we came down the creek bed to the slough here walk down the pipe line until we found the spot with a creek cross the pipe line so now if we follow this creek up that should give us our Y and that is the next location that we're looking for because our Basecamp is back in here turns back into itself right here I would say if we follow that down we're gonna find the Y farm the outflow goes it stops right here so let's go up just a little ways see if we find our Y okay we're going to go around somehow here pretty deep right there unless we want to cross that log to get to the other side nothing but bramble patches over this direction so let's circumvent this for a minute I see that the creek bed bends around and back this way so probably our best bet to go around this way instead of trying to cross never cross if you don't have to I mean I'm not taking any chance on getting a mechanical injury or getting hurt unless you got really shallow water to just hop across it okay so looking at her map and looking at where our Y is you can see by looking at this terrain features that there was a Y with a creek right there and there's a hilltop straight across from it which I can see over there but this is filled in now into a pond probably from the beaver we saw some sign just a minute ago of Beaver and there's a beaver dam an old beaver dam right there so the dam this thing up and pretty much destroyed the Y now I can see over there there's another little creek running through and that's probably where the Y was was right here in this area and there's probably a creek running off in the direction that way and it's probably another creek running off in a direction that way from the slough that's bringing water into it from this pond that's been created by the beaver so your Maps not always gonna be perfect as far as its accuracy goes it depends on how old your map is but you can tell by looking at that that you're in the right place again by terrain feature the pipeline's right there and we just got off the pipeline it's right behind us and there's a gradual sloping hilltop over here that goes up and it's right in front of us and I can see that too so if I match up the terrain features again I know I'm in the right place and that's what counts okay now at this point I happen to know exactly where I'm at so I have an unfair advantage but I can tell you that the camp location is straight across this pond and I can see my camp tarp from here you probably can't see it through the trees but I can see it cuz I know where it's at and it's brown but it's right on that upslope going up the hill there so we've gotten to exactly what we were looking for so let's talk about now for a minute how do we identify terrain features on the map and how do we associate a 2-dimensional image on the map with three-dimensional images that are on the ground you