Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Whats the point of a compass

Here is another simple example showing the usefulness of a compass. In this illustration from another book I have, one can take a bearing on a well-defined landmark and hike for hours away from camp. In order to get back to camp, you just navigate until you sight the landmark at the same bearing. Then, add 180* to the bearing (i.e. turn around) and follow your compass back to camp. Aiming off about 5* would be useful in unfamiliar territory.

Why guess when it can be so much easier? Also, if you had taken a second bearing to triangulate your starting point, you would have some idea how far away you were on the route back. As in the illustration, the bearing to the mountain top is 50*. Let's say you took another bearing to a big pine on a far away hilltop that was 120* from camp. As you're walking back to camp following a 230* back bearing from the mountain top (50* + 180*), the closer your bearing gets to 120* from the big pine as you walk, the closer you are getting to camp. Camp should be located where 50* to the mountaintop and 120* to the big pine intersect.





Once I started using a GPS, I bought a third book explaining how to navigate with a topo map using UTM grid lines. The book came with a UTM measuring tool (like a square protractor) for drawing UTM lines on maps. UTM makes using a GPS with a topo map much easier than using latitude/longitude, IMO.