Wilderness Navigation #4 - Following a Bearing

One of the primary compass skills is walking on a particular bearing or direction.
You can think of a bearing as a direction expressed in degrees.
You could say “I need to walk east” or you could say, "I need to walk on a bearing of 90 degrees”.
They both mean the same thing.
There are 360° in a circle. Bearings start at zero for due north, and are read clockwise.
Here's an example of when you might want to walk on a particular bearing.
I may be on a hike, but don't know my exact position.
But, by looking at my map, I can see that there is a north-south running road about a half-mile east of my location, and I know I parked my car on that road.
So, if I walk due east I'm going to hit that road and find my car.
So, here's how we do it. It's a simple two step process.
1 - Rotate the compass dial so your desired bearing or direction is at the "read bearing here" mark. Here's what it looks like on my compass, a tiny green triangle.
(Some compasses come with two marks like this, which can be quite confusing. If your compass does have two marks, be sure you’re using the correct one.)
In this example, we want to go east, so I rotate the compass dial until East, or 90° is at the "read bearing here" mark.
2 - Hold the compass flat, at about waist level, and close to your body so you can look straight down on it. Be sure the direction of travel arrow is facing away from you.
Don’t tilt the compass up toward you, or side to side. Tilting the compass will freeze the needle and not let it spin freely.
While you're looking at the dial, rotate your entire body AND the compass until the red end of the magnetic needle is aligned with the red orienteering arrow, or as we say, “put red is in the shed”. If that last sentence didn’t make any sense to you, have a look at Lesson #2.
COMMON MISTAKES
A common mistake here is to rotate the compass baseplate but not rotate your body. If you do this, the compass will be pointing East, but you won't be facing east.
To remedy this, I like to lock my elbows right against my side, which reminds me to move my body along with the compass.
Now, if we’ve done this correctly, we have red in the shed, the direction of travel arrow is pointing East, and you are facing east, exactly where you want to go.
To follow this bearing, look up from your compass and find a distinct landmark that’s on your bearing, the farther away the better. In dense forest this might be only 100 feet, and open territory it might be many miles. Remember the landmark, put your compass away, and walk to that object.
Once you arrive at your landmark, get out your compass, give it a quick check to be sure that it's still 90°, and pick out another landmark and repeat this process, until you arrive at your objective.
Thanks for watching. Please visit our website at www.croc.org for more videos on wilderness navigation and orienteering.

[@vjazz79]

good vid tx for sharing

[@columbiariverorienteeringc5395]

Vjazz, you are most welcome, glad you enjoyed it.

[@equusspringsfarm]

Have a question that no one seems to have an enswer for. I'm sitting in Virginia, declination here is 8 degrees west. Planning a trip up Mount Shasta in California, declination maybe 12 east. I want to make a "plan" with travel points with azimuths/bearings in case of low viz or GPS failure. Can I do that? Do I set my declination on my compass for 8W or 12E

[@StevenSiew2]

Good, now tell me what is Azi Moth? And why does all the soldiers talk about azimuth instead of bearings.

[@johngo6283]

Technically, azimuth is the correct term. But in common usage, bearing and azimuth mean the same thing.

[@eqlzr2]

Alright. So say I've just parked my car somewhere to explore an area. I don't have a map, but I have a compass. I want to be able to navigate back to my car. How (or can I) use my compass to be able to navigate directly back to my car, and I don't want to be limited to traveling on a straight line either going away from or heading back to my vehicle. Remember, for whatever reason, I don't have a map. Many thanks.

[@columbiariverorienteeringc5395]

Excellent question. If your car is parked on, for example, a north-south running road, and you wander off somewhere to the west of it, you can use your compass to follow the bearing of east, or 90°, to get back to the road and find your car. However, if your car is parked say at the end of the trail head, your compass will probably not help you find it again. That's when Using a GPS app on your phone like a Gaia GPS will be very helpful.

[@eqlzr2]

@@columbiariverorienteeringc5395 Many thx!