While hiking five miles out with no cell service, Chris lost his only map and had to rely completely on a pre-set compass bearing to find his way back to the truck. In this episode he breaks down the basic navigation skills that saved him and shows how simple compass knowledge can keep anyone from getting dangerously off course.
In this episode of the Primitive Camping and Bushcraft Podcast, Chris shares a real story of getting turned around in the woods after losing his map five miles from the truck, and how nothing but a single compass bearing brought him home. After the story he walks through practical, beginner friendly navigation skills anyone can use with a simple baseplate compass and a topographic map.
Resources Mentioned:
• USGS Topographic Map Downloads
https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/viewer/
• Outdoors Generations Article by Ethan Shaw
“How to Use a Compass: The Ultimate Guide to Navigation”
https://outdoorgenerations.com/
• Primitive Camping and Bushcraft Book
https://www.primitive-camping.com/product-page/primitive-camping-bushcraft
• Primitive Camping and Bushcraft Website
https://www.primitive-camping.com
Topics Covered:
– The day Chris lost his map in the timber
– How one compass bearing kept him on course
– What a baseplate compass really needs
– Why topographic maps aren’t as intimidating as they look
– How to set a bearing, walk it, and avoid drifting
– Why beginners should practice simple navigation before long trips
(upbeat music)
Welcome to the Primitive
Camping and Bushcraft Podcast.
I'm your host, Chris Speir.
So here we're gonna talk about gear,
red and the kind of stories
you only get around a fire.
It's all about learning, adapting
and keeping your faith strong.
So whether you're a seasoned outdoorsman
or just looking to unplug and reconnect,
you're in the right place.
So pull up a chair by the
fire and let's get into it.
All right, welcome back
to the Primitive Camping
and Bushcraft Podcast.
And if you notice, I
actually do have the flashlight
on me tonight if
you're watching the video
because we are down here.
at Camp Wut-Da-Heck at nighttime.
Although it is only
5.30 in the afternoon.
So,
(laughs)
we're, yeah, I got the,
we got the fire rolling in the fire pit
right in front of me.
You might see a little reflections.
You can see the reflections bouncing off
of the backside of my little tablet here.
And then I got the fire rolling.
It's starting to cool off a little bit.
So tonight I want to talk to
you about something simple.
Something most folks
overlook until they really need it.
Something that most
folks give second thought to.
A lot of people
practice these bushcraft skills
and survival skills.
And me, I was included in this bunch.
I did not practice this
skill as often as I should have
because I didn't deem it necessary.
I was in the military.
I have used these methods
and these things before,
but I did not think that it's something
that you need to practice.
And let me tell you,
you really need to practice with these
because if you do not, you will forget.
I don't care how many
years you were in the military.
You can and will forget
how to use these skills.
And I'm talking about
the compass and the map.
A compass and a map.
And I'm telling you right
now, there has been a time
when both of these
items had decided to test me
a whole lot more than I really wanted to.
So pull up your chair and
let me tell you about the story
before we get into the
nuts and bolts of it.
So I was about five miles from,
my camp was about
five miles from my truck.
And out in this particular area,
there is zero cell phone
service whatsoever, none.
And it was getting to
the point to where it was,
the next morning we
were getting to the point
where it was packing
up and get ready to go,
head back through the woods.
And I had my map and my compass.
I had everything set.
And if you don't know, when it
comes to a map and a compass,
you have to orient
your compass to your map.
And hopefully here in a little while,
we're gonna get elbow deep into that.
So it was early morning
and we were packing up
and we were getting ready
to start the five mile hike
back to the truck.
And the only thing out
there was just the tall timbers,
the hills and some
streams here and there.
And there was a creek
that we walked along,
an edge of a creek for a good ways.
And I had a map.
And if you're watching the video,
I have the map of the
area right here in my hands.
This is another copy, but I
had the map and the compass,
this very compass, I
use this very compass.
And this is one of those Suunto,
Suunto M3.
All right, so it's a good
compass for what we needed.
And it did exactly
what I needed it to do.
But here comes the thing,
here comes the situation.
I am five miles away from truck,
five miles away from cell phone service.
And there is literally
no cell service out there.
And by this time, I can't remember
if I didn't have any
battery juice on my phone.
I think that was the case
because usually I have a GPS
and that GPS had told me where to go.
I think my phone was dead this time
and I had no way to navigate
other than a map and compass.
So I knew where I needed to go.
I oriented my compass to my map
and I started walking in the direction
that I needed to walk
to back to my truck.
Now five miles is a substantial distance
and you can be, you could
get really lost in five miles
if you don't know which
way you're going or how to go
in five miles, you can
show up five miles off target.
You can show up way off target.
You can get turned around pretty good.
So, you know, five miles,
it may not seem like a lot
to some of these through
hikers and stuff like that,
but five miles is a substantial amount.
Well, I get going through the woods
and I set the bearing and
everything on my compass
and I'm looking at the map
and every so often I'll stop
and I'll make sure we're
pointing in the right direction,
walking in the right direction.
And this particular time I stopped
and I reached to grab the
map and the map was gone.
And I couldn't believe it
because the map was gone.
It had fallen out of my pocket.
It was a laminated map that I had
specifically laminated
for a trip because I
knew it was going to rain
and I wanted to keep the
map safe as best I could.
So it was, as my brother says,
I turned to get the map
and there it was, gone.
(laughs)
Well, there it was, gone.
(sighs)
So I just stood there for a minute
and before I'd left camp that morning,
I said everything, I set my travel arrow,
I took my bearing from the camp
and in the direction in
which we were heading.
And then I lined the orientating arrow
with the needle, locking it in, you know,
and like you're supposed to.
And that little line on that compass
was the breadcrumb trail, my safety net.
The one that would get me back
if everything else fell apart.
And so I followed that
bearing that I took that morning
and I would just
walk, I would take it out
and find a tree in the distance
and I would walk through that tree
and then I'd take it
out, find another tree.
That way I'd stay straight
and keep going the same distance.
You know, I didn't do
the whole pick it up,
line of sight thing, look through it,
never, you know, do all this stuff.
I'm just talking basic navigation skills.
You can get as detailed as
you want in these things,
but you do not have to be that detailed.
It can be extremely basic.
So somewhere in the woods,
the map fell out.
I never heard it fall out.
I never felt it fall out.
I never saw it catch on anything.
It was just gone.
And I reached out after
a while to pull it out.
It wasn't there.
And to my surprise, I was
just like, what the heck?
And that hits quick.
It really does.
It really hits quick.
I mean, it hits you hard in the chest
and you just get that
lump inside your throat,
like golly, but by this time, you know,
I'd already walked a little way.
And I was just like, man.
So that will never happen to me again.
Well, I can't say never.
I mean, I can't say it would
never happen to you either.
But I could tell you this.
I will not, I will take
more precautions than before,
I should say.
So now here's the deal.
This is why you need to
learn your mapping compass.
This is why I always go over the basics,
because basics are exactly that.
They are your basis.
They are the beginning
level of your knowledge.
And if you keep practicing the basics,
the rest of the stuff is just land yap.
The rest of the stuff
just falls into place.
And the basics, like, you
know, just how to read a map
and how to orient
your compass to the map.
And I'm not gonna go
over complicated stuff
like pace beads and, you know, traversing
and, you know, stuff like that.
I'm just talking about
how to orient your compass
to your map and just use your compass
to get you from one place to another.
That's it.
If you want, in a little while,
I'm gonna go over more
details about another article
on how to completely use this.
And I'm telling you, I
mentioned it in the book.
That this is the most detailed article
about how to use a compass and a map.
And I guess we'll just go off script
and we'll just go ahead and do that now.
So over on, let me go
back up to the top here,
outdoorsgenerations.com,
outdoorsgenerations.com.
There's a gentleman that wrote an article
in October of 22.
His name is Ethan Shaw.
And I even referenced
his material in the book.
And this is the most,
this is the best article that I found
on how to, you know, use a compass,
the ultimate guide to navigation.
And this guy has done an amazing job
of putting everything
together that you need to know
on how to use a compass and a map.
Now, in the book, I touched
on it very, very, very briefly.
And then I deflected
off to this, you know,
because I wasn't gonna teach
maps and compasses in there,
but I did go over the
basics of what a compass does,
what it has.
And, you know, a compass
should have a magnetic needle,
a magnetized needle.
It should have an orientating arrow.
It should have a travel arrow.
And it should have an azimuth ring.
And those four things are what
you really need in a compass.
It does not matter the name brand.
It does not matter, I mean,
sure, you know, there are,
you can use a cheaper compass from,
what's that name of that one company?
They're in all the
camping gears, you know,
and they're just a real cheap compass.
You can get one for
five bucks, six bucks,
something like that.
And I have used that
compass before with zero problems.
And, you know, then you
can move your way up to $100
or $100 something dollar
compass like the Suunto M3s.
And then you got the Lin-Static compasses
the military uses and all
these different types of compasses.
There's so many compasses out there.
Each one of them has a different thing,
but a compass, a
basic compass should have
a magnetized needle, an
orientating ring or arrow,
a travel arrow and azimuth ring.
And so these things right
there are all the items required
for you to navigate
in the great outdoors.
So if you do not have
all the skills in the world
to travel and do all
these different things
that you see on all these
big wig survival schools
and stuff like that online,
at the very basic, if
you have these four items
on one compass, then you are good to go.
Then you're gonna get over
into your topographical map
and it's gonna talk about
contour lines, your scale,
your legend and a lot of
people are scared to death
of a topographical map.
But all a topographical map is,
is a 3D plane drawn on 2D paper.
And what do I mean by that?
So now they have programs like for,
what was the name of that one?
Unreal Engine, if you
want to draw a landscape
or something to that effect
and make it look realistic.
And that's what they
use for all these movies
that you're watching is Unreal Engine.
That they draw these landscapes in there.
Well, what they're
doing is they're drawing
a topographical map, contour lines.
And these contour lines represent either,
is it close together or far apart?
And if it's far apart, that
means the farther distance,
the closer it is, the steeper distance.
And so these mountains are
drawn with these contour lines
and they take this 3D
map, put it inside here
and it will spit out a 3D image.
And you've seen this,
if you're into some kind of sci-fi stuff,
you've seen this before in
sci-fi movies, I promise.
So when I was growing
up, we did not have a GPS.
We did not have cell
phones to give us directions.
We didn't have all these great things.
What we have was a Rand McNally.
And if you know what I'm
talking about, raise your hand.
We had a Rand McNally, we had an Atlas.
We had a book that had a
bunch of maps for your state.
Or if you were traveling
intrastate or interstate,
it had all the different
states you were traveling through.
So you can plan your trip.
It had all the roads, all the maps.
This was Google Maps in a book.
And that's what we used to
get from point A to point B.
If you were driving
from South Mississippi
to North Mississippi, you used an Atlas
to make sure you were on the right road.
And I used an Atlas all
the way up through 2001.
2001, I used an Atlas.
I used an Atlas to
drive from Anchorage, Alaska
to Peking, Mississippi,
to Biloxi, Mississippi,
where Kiesla Air Force Base is.
And we drove, it took
us seven and a half,
almost eight days to get there.
But we used an Atlas.
That was how we did it.
Because cell phones were,
yeah, they were a thing,
but the actual iPhones
didn't come out till much later.
Skeeter bugs.
And it was crazy how we had
to have an Atlas back then.
And we got where we was gonna go.
And what's funny is that
using those old school methods,
you remembered more.
Now you just type it in and forget it.
But back then, you typed it in,
and then you could
remember how to get to that place.
But anyway, that's
neither here nor there.
We're here to talk
about topographical maps.
So today, outdoor maps are
typically topographic maps
based off of the USGS,
the United States Geological Survey.
You can download and print practically
any topographical map
of the United States.
And I left the link in the book.
It is ngmdb.usgs.gov
slash topoview slash viewer.
So you might have to put that,
I'll try to remember to put
this link in with this podcast.
But that link will allow
you to download any free.
You can download any topographical map
of any location for free.
And they update them every so
many years, and they're free.
You do not have to go and pay $30, $40.
Like I've watched some
videos where people will go
and pay for maps to go out into the woods
and pay $30 and $40.
When you can print
that puppy out yourself,
you can download the file
and take it to a print shop
and print it out for cheap
and get it in a full-size map,
like a real map, like you would buy.
The same thing, it's crazy.
So I had several maps printed out
that I would actually
use as wall decoration
or whatnot in my office.
I hang them up because I
think they're pretty cool.
And it's the places I usually go camping.
So I'm able to look up there
and point where I wanna go
camping and what I wanna do.
But anyway, back to
the outdoors generations.
And you can come over here and it says,
"Why should I learn to use a compass?"
And it tells you
everything that you need to do.
Your smartphone might
die, your GPS may act up,
or you didn't upgrade the firmware.
And so it's not wanting to work right.
And so if you're going to go
learn how to use a compass,
I'm telling you now, go to this website,
outdoorsgenerations.com.
And Ethan Shaw is the author.
And I will put the link to this
in the description of
this video or podcast.
And this thing, it tells you everything
about what compass to use, how to use it.
It shows you how to
orientate it to your map.
It shows you what's the difference
between base plate compasses.
And that's the one that we use here.
That's what the Suunto is.
It is a base plate compass.
And it consists of a
rotating bezel set atop
a see-through square.
And that square is the base plate.
Within the compass case,
you have a free swinging compass needle
and it's got fluid in there
to allow it to move around freely.
It's got parallel lines.
And those lines can be used to match
with the north-south
grid lines of the topo map.
Now, if I'm speaking French
or another language to you,
that's okay because you're
going to go to this website
and you're going to
download this article.
Excuse me.
So you're going to go over there
and then you have to read it.
You're going to know exactly what to do.
And this, if I was to start
a class on teaching people
how to use a compass
and how to use a map,
this article on this website
is the one that I would use.
I do not understand.
Wait, hold on.
I don't know if I could
do this without it being...
And you should have heard that.
Me knocking on the table
because this is
important stuff right here.
So now, I probably got
ahead of myself a lot
from my notes.
And yes, I did.
So now I got to find myself here
and find where I left off.
(laughs)
So,
we did that with the compass.
We learned, we went to this website
and we're downloading that article
and on our own time, in our own way,
we're going to learn
how to use our compass
and how to read our map.
Now, I'm probably going
to do some more videos here
in the near, very near this week
and do some more videos on using compass
for the Primitive Camp
in the Bushcraft website.
I'll probably do a blog post on there
on how to use your compass
and a blog post on how to use the map.
So primitive-camping.com is
where I'm going to post these
and then I'll do some
videos for the Primitive Camping
and Bushcraft YouTube page.
And yeah, that's it.
And then I'll post those
up there on how to do this.
But, you know, we always
seem to take for granted
the things that seem to be the easiest
and they turn out not to be the easiest.
You can get yourself really lost
and you could really
get yourself in a bind
by heading out and not
knowing where you're at
and just heading out.
Look at these guys, look at these guys,
these hunters over in
the Midwest right now.
I don't know if they've been found.
I don't know if, the last I heard they
called the search off.
Well, I don't know how
experienced these individuals were.
I don't know.
Usually if you're going
hunting in the mountains,
you're usually pretty
experienced about how to do that.
You know, hunting in the
mountains is totally different
than let's say traveling
through South Mississippi.
South Mississippi, you're
traveling through swamps
and stuff like that.
So it's very easy to get
lost in South Mississippi.
And I'm pretty sure it's
very easy in the mountains
to slip fall or to get lost, break a leg
or something like that, you know.
And every place you go
has its onset of challenges.
It doesn't matter where you are.
It doesn't matter what terrain you're in.
It doesn't matter where
you are on the planet.
Every geological place that you go has
its onset of challenges.
Whether it be desert, whether it be ice,
whether it be the
swamps of South Mississippi,
South Louisiana, you know,
Alabama, Georgia, Florida,
you know, whether it be the hills,
you know, whether it be
the hills up above us,
whether it be the mountains
over to the east and the west,
whether it be the plains,
anywhere in these great United States,
anywhere in the world
really, it is a challenge.
Each terrain presents a
unique challenge to individuals.
And that's why people enjoy it so much.
So...
Now,
we get all the way out there.
I lost my map, you know, I
found my way back to the truck.
And I kept following
that arrow that I set
that you would learn how
to do when you go to this.
So you're gonna learn
how to box the arrow.
You're gonna learn how
to set your declination
and all that good stuff.
And then it's going to
be, let me break it down.
What saved me that day,
because this is where
the skill meets the story,
is that I set the
bearing before I left camp.
That's number one.
Number two, I aligned the
travel arrow on the compass
with the direction I needed to go.
All right.
I didn't rely on the map alone.
I used it to set my route,
but my compass was my anchor.
And so I used the
compass to tell me where to go.
When the map vanished,
the bearing was still there.
I still had the
bearing set on my compass.
All right.
A compass had a few
simple parts that matter most.
The needle, the
orientating arrow, the travel arrow,
we just went over all
this, the bezel ring,
all those meridian lines
that match the map grid.
That's your whole tool.
And that's your whole lifeline when
everything else quits.
So when you lose your
map or whatever like that,
like Ethan Shaw state talks about,
you can go a long way using handrails,
landmarks and catch points.
But once all that disappears,
when it's just you and the trees,
that bearing is going
to be your backbone.
If your aim is off a little,
you still know which side
your baseline's going to hit.
If you hit an
obstacle, you can compensate.
If you drift, you can correct.
It's simple.
It's not easy, but it's simple.
Make sense?
Not easy, but simple.
So here's the thing that
sticks with me the most.
All I needed was a direction.
I didn't have a perfect plan.
I didn't have a detailed map.
I didn't have a path
cut out in front of me.
I just had the direction I needed to go.
And that's what this compass gave me.
Not the whole way, not
a step-by-step guide.
It didn't show me that
traffic was jammed up ahead
by this log.
It didn't say that there was a game board
and sitting in the tree
waiting for me to walk by
to give me a ticket for whatever.
It was just a
direction for me to walk into.
So that's the part that really,
it's hard for me to
underscore how important it is
for you to learn these things.
And if I have to, I've been
having a lot of people ask me
if I teach private lessons here lately,
and I'm really thinking
about setting up a course
where people can come
and we can go do a camp
for a couple of days.
And this is not like you're doing it.
Your survival bushcraft
camp is gonna be your,
you're hiking to the
woods, set up your camp,
learn a few tricks, hike
out of the woods type view.
And you're all are gonna
be taking what you can fit
on your back or, you
know, stuff like that.
So if you're interested
in something like that,
please let me know.
And I think it'll be a
great, great thing to do.
Now, if you have been
with me all this time,
you already know where I'm going.
Because the truth about the
compass and the directions,
the scripture that I'm
fixing to read is everything
that my life hangs on.
It's probably verse
three, verses five and six.
And let's consult the word here.
This is the catchphrase.
This is the motto.
This is my, what I have
built all of the primitive camp
in the bushcraft and spare outdoors on.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Lean not on your own understanding.
In all your ways, acknowledge him
and he shall direct your paths.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Lean not on your own understanding.
That verse is the anchor of this show.
That verse is the
anchor of the spare outdoors,
the primitive camp in
the bushcraft, the essence.
I see it at the end of every episode.
I see it at the end of videos, not
because it's a slogan,
but because it's a compass.
It is a compass.
If you trust in the
Lord, he will guide you.
He will direct you.
He will show you which way to go.
He is your compass.
You don't get the whole map.
You don't get to see
the whole route of life.
You don't get to see tomorrow's terrain.
There's gonna be roadblocks.
There's gonna be things.
There's gonna be creeks
you're gonna have to cross.
There's gonna be,
have divides and ravines
and all these things
that you have to navigate,
but he's gonna give you the direction.
You get enough to take the next step,
enough to walk with confidence,
even when nothing
around you looks familiar.
The Bible is your mouth.
God is your compass.
Sometimes you lose the map.
Sometimes life knocks you for a loop.
You have struggles in your marriage.
You got money problems.
You got health news.
You got health problems.
You got kids, health
problems with your kids,
stuff like that.
That is discouraging.
That's the kind of
discouraging that nobody hears about
unless you tell them.
You can have an entire meltdown inside
and nobody will ever know
unless you open up and tell them.
But the bearing is still there.
The direction you need
to travel is still there.
And the one who set that
bearing, he's not guessing.
He knows which way you need to go.
He knows where you need to head. He knows the way.
If you acknowledge him,
if you stop long enough to breathe
and point your heart back towards him,
he will direct your path.
He will, you know,
the part that hangs up with me is that
it may not be a straight line.
It may be a detour.
You may have to go over here to do this
and come over here to do this and go there. I mean, if you want to do that, read the book of Acts.
That's some detours right there.
I'm not saying he's going to remove
all the obstacles in your life,
but he's always going to point you
in the direction you need to go.
He always points you towards the trail
that leads you home.
So, my encouragement to you this evening
is that you can go to the next level and write to you this evening is
learn to use your compass.
Learn to read a map.
In the book, it is page, let's see,
page 23 through 27
that I touch on it.
Because there's so much there,
I could have spent
chapters writing about a book,
writing about a compass and a map.
So learn to read the map,
learn to set the bearing and walk it out
because the woods don't
forgive ignorance at all.
They don't.
And beyond the woods, learn to do the
same with your life.
Set your direction with the one who knows
the land better than you ever will.
Trust him with the next ridge,
the next draw, the next shadow.
And when you lose your map, don't panic.
The bearing has not changed.
(chuckles)
All right, so thanks for
sitting around the fire
with me this evening on
this, was it November?
Yeah, November evening,
underneath the tarp
of Camp Wut-Da-Heck
And I really had a good time
talking about this tonight.
And like I said, I'll be
doing some more videos,
some more stuff like that
about maps and compasses,
but really, the links will
be in the appropriate places.
Check them out.
Seriously, go check this out.
If you have any doubt
on how to read a compass
or how to read a map,
go to these websites,
download a map from the USGS,
and then read this website from the
Outdoors Generations.
They, combined with the book,
Primitive Camping in Bushcraft,
which you can pick up on the website,
primitive-camping.com,
will help you navigate through the woods
and get to your camp safely
and come back to your vehicle safely.
You won't have a search
party sent out after you.
Although I have had
search parties sent after me,
and I think we talked
about it here before.
Anyway,
(laughs)
anyway, I really appreciate you guys.
Thank you so much for
joining me this evening,
and I will see you next
time in the next video
or the next podcast.
Remember, in all your
ways, acknowledge him,
and he will direct your paths.
Thanks for sitting
around the fire with me today.
If this episode gave you
something to think about,
if it helped you feel a
little bit more prepared,
or it even stirred your faith a tiny bit,
go ahead and share it with someone else
who might need it as well.
We don't go camping
to run away from life.
We come out here to
slow down and to recharge.
So grab another log,
throw it on the fire,
and remember this, in all
your ways, acknowledge him,
and he will direct your path.
I'll see you next time.
God bless you.