Using a Map & Compass for Hiking

Video Transcript

"I want to talk now about how to take the map and the compass and put them together. First thing you're going to need to do is look at the legend. Or somewhere on the map and look for where it talks about magnetic declination. Magnetic declination is the difference between magnetic north is where the needle is pointing and true north. It's going to be different depending on where you are in the world. This map indicates that's about 6 degrees west of true north. Now a lot of compasses you're going to have to do the mental gymnastics each time you put the map and the compass together. But this compass is kind of nice because it can actually set the declination and I don't have to think about it. I take my map and I place the compass on the edge. The top of the map is always north. What you want to do is orient this so that the north end of the map is north. Now anything you take off of this map will relate to the real world. Say I'm at this shelter right here and I need to get to a road real quick. There's a road right here. That's the closest one. And so I can take the straight edge of my base plate and then turn this dial until the needle is lined up with that little outline. I call the needle red Fred and I call that little outline red Fred's shed. So you put red Fred in the shed and then right there is the bearing that you need to take. And so when you take it. Hold it in front of you with the direction travel arrow and turn your body until red Fred's in the shed and start walking. If you have any questions give your local outfitter a holler."