Customer Reviews

The Essential Wilderness Navigator (Ragged Mountain Press essential series on outdoor pursuits)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

You want to learn how to use a map and compass? For hiking or backpacking, especially remote wilderness? This is the best comprehensive book I've found on the subject, bar none. Reasons:

1. It gets to the point quickly in teaching you map & compass fundamentals. No fluff, no wasted time on esoteric principles of magnetism or the rules of orienteering competitions (a fine sport, but one bearing little resemblance to actual wilderness navigation with its special large-scale magnetic-north maps and simplified compasses etc.) Instead, this book concentrates on one objective: accurate land navigation in a wilderness environment.

2. It teaches realistic methods, and does not emphasize the unrealistic ones (one glaring example: penciling a lot of inaccurate magnetic declination lines all over your map the night before your trip (because the author used the method once for an adventure race with a special large-scale map and thinks it's cool) instead of just buying a compass with adjustable declination or pasting a pointer indicating a true bearing on your compass baseplate! Hey, sitting atop a windblown mountain is no place to attempt to draw magnetic lines of declination with a three-inch compass baseplate when you walk off your pre-marked map or have to use a friend's copy!

3. It has large, clear, easy-to-follow illustrations. Believe me, this is a rarity in most map/compass books.

4. It teaches BOTH compass dead reckoning (compass only) AND terrain association (map priority) navigation principles and shows the advantages and weaknesses of each in a given situation. Some orienteering-biased books would have you believe the compass is only good for aligning a map to magnetic north!

5. It has nice large pages and lies flat while you refer to various sections and practice using your map & compass in the field. Don't laugh. Remember, you will learn land navigation by practicing outdoors what you're reading. One session of trying to refer to the tiny pocket paperback pages and dingy photos of competing books will make you a believer in a large-paged instruction book with clear illustrations.

6. It covers more advanced map/compass skills (resection, finding position from a baseline and landmark, etc.) as well as beginner exercises, and does so in the same clear, practical way without excessive verbiage or attempts to be clever. One competing book spent 3 entire pages on how to use a 1902 compass design!

7. It warns you of the great inaccuracies of some improvised 'navigational' methods (like telling directions from a wristwatch and the sun) while still giving you useful information on finding direction from Polaris and other methods that do work well enough for emergency navigation.

8. While it has the mandatory chapter on GPS and the development of computer-generated waypoints, it does not attempt to be a 'all-method navigation' book. Such a book does not exist. Either the GPS material will be inadequate (because no general GPS book can cover each model of GPS and their widely varying operational characteristics in different outdoor environments) or the map/compass material is too abbreviated. Learn to use a map & compass before all else - this book makes it simple.

This book is the best resource on land navigation i've seen. I use it regularly in teaching land navigation in conjunction with search and rescue to area fire departments. The author makes the hard-to-explain easy to understand for beginners and experts alike.

I have been using a compass for many years but I always thought there was much more than I knew. I went to using GPS for all my navigation a few years ago. I purchased 3 books on compass usage a couple years ago after my wife and I broke my GPS during a snowstorm in the mountains of Colorado leaving us in a bad mess.
I quickly ran through the other 2, and although they were good they were not as complete as this one. I have carried it with me for 2 years now. I find that what I think I have learned is easily wrong when out in the field so I now carry it with me and practice the stuff I am unsure of. Some people think this book is wordy but I find it fascinating. I reread certain chapters over and over, finding I have glossed over something that is more important than I originally thought.
If you want to trust a compass this is the book for you, but plan on spending some time with it.
I am buying this book for my son-in law as he relies exclusively on a GPS.
I guess the only thing I disagree with is a statement that a compass almost never breaks, as I have several that have been retired over breakage. I carry 2-3 with me now as I guess I'm not disposed to trust any one navigational instrument.

This book is good, and would have warranted four stars, when published back in 2001 (Second Edition). The general navigation and wayfinding techniques are clearly discussed and illustrated, but there have been some key developments in the mapping world that the authors should address in an updated edition.

First, the authors are unfairly dismissive of grid systems like UTM. Now, back in 2001 this was acceptable since the USGS really didn't have an accepted grid system. They put both UTM and Lat/Long grid tics on the topo quad sheets and basically said "use what you like". This attitude has caused endless confusion among topo map users in the US. However, post 9/11 and Katrina the USGS has agreed to adopt the US National Grid system, which is nothing more than the Military Grid Reference System extended across the US. The USGS has also begun producing the excellent US Topo series of maps as a substitute for the old 7.5 minute quad sheets, and these new maps all have the US National Grid overprinted on them. These two developments alone should be enough to force the authors and publishers of all land navigation handbooks and guides to update their works.

Next is the GPS appendix. Like it or not, GPS receivers are now a standard part of most hiker's kit and consumer GPS technology has come a LONG way since 2001. I don't really think it is useful to discuss specific GPS navigation techniques in a book focusing on map and compass navigation, that is really a better topic for a separate publication. I DO think it is important to address both the benefits of having a GPS unit available and to have a frank discussion of GPS system limitations based on things like receiver design, satellite visibility and geometry, masking, the effects of canopy cover, etc. Just as important, the (serious) limitations of GPS units embedded into devices like smartphones.

The use of the internet for planning should be addressed. There has been an explosion of useful tools on the web that can help the the wilderness traveler better plan his or her adventure. One is the availability of free digital copies of all USGS topo maps directly from the USGS Map Store in GeoPDF format and tools like the NOAA web tool for calculating the current magnetic declination for any area in the US [...]

Admittedly, all of the above comments were not valid when this book was published in 2001, and in the context of 2001 this is a very good book. If the reader keeps in mind and takes advantage of the advances I discuss then this can be considered a very good wilderness navigation book and from that perspective I can recommend it.

However, there are some issues that are fundamental to the book and reflective of the style and experience of the authors that I do have some reservations about.

First is the discussion of types of compasses and their use and limitations (I should note that this is something a lot of wilderness navigation authors are guilty of). For example, I have a collection of about 18 liquid dampened compasses by the big name makers (Silva, Suunto & Brunton). About half of them have air bubbles in the capsule and several of these bubbles are so large they interfere with the compass needle operation. I EXPECT a liquid dampened compass to develop air bubbles and for this reason I always carry a backup. However, I have never had an induction dampened compass fail. The selection of induction dampened compasses is admittedly limited. The most common example is the US Army lensatic compass, and it is an excellent choice for the wilderness traveler. The techniques of use for the lensatic compass are just slightly different, but no more difficult, than those used with baseplate compasses.

While ordinary baseplate compasses are great for orienteering or short range wilderness navigation they start to show their weakness when trying to determine accurate bearings to distant landmarks, particularly in desert environments. A sighting compass, like the Silva Ranger, is a much more accurate tool and provides the best features of the baseplate compass. For serious navigation work where accurate bearing determination is critical I strongly recommend a sighting compass accurate to 1/2 degree, like the Suunto KB-14.

Last, I'm somewhat concerned by the authors weak coverage of how to adjust for magnetic declination. The authors try to talk their way through the topic, and offer some useful memory jogs in the appendix (like "declination east, compass least"). However, my experience is that the use of the 'greater - lesser angle' diagram pioneered by the US military is the easiest to teach, easiest to visualize and the least error prone. I find that once students 'get' the diagram they find it easy to hold in memory and many of them never even bother to make use of the declination offset features available on their compasses. The concept of declination - both grid and magnetic - is too important to not cover clearly and in depth in any serious work on wilderness navigation.

An excellent book for those starting out on orienteering. Very good conversational wording. Doesn't use too much jargon. The practical exercises are easily understood. The combination of the written word and neat diagrams and pictures make the information easily digestable.

I can't compare to similar books because I chose carefully and bought one. My limited experience with others isn't enough to say this is the only one for you, but I can say that by a wide margin it's the one for me. It's only ~170pp but there's scarcely a wasted word or unnecessary idea in it. Others wander through extensive desultory discussions of compass design, magnetic anomalies, map projections, tables and graphs. This book mentions each, says about it what pertains to the subject at hand and moves on. (That's the "Essential" part.) The subject at hand is not getting lost, or if necessary getting unlost. So it spends half its column-inches explaining how to use a map, how to use a compass, and how to use them together, in a progressive, logical, concise style. That's what I bought it for and I think it performs that function admirably. It's an intelligently organized instruction manual for the use of our basic tools.

Where this book excels, though, is that while embracing technical assistance (map & compass) it begins and ends with a deep appreciation of the myriad clues available for determining position without technical assistance if we learn to see and understand them. (That's the "Wilderness Navigator" part.) So most of the other half of its column-inches are devoted to navigating without, or in conjunction with, map and/or compass using sun, stars, watercourses, topography etc., how to think graphically and accumulate data, and how to behave sensibly. It espouses a cogent philosophy I'll sum up in three aphorisms: pay attention to where you are and visualize where you've been; practice and theory are both essential (more of one doesn't make up for less of the other); and, if lost, thinking is a better strategy than hoping.

There's the obligatory cursory examination of GPS and a nod to Orienteering, each blessedly brief because neither can be properly addressed in anything less than more than this entire book. You can ignore those bits without penalty, and you can merely read pages that examine peculiar difficulties with generic solutions, or recount illustrative anecdotes. What's left, though, demands close and repeated attention as it's precisely to the point. Declarative statements, simple illustrations and prescriptive exercises will get you thinking and navigating expertly, if you're willing to do the work.

One small note: the authors recommend, correctly, acquiring a baseplate compass. However, they say more than once that among its advantages is that almost all baseplate compasses offer built-in declination adjustment. My experience is that dealers nearly always offer compasses with and without this feature that look almost identical. Above a certain price, perhaps, their statement is accurate, but novice shoppers can't count on it. Of a large class I once took, nearly half the students had bought new baseplate compasses that could not compensate for declination. Not one of them realized it. Unless you live in Wisconsin, or eschew maps, or can do the math flawlessly in your head, declination compensation is well worth requesting.

Great book. Read it before I went on a backpacking trip to Colorado. It taught me a lot about map reading, how to use a compass, and also how to be more aware of my surroundings. I would suggest this book to anyone who backpacks or does day trips.

The relaxed, conversational pace of this book may appeal to some readers. It strikes me otherwise, and feels wordy, and in places little more than fluff. If the writing were tighter, the details would stand out better. Those details are there and worth getting. It is a good introduction in that sense. For some readers this may be enough. If you are inclined to read more than one book on any subject you're interested in, then this may be helpful as one of the first books on navigation you might read. But it is unlikely it'd be your last.

I found "The Essential Wilderness Navigator: How to Find Your Way in the Great Outdoors" to be a good book for learning basic navigation skills for your journeys into the wilderness. The second edition contains information on technological advances and electronic navigation such as GPS and e-maps. While this information is handy, there are other resources devoted to GPS that contain more information. Personally, it is the first 7 chapters that I find most important. These are the original topics, with the Electronic Navigation chapter being added for the second edition. The reason I believe this is because I think everyone going into the woods should learn the basic skills of navigation without electronic devices first. Batteries die, electronic devises break and fail. It's good to be able to get by without them.

The first seven chapters cover the following topics: 1. A Sense of Direction. 2. Maps. 3. Compasses. 4. Navigation. 5. Navigation in Use. 6. Looking to Nature for Clues. 7. Extreme Environments. As I stated earlier, chapter 8 is Electronic Navigation. There is also an Appendix with additional useful information.

I like how the authors organize the text and start out with the basics of having a sense of direction. Everyone should know the basic skills of how not to get lost. As someone who spends a lot of time teaching awareness, I really liked the advice to watch where you are going and where you have been.

The chapters on maps and compasses provide good explanations and guidance on their use. I found the chapters clear and easy to understand and the featured the most common maps and compass types you'll be using. The book also contains good instruction on their use.

One you understand what a map and compass are, and their basic functions, the navigation chapters teach you how to actually get from point A to B, or from point B to C, or anywhere else you need to get to. Besides instruction on using a map and compass together, the chapters feature guidance in other navigation skills as well.

The chapter on looking to nature for clues gives some tips on using the sun and stars to help find your way. The chapter on Extreme Environments is very short, but gives a little information on mountains, snow, and deserts.

It's not a long book, but it does contain good information and instruction on the basics of navigation, and the basics are what everyone needs to learn. I think the book is a good addition to a person's outdoor or wilderness texts library. If you read it and practice what it teaches, you'll be able to find your way, keep from getting lost, and ensure you stay found.

Reviewed by Alain Burrese, J.D., author of Hard-Won Wisdom From the School of Hard Knocks.

The book is well organized and informative. Although I have not yet finished reading the entire book, the parts I have read were well written. There were numerous illustrations to help explain the text. The appendix lists other books and sources of related information.