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

David Seidman (Author), Christine Erikson (Illustrator)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Maps and a compass are the hiker's insurance against getting lost in the woods. But you'll need to be able to do more with these tools than locate Fresno or head south. Seidman, a world traveler and master kayaker, charts the subtleties of map interpretation (especially the ups and downs of contour lines) and offers instruction on how to use a compass for taking bearings and walking a course. Other techniques for finding your way in the woods are explained: estimating distances by finger angles or winking, adjusting your compass for true north, and finding directions from the motions of the sun and stars. By the way, forget about moss growing on the north side of trees; lichens like moisture, which more often depends on prevailing winds and weather than direction. This book is filled with illustrations and practical advice to keep the careful trekker on the right path. Even armchair travelers will find some valuable advice here. Jennifer Henderson

Product Description

As in all the "Essential" series titles, the text is woven page by page with sidebars, photos, and drawings to create a highly visual reading experience. This combination is uniquely effective in propelling the reader to a fundamental mastery of map and compass use. But The Essential Wilderness Navigator does more than teach the disciplines of reading compasses and interpreting topographical maps, important as these are. It includes exercises for developing our sixth sense of spatial awareness-what psychologist call cognitive maps. It offers tips for reading nature's highway signs, from vegetation bands, to wind ripples in snow or sand, to the sun and stars. It covers the particular challenges of mountain, snow, and desert navigation. It summarizes the research on how and why men and women navigate differently. And above all, it teaches the language and thought processes of the experienced navigator. To understand bearing, lines of position, baselines, bracketing, aiming off, and catch points is to know how to use these techniques, consciously at first, but later with unconscious mastery.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill; 7th ptg edition (June 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0070563233
• ISBN-13: 978-0070563230
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,281,798 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

107 of 108 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Map and Compass Instruction Book, December 3, 2004

By	Peter - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Essential Wilderness Navigator: How to Find Your Way in the Great Outdoors, Second Edition (Paperback)

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.

52 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The best resource for beginning or experienced pathfinders, October 27, 1999

By	Doug Kyle ([e-mail]) (West Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Essential Wilderness Navigator (Ragged Mountain Press essential series on outdoor pursuits) (Paperback)

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.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Difficult to get lost with this one..., September 5, 2005

By	Kristian J. Velasquez (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Essential Wilderness Navigator: How to Find Your Way in the Great Outdoors, Second Edition (Paperback)

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.