by Kyt Lyn Walken
Developing navigation skills is often underrated, easily forgotten, poorly covered in some books and manuals. It is even more difficult when you have a poor sense of direction.
On the opposite, navigation skills have been the core of exploration for ages, assuming the role of one of the essential abilities to gain and master.
Scouting uncharted places, in fact, required a high level of expertise, along with commitment, dedication and bravery.
Navigation mastery actually triggered the elaboration of maps and the evolution of devices voted to make navigation accessible to anyone. Technology development did the rest.
Nonetheless, running out of batteries or finding yourself stranded somewhere and with no connection can be a threat to your survival.
Here are tips to improve your navigation skills in an urban scenario as well as off-grid.
Navigation in an urban context versus in the wilderness
“I was one of the many millions to misunderstand what is wild. I have read authors’ definitions of “wild” as any place you can walk for a week witthout meeting a road or fence. But I think that is a narrow view, a consumer view, a transactional perspective that expects a landscape to give us the sense of wilderness in return for our travel. It is one I subscribed to for many years, which is partly why I found myself in those places, but now I see it as lazy. A sense of wild is engendered by awareness, a sense of connection with and deep understanding of any landscape. The pavement of any city side street wriggles with enough life to terrify and delight us if we choose to immerse ourselves in it”
― Tristan Gooley, “The Nature Instinct: Relearning Our Lost Intuition for the Inner Workings of the Natural World“
Paper maps
Thinking to get lost inside a metropolitan area seems odd, especially considering the abundance of resources (road signs, public maps, etc.)
Additionally, the possibility to rely on people’s kindness to help us finding our destination is a certainty for us.
Even so, extended suburban areas can be tricky enough to navigate in.
By definition, in fact, those zones are often less populated and sometimes poor in terms of proper signs.
If wifi- connection is scarce – or even nonexistent, we could easily get trapped in a dedalus of dirt roads, totally at large from our real destination.
By saying so, the chance of having an updated paper map of the area we are in is always the wisest option to go.
Along with this, while driving we can get details of the entire place we are in.
Observation
Observation can allow us to collect data on several details of utterly importance, connected to safety:
1. distance to our destination
2. the type of road we are in
3. the district we are crossing (buildings, population, ..)
4. weather conditions
5. probability to find a place where to spend the night in complete safety
Just to mention the most obvious.
Either by on a vehicle either by feet we actually navigate by, simultaneously, making intelligence.
By doing so, we start to create a mental database which allows us to fix some reference points in order not to get lost.
If this process seems pretty regular inside a city, why can we apply the same conditions to an off-grid dimension?
How to improve your navigation skills
“Randomness is not a great survival strategy, so it is rare in nature.”
― Tristan Gooley, “The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs: Use Outdoor Clues to Find Your Way, Predict the Weather, Locate Water, Track Animals-and Other Forgotten Skills“
Navigation skills can be effectively gained and mastered throughout different methods, like:
– studying some good books and field guides
– watching valuable videos on YouTube
– using with a systematic approach map and compass
– put in constant practice what you learned
Like for other primitive arts, navigation requires in fact patience, focus, determination, perseverance and a practical use.
This is the only way to become good at.
Besides what mentioned above, there is actually another ancient art which can come in handy to achieve your goals with great effectiveness and functionality.
The art of tracking
Tracking can be defined as the ability of locating, reading, interpreting and following animals and/or men by the tracks they left.
Even if primordial, this Art has been successfully handed down to nowadays.
It crossed centuries of explorations and technological development without losing neither modifying her principles and power too.
From hunting big and small game to defensive purposes, Tracking has always come into play with extreme effectiveness, especially in survival scenarios.
Reading the environment
As stressed out before, reading the environment which surrounds us is making intel.
Scouting an area can provide us the elements related to
• signs of urbanization
• presences of roads
• presence of vehicles
• flora and fauna
• detection of any sound we can immediately recon as man-made
• any trace, on the ground, of recent – or old- passage of people and/or animals
We scout employing our eyes, ears, nose and hands.
Every detail counts, when it comes the necessity to understand our location.
Additionally, all the information determine our safety, if we find ourselves stranded.
The necessity of setting some reference points can be easily supplied by the earth herself.
Reading the terrain
Observation gives us all the topics necessary to reconstruct what happened in a specific time/space frame, which, if you think about it, is the purpose of Tracking.
Tracking is totally like solving a puzzle.
You start from collecting the pieces, then matching them together in order to have the whole picture in your mind.
Tracking can be indeed easy to do on some ideal terrains (so defined “track traps” inside the Tracking terminology,) like muddy, sandy soils, or snowy.
On the very opposite, reading the earth can be of utterly difficulty on tough surfaces like dead leaves or pine needles bed, craggy and rocky soils or bush hogged prairies.
If you can clearly spot tracks on a very humid soil, well.. that appears to be quite challenging to detect elsewhere.
The core of Tracking is being able:
1. to methodically observe what surrounds you
2. to start looking for the tracks of your own interest
3. to interpret them in an accurate way, not jumping into conclusions
4. to finally follow them
Only by carrying and testing your Tracking skills in different environments and with various weather – season conditions you will be able to achieve successes.
Combining Tracking skills with Survival
“Tracking reveals the story of what has happened in our environment. It is up to us whether we consider that valuable or not. I certainly do. There is a difference between something that is valuable and something that is essential. Oxygen is essential, but tracking is valuable. One keeps us alive, the other enriches that life. A bacteria is alive, but humans are capable of the sort of awareness that leads to a much richer life. If we choose it. Those who have no interest in the stories we can read in nature have a poorer life.”
– Tristan Gooley, interviewed by Kyt Lyn Walken (September, 2020)
Imagine of being stranded and in the condition of spending the night out.
If so, you can look for an ideal area where to settle your shelter.
By applying Tracking Skills, you can look for a safe place
– far from any wasp nests or widow maker
– at proper distance from any animal passage (by doing so, avoid to take advantage of any den, even if it looks like old or abandoned!)
You can also track to locate the proximity of a river where to collect water to filter and purify.
Tracking animals will make you gain also the expertise where to set traps.
How to backtrack yourself if stranded
“[….] if you are lost, then noticing the route taken by animals can reveal the location of water, woodland, hills, towns and much more. Humans leave erosion patterns at junctions that point towards civilisation. As a general rule, individual animals and people can do strange things, but group behaviour will always reveal a truth about the area.[…]
-Tristan Gooley, Interviewed by Kyt Lyn Walken, September 2020
If you find yourself on a real soft and properly humid terrain, you can be able to backtrack yourself by checking the design of the soles of your shoes (Trackers define it as “pattern“).
You must be very accurate in doing that!
In fact, a miss-interpretation could easily lead you into following the tracks of those who passed before you.
Even with a change of the type of ground, you should be good in detecting your own tracks.
Conclusion
“[…] The decisions people and animals make can be seen in their signs, this reveals a lot about our surroundings and can help us with navigation decisions […]”
– Tristan Gooley, interviewed by Kyt Lyn Walken (September, 2020)
There are some really good manuals which can open your horizons at mastering navigation skills.
My personal selection goes to:
The Natural Navigator – Tristan Gooley (2010)
Map Reading and Land Navigation: FM 3-25.26 – Department of Army (2011)
Land Navigation Handbook: The Sierra Club Guide to Map, Compass and GPS (Sierra Club Outdoor Adventure Guide) – W. S. Kals (2005)
Advanced Bushcraft: An Expert Field Guide to the Art of Wilderness Survival – Dave Canterbury (2020)
Developing navigation skills, combined with scouting and tracking is a guarantee of success.
About the author:
Kyt Lyn Walken is Official Representative and Instructor for Hull’s Tracking School (Virginia) and Antipoaching Certified Ranger for Conservation Rangers Operations Worldwide Inc. (Colorado).
She’s a long time Prepper and Survavilist and she wrote several articles and essays on this topic.
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