Discussion: Navigating by compass

Being relatively new to the sport, I think one of my deficiencies is in my ability to navigate solely by compass. When I have to navigate this way, without help from features on the map, I find that it is not uncommon to end up 10 degrees off my desired course. Sometimes 15 degrees. 10 degrees translates to an error of around 90 meters on a 500 meter leg.

I'm wondering how much training emphasis I should put on improving this. What do you more experienced people feel like your error range is?

My technique is to hold the compass directly in front of my stomach, take a bearing (while running), and look up and find the furthest object I can see in that direction. As I approach that object, I repeat the process. If I have to detour to get a better running lane, I usually try to make some effort to get back to the original line, but I don't always get this done effectively. Am I missing any tricks?

I still feel relatively new to the sport (5-6 years), but one thing I've learned: if you ever find yourself "navigating solely by compass" for 500 (or even 200) meters, you (or, maybe, the coursesetter) are definitely doing something wrong. (Although the cadets, with their perverse sense of humor, had an "extreme-O" with a 500 meter leg where they gave you a compass bearing but no map.) 10 degree error sounds acceptable to me; I'd work on map and terrain reading skills.

The 500m example was from a training exercise where I deliberately found a flat, wooded area with no features in order to test my accuracy. I agree that it would be rare to find something like this on an actual course, but it gives you an idea what my skill level currently is.

You don't. Period. You don't run on the compass only (well, of course you can do it, but it will not make things easy) I keep the compass on the map (base plate or thumb, same thing) and while I run, I check features. Even when there are only a few features, I read the map.

Running on the compass alone leads always to slight detours and you drift left or right.

Checking the map helps you to estimate how far you are, by seeing the objects along the way.

I see the take a "bearing and count pace" approach at many ARs. Some teams carefully measure the degrees for each control & the distance and write it on the map. When 50 meters over there would be a nice trail to run around the mountain, they bushwack. And well, I know the rest.

Use the compass to orient the map. And read the map, as much as you can, even if it is a USGS map, which takes a lot of intuition to navigate with.

I'm also a relative newbie, but I have to echo what the others are saying about avoiding nav by compass alone. As an engineer, that is how I began orienteering and adventure racing. The precision of having the exact numbers appealed to me. It was time-consuming in an O race, and all too easy to drift a bit as you describe, but I saved a lot of trouble by not reading the map so much. (Yikes!!!)

Then we did an adventure run that included a short section with no map - just bearings and distances. No problem for me! After the race, Hammer mentioned that he'd had to scramble there because he hadn't brought a compass with numbers on it. Say what?!?!? It had never occurred to me that you could orienteer that way. And if he could win races without using bearings, then maybe I was on the wrong track.

So I spent the rest of that year consciously trying to minimize my use of the compass and bearings. At first, it was frustrating and my performance declined, and it was tempting to just go back to my comfortable old habits. But eventually it started to come together and, although I'll never be a star, I'm better than I was before I made the transition.

In adventure racing, where the maps have less detail, and features are not always visible due to trees and/or darkness, I rely more on compass bearings. But I'm reading the map better now because of my orienteering practice, so I'm almost never relying on compass alone, even in AR.

Another thing to keep in mind is that, even if you were 100% dead on with bearing and pace, there's no guarantee that's where the feature is. IOF standard for O-maps calls for linear distortion of less than 5%, which puts you as much as 25m away from that pit in light green at the end of a 500m leg. Typical AR maps are much rougher.

Find attack points and use them!

Oh I greatly prefer to navigate by using the map and features. Don't get me wrong. I don't have much belief at all in my ability to navigate effectively for any distance by compass bearing alone. That's why I asked the original questions. I get distinctly uncomfortable when a lack of recognizable features forces me to rely on the compass for even a short distance. I might roughly estimate that I navigate 90% by features and just 10% by compass bearing, if that.

But being able to use the compass does have some value, and I was just wondering if my typical error margin was much worse than the better competitors. If my error margin is substantially worse, then I might focus a bit of training on following the compass. If experienced people tell me that they are not that much better, then I'll be less inclined to do anything about it.

Well, I don't know if I qualify as one of the "better competitors", but once I got to where I could consistently run rough bearing with around 10 degree error, I stopped trying to improve it. On the rare occasion when there really is nothing else to navigate by, I can WALK a very accurate bearing (2-3 degree error) by sighting.

I was worried when I read your initial post - you should definitely be using the compass alongside your map - but I see where you're heading with it now.

If you're relatively new to the sport, you will find that the compass work comes on naturally. Like all things, the more you practice, the better it gets. I've been at this game for 10 years come September, and I was only really satisfied with improvements to my compasswork after maybe 4 or 5. It's hard, and you will make mistakes, but your error margin doesn't sound too bad. Especially given that you'll have taken a bearing using a map that's not 100% itself.

As long as you're aware of it, and you pay attention to the other stuff - especially catching features - you shouldn't have problems finding your kites :-)

When you see that the leg requires a precision compass, be fussy when you:

1. Set up the compass on the map,
2. When you set the bezel (if you have one),
3. When you align the compass to your body, and
4. When you line up the needle to the bezel.

I have seen others (and have myself) wished the needle into the little house by twisting my wrist so the compass isn't pointing where I'm running. I hope that desciption makes sense...

My worst bearing run (that I remember) was 27 degrees off. I'm not really sure how I did that, but I wasn't being careful at all.

Although I agree with others that, during competitions, one typically avoids navigating by compass alone (I try to check off features as I go, or look for features ahead or in the distance, or try to keep the bearing short), one should practice individual skills in isolation, including compass work, in order to improve them. (If you always orienteer and train using all your skills, you're probably relying mostly on a few skills that you're comfortable with, and not really practicing the rest.)

Are there any consistent errors in your bearings? Always off to the right (if you use a baseplate compass and hold it in your right hand), for instance? It's possible to hold the compass out in front of you, but because of the natural position of your wrist, point the compass off to the right (or left) while your body points and moves straight ahead. This can lead to an error in bearings. Also, needles bounce around a lot. Do you wait until a gap between trees (where the compass isn't being bounced as much) and watch the needle for a second or so (to see if it's swinging)? Any metal or electronic objects really near your needle?

35m off on a 200m bearing sounds like too much. That's pretty far off for a relatively short bearing of 200m, and will lead to time loss. I'd practice getting this under 20m, and ideally 10m for when you need a really accurate bearing. (Indeed, the absolute map accuracy may inhibit doing better than this, but I've done practices where, being a bit careful, this is not impossible on a good map.) But practice other skills too, like contour reading, vegetation reading, aiming off, generalization, red light-green light, line orienteering, etc.

Lest anyone who doesn't know me thinks that I'm a compass keener, I should note that I often run without a compass for fun, after having won the 1982 US Champs having forgotten my compass the second day. (French Creek in Pennsylvania) But always with a compass when I want to win, sometimes two (for backup if I fall on my compass).

Have fun training.

A niche skill that paid dividends a bit back is the ability to run while keeping my arm completely still. I don't like taking more than a quick glance at the compass, so I always hold my arm still for a few seconds before looking at it. By then, the needle has settled.

The payback on this came when I dislocated my shoulder. I found that I could run quite comfortably with my arm in a sling. I didn't miss much training at all.

BTW, I agree with Jim that the 10 degree error on rough compass is too much if you're relying on compass alone. I only do that when I've got other features to work with. Try really hard to find decent attack points so you only have to slow down for accurate compass work for the last bit of a leg.

Compass is an aid for navigation, and not means of navigation. Pasi Ikonen, for example, won the World Champs without using compass at all (I don't think he still does) because he felt that having a compass distracted him from the map. That said, he predominantly runs in Finland, where there are way more catching features than in your typical US forest.

Since no one has mentioned it. Hold the compas up, better to sight over it to an object to run toward. Looking up from the compass at your belly can induce quite an eror. One reason a baseplate is easier to use for bearings. (but less good for map orienteation).

While I know the question is directed towards "micro" navigation I've also found it applies to "macro" navigation.

I've been on a compass bearing for large traverses in AR. Two specific examples come to mind: travelling in the outback of Australia through the night (30 km leg) and on a plateau region of Yukon for 10-15km legs (at night as well). In both these cases there were minimal features on the maps to orient to the terrain. Now, I'm not necessarily answering your question, but in these cases we are with teammates and the lead navigator choses the bearing while the "tail" navigator can check often to see if it is on track by looking down the line of walkers/runners. Also, I'll shoot "short" to one side of a catch feature (rivers in these cases) so that I know when I get there which direction I need to turn (learnt this through trial and error). For bearings in dense forests - I'll try and stay more accurate by sighting off distant features (as has been mentioned) or at night, I'll track how many times I've stepped around to the right vs. stepped around to the left - and try and keep these in balance. I'm also very concious of when I'm side hilling of a tendency to drop down off the bearing.

I've been in one situation where it took us approximately 8 hours of night travel to move about 1.5 km. Big learning curve on that one. It was night in New Zealand in a rolling alpine section with rock pillars everywhere. Fog, darkness, loss of depth perception, rock walls, nominal map features, etc. lead to complete disorientation. Only a compass kept us generally moving towards the right direction (should have just slept). I wish I was a bat and could have navigated through sonic blasts - mind you if I was a bat I guess I could have just flown over this stuff...