{"id":90173,"date":"2018-04-08T11:34:57","date_gmt":"2018-04-08T15:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gunsamerica.com\/blog\/?p=90173"},"modified":"2018-04-08T11:34:57","modified_gmt":"2023-08-30T18:42:20","slug":"how-to-make-sure-you-only-get-lost-when-you-want-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunsamerica.com\/digest\/how-to-make-sure-you-only-get-lost-when-you-want-to\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Make Sure You Only Get Lost When You Want To"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"How<\/a>Here\u2019s the scenario: it\u2019s summer and for whatever reason, you decided to go for a hike.\u00a0 You grab your daypack, toss in a Cliff bar, some wet wipes and a bottle of water.\u00a0 On the way out the door, you grab your cell.\u00a0 You don\u2019t bother with a compass because you have no idea how to use one, and even if you did, who needs a compass when you have a cell phone.<\/p>\n

You make it to the park, find a trail and start walking.\u00a0 Something catches your eye.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s some hot little jogger, maybe it\u2019s Big Foot, it doesn\u2019t really matter- what matters is that you ditch the trail.\u00a0 The freedom is intoxicating.\u00a0 You are out in nature and loving every minute of it.\u00a0 But then your feet start to hurt, which is your body\u2019s way of telling you that it is time to head back to the house.<\/p>\n

One problem, you don\u2019t know where you are.<\/p>\n

No worries, <\/em>you tell yourself.\u00a0 I\u2019ll just pull out this cell phone, turn on the GPS and\u2026. <\/em>nothing happens.\u00a0 You try it again, same result.\u00a0 You are about to reset your phone when you notice NO SIGNAL at the top of the screen.\u00a0 That is when it hits you. Technology has failed and you are lost. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"How<\/a>On September 4, 2011, I was halfway through with basic SWAT school, when dispatch called and advised that a hunter had gone missing in Meeman Shelby Forest. Since I was still in training, and the cadre didn\u2019t want to hear me breathe much less talk, I knew that my role would be for observation purposes only.\u00a0 So I kicked back and resigned myself to watch the show.<\/p>\n

And oh what a show it turned out to be.<\/p>\n

For those not familiar with Shelby Forest, it is a 13,000-acre state park in Southwestern Tennessee.\u00a0 The park is a great place for disk golf, canoeing and\/or camping and perfectly safe as long as you stay on the trails.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"How<\/a>To this day, I still don\u2019t why Mr. Bill and his buddies decided to go to Shelby Forest to hunt squirrel.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if Mr. Bill was an outdoorsman, but what I do know is that he didn\u2019t have the faintest idea of how to navigate in the woods.<\/p>\n

I know this because, well, he was lost.<\/p>\n

Worse than being lost was the fact that the only provision he carried with him was a shotgun, two bottles of water, 15 shotgun shells, a half can of dip and a small flashlight.<\/p>\n

To make matters even worse, when Mr. Bill lost sight of his friends and it started getting dark he didn\u2019t just sit tight and hope they would come back.\u00a0 No, he started wandering around like a bastard child on father\u2019s day, and that was how Mr. Bill discovered the side of Shelby Forest they don\u2019t advertise; the 9,000 acres of poison ivy, briars, terrible terrain and cypress swamps full of pissed off cottonmouth\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

In all fairness, Mr. Bill wasn\u2019t the only one having a hard time.\u00a0 The search teams had problems of their own; mainly there was no cell reception in the Forest, which meant they couldn\u2019t use Google Earth or the GPS feature on their department-issued cell phones.\u00a0 I saw a few handheld GPS, but apparently, no one had bothered telling their operators that you actually had to change the batteries more than once every two years for them to work.<\/p>\n

And then there were the maps.<\/p>\n

The search and rescue team had two choices when it came to maps.\u00a0 Option A) was a mixed bag of outdated survey maps or option B) the Welcome Center maps that featured a cartoonish deer and smiling raccoon who warned campers \u201cnot to feed the wildlife.\u201d\u00a0 The search continued in this general vein of tomfoolery for five days.\u00a0 FIVE DAYS, and in the end Mr. Bill wasn\u2019t rescued by any of the search and rescue team.\u00a0 No, an accountant<\/em> riding his Harley Davidson Sportster through the park found Mr. Bill walking down a road.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, the After Action Review was not rated PG.\u00a0 However, there was a silver lining.\u00a0 Three weeks later I graduated SWAT school whereupon I was finally allowed to say, \u201chey you guys remember that lost hunter?\u00a0 Well, there is a better way to do something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Little did I know that such an innocent statement would eventually result in me being responsible for designing and implementing a Tactical Man\/Tracking Land Navigation course for the entire county.<\/p>\n

The first thing I did when I learned of my latest charge was break out my dusty copy of FM 3-25.26 (The Army Field Manual for Map Reading and Land Navigation).\u00a0 Just because I knew how <\/em>to read a map and use a compass didn\u2019t mean I knew how to design a course.\u00a0 Luckily ol\u2019 FM 3-25.26 had my back and when I read: \u201cland navigation teaches the ability to traverse unfamiliar terrain by foot or in a vehicle and includes the ability to<\/em> read a map, use a compass and other navigational skills,\u201d <\/em>I figured these were the cornerstones on which I would build my kingdom.<\/p>\n

\"How<\/a>Reading a Map<\/strong><\/p>\n

A map is a graphic representation of a portion of the earth\u2019s surface drawn to scale, as seen from above.<\/em>\u00a0 There are a bunch of different maps, but the one most suited for our needs is a Topographic map.\u00a0 <\/em>A topo map portrays terrain features<\/em> and elevation changes<\/em> in a measurable way and has colors, symbols and labels that represent features found on the ground.\u00a0 A map\u2019s margin provides some very useful information, which is why I always advised my students to \u201cuse the test to take the test,\u201d my way of telling them to use all the information on a map to help you out.<\/p>\n

Information such as a map\u2019s scale, which is the ratio between the distance on a map and the distance on the surface of the earth.<\/p>\n

Generally, military maps come in three basic scales:<\/p>\n

Small – <\/em>the standard size is 1:1,000,000 and covers a large area at the expense of detail.<\/p>\n

Medium – <\/em>Standard Size 1:250,000 and contain moderate amounts of detail.<\/p>\n

Large –<\/em> Usually 1:50,000 and are the most common in the military.<\/p>\n

Orient your map<\/strong>– There are two important things to remember when dealing with a map.\u00a0 If you were to take your map and lay it on a table anywhere in the world, the top of the map would represent grid north.\u00a0 <\/em>I am not trying to insult anyone\u2019s intelligence here, but this is kind of important.\u00a0 Orienting your map <\/em>means that if you are facing south, it is a good idea to turn your map so it is facing south.<\/p>\n

Super Wal-Marts\u00a0<\/strong>– Before the compass, astrolabe and whatever the else sailors use these days, ancient mariners stayed in visual range of land.\u00a0 It is easy to get lost in open water because there were no landmarks.\u00a0 This is called terrain association or to borrow a phrase from an instructor at Fort Benning, \u201cfinding your Super Wal-Mart.\u201d\u00a0 Your Super Wal-Mart is a distinguishing landmark that you see on both the map and on the ground.<\/p>\n

Grids – <\/strong>Imagine that you are a pizza delivery guy and you get an order.\u00a0 While the cook makes the pie you find the address on the map and plan your route. In the car, you pull out of the parking lot and follow the roads, signs, and landmarks until you arrive at the address.<\/p>\n

Now imagine the same situation but all the addresses in the city have been removed.\u00a0 A map without a grid system is like a city without addresses.\u00a0 The military uses the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) Grid system, which breaks the map up into 1000 meter grid blocks, and then you can use the corresponding coordinate scales on the protractor with the corresponding map scale to plot a point.\u00a0 These \u201cgrids\u201d then become an address.\"How<\/a><\/p>\n

\"How<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Compass –<\/strong> A compass is an instrument that contains a magnetized pointer or arrow that shows the direction of magnetic north and bearings from it.<\/em>\u00a0 <\/strong>It is the<\/em> most important tool in our Land Navigation bag.\u00a0 You could, in theory, write an entire article on a compass but for brevity\u2019s sake we are going to focus on three parts<\/em> of the Silva Starter<\/strong>– and how to use them.<\/p>\n