Psalm 107:4 ESV Some wandering in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in.
Everyone that has had to navigate anywhere will reference landmarks. Those obvious features around that you can use to tell your general or exact location: a major road, mountain, water tower, or river.
When you navigate via terrain association you are using this same general concept. You will look at your topographic map and pick out terrain features you will being traveling between on your route. As you move forward you can check off these terrain features and keep your location known. All without having to march on a straight azimuth (compass heading), while simultaneously keeping pace and sliding ranger beads around.
Navigating with terrain association allows you spend more time focusing on your task at hand, as well as taking a route which doesn’t rely on straight lines and math. This is a more practical way of traveling, especially if you are trying to accomplish a task like hunting or hiking.
For most people having the ability to visualize the next terrain feature, along with it’s anticipated location, is the key in making this technique work. When you visualize the “next” thing and it appears where you expect to find it, you know you are in the right place. If you don’t stay on top of this it is much easier to lose your location in my experience.
The negatives side to terrain association are: you need some terrain that shows on the map and in the environment. If the area is too flat to have any features, you will be lost quickly if you don’t use a dead reckoning navigation method. Or if you can’t see anything, think fog and to a lesser degree darkness you will have a hard time seeing the map features. So needless to say match your technique to your location.
Once you get some practice with terrain association I think you will find it’s your preferred method for getting around. It certainly has for me!
Stay tuned for an upcoming Land Navigation course.
-Joe
Outpost 95 