You studied your destination and picked a waypoint to load into your GPS from Google Earth. You have your GPS and you’re now invincible, you throw away your outdated compass and start trekking out into the bush to do some real exploration. Walking out to places where no man has gone bef… Walking out to places where YOU have never gone before. It’s time for you to conquer some new horizons and record your journey through a sophisticated satellite link to your handheld electronic device that records your position one time per second.
But really, it was a bad move throwing away your compass. It was a bad move even to not bring your compass. A GPS is an awesome tool but there is nothing like real time knowledge of the direction you are actually traveling in.
With a GPS you can actually go around in circles a few times before hitting your waypoint. This is most apparent when you’re actually using your GPS for accurate positioning in areas that are truly outback. It doesn’t take a person very long to turn direction or go off of heading when trying to dodge heavy brush that is wacking you in the face as your hiking through the bush. Your GPS is probably updating one time per second if you’re lucky and one time every five seconds if you’re not.
For this reason it’s always best to carry a compass and look at the digital compass face that your GPS will show you and the degrees off of north to your waypoint. Use your compass to move in the right direction because you probably generally know where north is but 10 degrees will throw you off a whole bunch.
No doubt that some of the newer devices now come with electronic compasses that work just as well as the traditional compass but if your GPS doesn’t come with one of these built in - this little tip will save you a whole lot of extra walking!
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