Author Topic: Taking a bearing in clag  (Read 3831 times)

Mel

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Taking a bearing in clag
« on: 15:15:48, 05/09/18 »
I didn't want to hijack another thread where this is mentioned but a comment on there got me wondering ....


If you're in clag in a mountainous area (but know roughly where you are), is taking a compass bearing pointless?




Owen

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Re: Taking a bearing in clag
« Reply #1 on: 15:20:01, 05/09/18 »
No, how else are you going to keep to a straight line?

Mel

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Re: Taking a bearing in clag
« Reply #2 on: 15:24:10, 05/09/18 »
Thanks Owen.  That's what I thought  O0


... and indeed, the person in the other topic who said it was pointless due to lack of landmarks then admitted to going round in circles for hours!








jimbob

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Re: Taking a bearing in clag
« Reply #3 on: 15:34:08, 05/09/18 »
Well, my thought is could the straight line take you over a cliff? ;D
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Mel

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Re: Taking a bearing in clag
« Reply #4 on: 15:41:34, 05/09/18 »
 :-\  dunno, I'd have thought not if you're using the bearing in conjunction with a map and pacing?


PS. I have no actual real life experience of mountain clag navigation so I may be showing my "green-ness" with that comment?










tonyk

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Re: Taking a bearing in clag
« Reply #5 on: 16:16:26, 05/09/18 »
 The secret is to know your position before you get into clag.I learned the hard way and spent more than four hours going around in circles and climbing up and down hills I had already climbed up. :-[

pauldawes

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Re: Taking a bearing in clag
« Reply #6 on: 16:35:06, 05/09/18 »
The secret is to know your position before you get into clag.I learned the hard way and spent more than four hours going around in circles and climbing up and down hills I had already climbed up. :-[


Even then in a “serious” fog it’s hard work for any but the really good navigators..you need some way to estimate how far you’ve walked before you need to change direction (assuming the terrain rules out walking on a single direction until you hit a rail feature such as river, road, wall, forest edge, etc.)


Techniques such as counting strides and multiplying number of strides by average stride length (to estimate distance) are a wee bit hit and miss.


Before advent of GPS I’d always consider just sitting down and hoping fog would clear in some terrains!

ninthace

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Re: Taking a bearing in clag
« Reply #7 on: 16:42:03, 05/09/18 »
Also consider that if you sort of have an idea of where you are you can go on a bearing to a linear feature that intersects your line of advance (walls, tracks streams etc.)  Once you have found that you can follow the feature to an identifiable point (bend in the wall, intersection with another wall, gateway etc.)  Then you will have a better idea of where you are.


I think I may have said before, the art of not getting lost is to navigate constantly.  Never pass a feature, bend, intersection, change of gradient etc, without accounting for it and at the same time working out what will come next in terms of features and direction of travel.  That way, if you enter cloud or fog you should have a good idea of where you were at that point and what bearing to follow.  Even if you are following a path, have the compass out all the time in cloud to check the path is going in the direction you expect; in poor visibility it is easy to stray onto the wrong track.  Follow the same methodology, what direction should you be going in and what is coming up that may give you another fix? Keep track of elapsed time and speed to work out distance travelled,  that way you will know when you should be approaching an identifiable feature to get a fix on your position.
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sussamb

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Re: Taking a bearing in clag
« Reply #8 on: 19:25:19, 05/09/18 »
No, how else are you going to keep to a straight line?


Agreed.  The issue in poor visibility though is walking straight on a bearing, particularly when on a slope as you tend to drift down hill while still pointing along the bearing. This can be negated by picking a point on the bearing, walking to that, picking another point etc etc.  How far away those points are is of course dependant on visibility  O0
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Owen

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Re: Taking a bearing in clag
« Reply #9 on: 19:35:59, 05/09/18 »
Well, my thought is could the straight line take you over a cliff? ;D


You do have to use the map and brain as well.

Owen

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Re: Taking a bearing in clag
« Reply #10 on: 19:39:03, 05/09/18 »
The secret is to know your position before you get into clag.I learned the hard way and spent more than four hours going around in circles and climbing up and down hills I had already climbed up. :-[


Not getting the map and compass out early enough has to be the most common mistake everyone makes. I think we've all been there.

ninthace

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Re: Taking a bearing in clag
« Reply #11 on: 19:39:47, 05/09/18 »

Agreed.  The issue in poor visibility though is walking straight on a bearing, particularly when on a slope as you tend to drift down hill while still pointing along the bearing. This can be negated by picking a point on the bearing, walking to that, picking another point etc etc.  How far away those points are is of course dependant on visibility  O0


Or if there is more than one of you, send a person out to the limit of visibility and use them as a human surveyor's pole to stand on the line of the bearing then walk to them and repeat.  Many years ago we crossed a big junk of Dartmoor that way and it was surprisingly accurate. Certainly more accurate than taking a bearing on a sheep that was pretending to be a rock which is what another group did; might have worked had it been standing still!
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Owen

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Re: Taking a bearing in clag
« Reply #12 on: 19:41:36, 05/09/18 »

Techniques such as counting strides and multiplying number of strides by average stride length (to estimate distance) are a wee bit hit and miss.


It does work but needs practice.

Owen

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Re: Taking a bearing in clag
« Reply #13 on: 19:48:44, 05/09/18 »

Or if there is more than one of you, send a person out to the limit of visibility and use them as a human surveyor's pole to stand on the line of the bearing then walk to them and repeat.  Many years ago we crossed a big junk of Dartmoor that way and it was surprisingly accurate. Certainly more accurate than taking a bearing on a sheep that was pretending to be a rock which is what another group did; might have worked had it been standing still!


I remember as a young army recruit spending several night out on Dartmoor doing just that. As well as quite a few other places, if you think Dartmoor is bad try Belize.

sussamb

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Re: Taking a bearing in clag
« Reply #14 on: 20:08:47, 05/09/18 »
 ;D  lots of places are worse than Dartmoor.
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