How to Read a Map

Male: Is it recording? Hunter: Yup. Male: Now try to hold it steady and keep us in the middle of the picture. Now, I'm showing my son here Corey some basic navigation with a compass and GPS. We’ve taken a map compass and, we’ve set the; set it back to north. We’ve aligned the map towards magnetic north. There was one guy that wrote in to YouTube is, why did I not mention declination. Magnetic declination - it’s a—I hope I’m saying it right. You have to adjust your compass every part of the world. You need to get a map of your area, a magnetic map of your area, and every, area in the world, is going to have varying; various magnetic shifts to it. And so we need to take your compass and use that declination chart and adjust your compass because of the difference between magnetic north and true north. So, anyway, once you got your compass in declination set. Retake your map to magnetic north, to make sure you compass is set to magnetic north too. If haven’t set the true north, and then you’re working with a compass, then you’re going to throw yourself off. Your GPS needs to be set towards magnetic north so that you can use your compass. And get you a map, Department of Interior Geological Survey or a USGS map wherever you’re hiking in. Alright Corey, are you ready? Corey: Uh-huh. Male: Now if you look on the GPS it gives your position, alright? What does it say? 41. Okay? So what we’re going to do is we’re going to find 41. Here we are, and now we’re looking for—41, 21 alright? And so here is 41, and there is two and this is divided into tenths. So, there is a two and there is a three. So this is divided. So just divide this into tenths alright between the two and the three Corey: Uh-huh. Male: Alright, so that’s 41, 21 and so we’re just barely over the two. Alright? So we’re right here on this line. That means we’re right here. Okay, you got that? Corey: Uh-huh. Male: Alright, so we know that by the—there is a creek. I’ll bet we’re right here, where that creek crosses that line, right there. Come here, look. Backup, Hunter. Hunter: I get the river glare. Male: Yeah. There is a creek right there. Corey: Yeah. Male: There is a creek that crosses that line right there, okay? See that little speck, that little dotted line. Corey: Uh-huh. Male: And now we’re on this main coordinate, right here and we’re just one tenth off of this one. So that means we’re right here, alright? So this is our location. Right there, and plus we’ve got a creek to prove it. There’s our creek, right there. We know that our location is right about here. We take and we know where we want to go, alrighty? Corey: Uh-huh. Male: Take and set this compass. From there, we’re going to point it back to our destination, and we’re going to turn this dial, back to north, where north and the red line, line up okay? And now, we need to go 262 degrees. Corey: 262 degrees. Male: That’s our bearing. Corey: So this way? Male: That way. Yup! Because we are here, okay? Corey: Uh-huh. Male: We’re here we need to get to here. Corey: Alright. Male: See this creek right here? Hunter: Big creek? Male: Where it says that name right there. Corey: Uh-huh. Male: Yup, that’s where we want to camp right there. So we need to get from here, to here. Hunter: Does that creek have a lot of water in it? Male: Yeah. It’s a big, big creek. Hunter: Good. Male: You all ready? Corey: Yes, we are.