Field Activity 10: Field Navigation using Orienteering Methods

Introduction:

This weeks assignment involved using previously created field navigation maps in Field Activity 5 in order to navigate a course of points at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Priory (Figure 1).  This navigation from point to point involved using orienteering techniques learned in Field Activity 5 and plotted points on a field navigation map to get from one flag station to the next.  The course was set up by UWEC's Joe Hupy and Al Wiberg, with the help of Zach Hilgendorf, a fellow geography student at UWEC.

Groups were assigned to navigate through a set of five stations spread out throughout an are of approximately 64 hectares.  Groups were made up of three to four people to best allow for distance-bearing navigation to be performed.  As mentioned in Field Activity 5, this form of navigation involves having a bearing finder holding the compass, a pace counter, and a runner.  The five points UTM and lat/long locations were given and had to be plotted on the previously created maps.  Each group was assigned a starting position and then set off from there to navigate to each position, with a punch card, which they could fill out at each station along the way, to prove they had completed the course.

Study Area:

The Priory buildings are the center of the chosen study area.  The area of the course that will be navigated is heavily wooded and very hilly.  The Priory itself sits on a hill.  (Figure 1)

The Priory is a real estate subsidiary of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.  It is currently being used as a children's center and partially as a residence hall.  It is located three miles south of the UWEC campus in a forested and hilly area.  Most of the area of the course is heavily wooded (Figure 2) which made navigation in a straight line rather difficult in some areas.  There are more open areas though they are few and far between and the majority of the course navigation involved climbing through branches (Figure 3), over logs and even streams, and going around large trees, which made maintaining a correct bearing more difficult.  On the positive side, the weather was almost perfect for performing a navigation activity such as this one as it was around 60 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny outside.  This is much better than what last years class had to deal with; according to professor Hupy they weren't performing a navigation activity, they were "snowshoeing".  Thankfully the weather held up this week and helped aid in the groups navigation.

The point course was heavily wooded throughout which increased the difficulty of properly navigating the course as it was very hard to maintain a correct pace count and ensure bearing were constantly set correctly. (Figure 2)

Keeping a pace count was difficult as the logs on the ground and high prevalence of branches throughout the group's assigned point course increased the difficulty of the activity.  (Figure 3)

Methods:

When the class arrived at the Priory, Joe Hupy handed out each of the point station coordinates to each of the groups.  From here the groups were required to plot points on both of the UTM and lat/long maps using meters and decimal degrees respectively.  While the group was plotting these points it was almost immediately noticed that the UTM points were off on the map.  All the maps the group had printed off with UTM grids had the origin incorrectly set.  Professor Hupy explained that this is an easy fix and one simple click can correct it, though for this activity the lat/long maps would need to be used.  This sadly eliminated the group's option of using UTM if desired.  As the course will also be navigated in the future, the corrections will be made to the maps in order to use UTM in the upcoming weeks.

Zach Hilgendorf, a fellow geography student at UWEC knowledgeable in orienteering, then went over a review of how to properly use distance-bearing navigation to get from one point to another on a map.  The first step is to assign roles.  The three roles that are crucial in distance-bearing navigation are bearing locator, pace counter, and runner.  The bearing is found by using a compass (Figure 4) and aligning the edge up with the point currently located and the desired location point.  The direction of travel arrow needs to be pointing towards the desired destination.  Then the north arrow on the compass should be aligned with true north on the map.  The needed bearing can then be found by observing the bearing line.  From here the compass can be lifted off the map.  It is then the bearing locator's job to align the red north arrow up with the red north arrow on the rotating bezel (red in the shed).  The direction of travel arrow should then be pointing towards the exact bearing of the desired location.  From here the runner is sent out to a set landmark/point in the exact bearing of the location.  Once the runner has gotten to this point, the pace counter sets out towards him/her and keeps track of the pace in order to have an estimate of distance traveled.  This can be related towards the distance between the points measured on the map.  This is repeated until arriving at the desired location.

This is a typical compass used for distance bearing navigation.  The labeled features that will be mentioned in this write up are as follows:  1: base plate with ruler for measuring scale, 2: rotating bezel, 3: rotating needle, 5: orienting arrow fixed on rotating bezel used to indicate north,6: bearing line fixed on the base plate, 8: direction of travel arrow
(Figure 4)

The group had all the points plotted and distances measured and was guided to a starting location for course two of the three courses scattered throughout the area surrounding the priory.  From here the first bearing was found and set (Figure 5).  As the group looked to find a good point in the direction of the bearing, the first problem came up.  The forested area was so thick and had no prevalent features that could be properly used to send the runner to.  Due to this the group was forced to keep the runner close, within hearing distance, in order to communicate where to properly stand.  There were only about twenty paces between each area the runner was set to.  It was also quickly realized that the pace count of 65 steps equals 100 meters would not be able to be used as the forest was too dense and smaller steps were required.  Eventually it was settled that 90 paces would be set to be about 100 meters.  The first station (station 6 as the second course of five points was being navigated) was located rather easily after about ten minutes of repeating the process of sending finding the bearing, sending out the runner, and counting the pace.  From here a new bearing was set to find the next station.

This is the exact start point of course #2.  From here the first bearing was found using the orienteering techniques previously taught by Al Wiberg and reinforced by Zach Hilgendorf.  The first bearing was set well as the first station was located easily within ten minutes. (Figure 5)

The next station (station 7) was also easy to encounter, though this was a very difficult part of the forest to navigate through (Figure 6).  It took approximately twenty minutes to encounter station 7 from station 6.

What would have been a short stroll between station 6 and 7 was turned into a difficult climb through the thick forest.  Due to this, a walk that would have taken about three minutes in open ground took almost twenty minutes of navigating through the forest to encounter.  However, the seventh station was exactly where it was expected to be, unlike station 8.  (Figure 6)

The next station to find was station 8.  A bearing was set and the group set off, the runner going first followed by the pace counter and bearing setter.  The pace was counted and after observing the navigation map (Figure 7) the group believed they were in the correct location to see station 8, however it wasn't anywhere in sight.  The bearing setter stayed in one place while the other two group members went out to explore and see if they could locate the station.  After extensively searching station 8 was found with the help of another group looking to encounter it, though it was in a location that didn't appear correct on the navigation map that was created according to the given coordinates.

Station 8 was difficult to find.  It is hard to determine if this is due to navigation error or placement error of the point as the actual station seemed to be much nearer to the highway (further north) than the map and given coordinates tell.  The possible incorrect location of this point contributed to difficulty in locating station 9 as well.  (Figure 7) 

At this point, encountering the next point (point 9) was difficult as it wasn't where it was believed to be, even with two groups navigating.  This once again points to point 8 being incorrect, which in turn, made it difficult to find point 9.  Though after about 20 minutes of searching beyond just the navigation, the point was encountered.  From there, the final station (point 10) was encountered easily and the navigation activity was completed (Figure 8).

A different "punch" was obtained at each station.  This card shows the five punches obtained from stations 6-10 proving completion of the activity.  (Figure 8)

Discussion:

The distance-bearing technique used in this activity had its advantages and downfalls.  It was more difficult to navigate using this technique in thick woods than expected.  This is because it was hard for the bearing setter and the runner to completely distinguish a key point to stand to be at the correct bearing due to the large presence of many smaller trees and branches.  It was also difficult to keep an accurate pace count as stepping over logs, around trees, and under branches made it extremely difficult to fully estimate what pace equaled 100 meters.  On flat ground around 65 steps equals 100 meters, the group decided to go with about 90 steps equaling 100 meters, though at times this was inaccurate due to rapid changes in the slope of the elevation or the aforementioned thicket.

Despite these downfalls, the first two points (which were the stations in the thickest portion of the course) were encountered easily due to excellent bearing setting and navigation by the group.  Where the group encountered a problem was with point 8.  The point was far from where it appeared on the map, which was plotted based on given coordinates.  These coordinates were taken with a GPS earlier when the course was set up and could be inaccurate.  Although another possibility is that the group just slipped up in the navigation.


Conclusion:

The activity went extremely well due to the favorable weather and large amount of preparation on the instructors' parts.  The groups all managed to properly navigate through the assigned course with only a few hiccups (darned point 8).  Next week the class will be navigating the same courses but using GPS devices instead of the low-tech distance-bearing navigation.  It will be interesting to see how these compare, especially with the large amount of canopy cover that could throw off the GPS signals.