Last evening a 3-year old boy walked away from his home in the far SW suburbs of chicago. Parents & authorities searched for him all night and into the morning. They checked nearby ponds, used dogs, and flew heat sensing choppers. During the night there were two waves of serious thunderstorms that rolled through. As of this morning at about 7:30am his was still missing.

The great news is that searchers finally found him at about 8:30am. He had traveled almost 2 miles from his house across corn fields and into a nearby park. Its just a reminder that EVERYONE - kids and adults - need to say put as soon as they realize they're lost.

Why? well, looking at the search area involved ... If we assume they travel 0.5 miles away, the search area is almost .2 square miles. If they travel 1 mile it goes up to almost .8 miles - an 8X increase. If they travel 5 miles the search area is almost 24 square miles - a 100X increase! If they travel 10 miles the search area is almost 79 square miles - a 400X increae! You get the idea.

The other thing is lots of people who wander consume waaay too much precious energy trying to get unlost, not to mention the risk of injury. James Kim is a very good example.

Speaking of GPS's & compasses ... You know, I've used compasses for years, but for some reason I always get a brain cramp when it comes to the "True North" and "Magnetic North" settings on the GPS's and the declination-adjustable compasses.

... And it can make a big difference in the eastern and western parts of the U.S. where declination can be as much as 19 degrees off of true north. At that declination, heading 19 degrees off from your real destination will put you 1/3 of a mile off from the correct path for each mile traveled. That can total up to a long way off.

Anyway, the correct usage is:

If using a non-adjusted compass, set your GPS to display "Magenetic North".

If using an adjusted compass, set your GPS to "True North".

So why in heck can't I remember that??????

I can easily imagine someone who knows how to use compasses forget to check for the area's delination before heading out. I almost forgot to check when I headed out to Yellowsone/Tetons last month.

My older GPS didn't display the declination for the current area, which was a pain because I'd have to calculate declination by flipping between true and magnetic north settings. I usually could figure out the amount of declination, but not necessarily the direction, so I would just imagine that magnetic north was somewhere north of the Mississippi River (so on the west cost the needle would point east, and one the east coast the needle would point west).

My Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx and my Geko 201 will show the magnetic declination IF I select the Magnetic North setting under Main Menu > Heading. Nice!

Man, sorry about the length of this post. I've been thinking about the "using a GPS to get unlost" thing a lot lately.

Ken K.