There was a radio segment on NPR that seems to have survival forum implications. The segment was about why people have a tendency to walk in circles without visual cues--like when blindfolded, when you can't see the sun/moon, or on a feature-less desert. Low-visibility winter conditions would seem to be right up there, too.

The guest is actually studying the phenomenon. Basically, I guess it seems like everyone has this tendency, so it's always a risk if you ever get lost in the wild. We just don't know why.

Definitely supports the old land navigation adage to pick a geographic feature along your intended line of travel, walk to it, and repeat.

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting listen. You can access it here.

Anyone have any "walking in circles" experiences to share?

I can give you a "steering" example. I was helmsman on a boat in the Santa Barbara Channel. Fairly heavy fog so no landmarks were visible. This was also pre-GPS, so I was steering strictly by compass heading. Unfortunately the dial I was using was stuck and I performed a very graceful 180 degree arc before a momentary opening in the fog clued me in. The ship's captain, with access to a better compass, had been watching this performance and decided to let it continue, doubtless in the interests of science. We were in mid channel, clear of both rocks and the shipping lanes. All of this took about 45 minutes or so.

On land, in rough terrain, it is a different story. There you will typically be traveling uphill or downhill and with the aid of a good map, it is very easy to keep on the proper course to a destination. At least I have never gotten as messed up on land as I did that afternoon in the Channel. Usually on land, my compass goes unused.

Easy? That depends on a whole bunch of variables. But I have used knowledge of the terrain to that effect with considerable success, but I rate this as being highly location specific.


It really gets interesting when you add the combination of snow on the ground and reduced visibility (blowing snow, clouds, fog or all of those in combination). In a very limited set of circumstances I have had some success using terrain, wind and the direction of very faint snowmobile tracks to guide me. But stunts like that are limited to very specific routes.


Sorry, I've not had that walking-in-circles experience, but I've heard it reported. The effect has even been verified in experiments, but I can't find that link now.

The links in this thread:
http://forums.equipped.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=212159
talk about a specific study IIRC.

HJ

I recall reading somewhere it's cuz most of us are a tiny bit shorter in one leg than the other. We 'lean' a bit towards that side. Don't know if it's true or not, but made sense.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. In rugged terrain, it is easy to know where you are; it may be very difficult to travel, but at least you know you are not walking in circles. Usually you become slotted in a canyon or on a ridge, and there you are. I am talking about country that is typically off limits to snowmobiles. It does indeed become harder to maintain direction once you get on flatter terrain.

When I was training in tracking, the instructor told us that people veer off toward their dominant side. He demonstated by lined us up and telling us to walk in a straight line with our eyes closed. Most of us ended up about angled off to the right.

I've also found that when dead reckoning with a compass I tend to end up some distance off to the right of my objective. This is constant whether I'm going point to point or referencing a more distant point like a mountain peak.

I don't think that was the conclusion of the study although I suppose that could be true on flat, level ground in open terrain.

HJ

A pal of mine used to be an instructor at Fort Benning in an advanced infantry school, he said that the word among the instructors was that going in circles was based on the dominant side taking over.
I heard the same thing in a college course on land nav from a USAF ROTC instructor who had formerly been the head of land nav training at the Air Force SERE school.

One tip I haven't had the opportunity to test yet is the "Swedish compass": A 15 foot long pole that you drag behind you. If you change direction you will feel it, or at least that is the assumption.

This particular radio segment I linked to mentioned the reasons mentioned so far--unequal leg length and handedness. But the researcher tested these and other theories and he found no correlation between them and whether people walked in circles or in which direction the test subjects turned.

Are you sure that's not a Polish compass? lol

HJ