I enjoy reading navigation books, but find most of them lacking. I recently stumbled upon a new-for-me book on land navigation titled "The Essential Wilderness Navigator: How to Find Your Way In the Great Outdoors, Second Edition", 2001, by David Seidman with Paul Cleveland. Its published by Ragged Mountain Press.

It does a good job of describing maps, compasses, and map & compass navigation including how to use land features to improve your navigation abilities.

I do wish they had recognized the value of the UTM grid system. Instead they say "Don't worry about it - it's of no use to us." I suppose UTM doesn't come into the picture so much unless you're using a GPS to. What they don't cover on UTM coordinates in this book you can learn about at http://www.maptools.com .

Regardless, it does provide nice clear descriptions of map & compass navigation skills. I especially like the section that talks about using nature for navigation clues. They also have a short section on what to do if you find yourself lost. It focuses on practical methods for getting unlost again, but it recognizes the "last option, staying put and signaling for help".

For GPS use I still like the now out-of-print "GPS Land Navigation" by Micheal Ferguson better since it describes how to use a map, compass, and GPS in coordination, which is important now that GPS's are in wide use. I do suggest you try to find this book if you use a GPS.

If you know of another good navigation with GPS book I'd love to hear about it. I also recently bought "Wilderness Navigation: Finding Your Way Using Map, Compass, Altimeter & GPS" by Bob Burns & Mike Burns, but haven't gotten the chance to read through it yet.

Ken K.

The ultimate authority on navigation has been & probably always will be: "The American Navigator" by Nathaniel Bowditch. It is updated regularly on all types of navigation, navigation equipment, charts, maps, etc. One can be found in the reference section of large libraries.

wildman800,

The American Navigator is available for download [free] in a *.PDF from several websites. I believe that it may also be located thorugh a link on the maptools website. I've downloaded it several times over the years and it has provided many hours of intriguing reading. A google search should provide several sources. IIRC, it was also discussed on ETS in the past.

Regards,
Comanche7

I am working my way thru GPS Made Easy, by Lawrence Letham. Since I am still a rookie in GPS'n, I am learning a lot from it. Not much help for learning map and compass tho...

Hi All,

Meant to mention in my post last night that the American Navigator download can be time consuming as it is approx. 42mB in size and the book itself is about 882 pages long.

That said, it is still a very worthy acquisition and I would encourage folks to download it and look it over at least once. IIRC the download took a few minutes on DSL, so those folks on dial up may want to plan on packing and repacking their various kits while it is being downloaded.

With regard to the several recent and past threads about GPS's, PLB's and various map datums, there is a really good explaination of these subject areas.

The AN also has complete sections dedicated to satellite navigation as well as containing information on how to use a sextant properly, providing all the needed tables and related explainations aand another for emergency navigation when your main systems are in-op.

Regards,
Comanche7

http://tinyurl.com/r42fo

American Practical Navigator download page..download it all or by chapter.

"The Essential Wilderness Navigator: How to Find Your Way In the Great Outdoors, Second Edition", 2001, by David Seidman with Paul Cleveland. Its published by Ragged Mountain Press...It does a good job of describing maps, compasses, and map & compass navigation including how to use land features to improve your navigation abilities."

I agree with you. For neophyte land navigators or those wanting a refresher, this is the best book out there. It is well written with good illustrations and in experience teaches faster than any other map/compass guide I've used for land navigation classes. It's also authored by people with authentic back-country navigating backgrounds who aren't trying to stretch their nautical sailing experiences or participation in a few adventure races into a land navigation book.

Once you're beyond that stage, there are more specialized books out there that deal with more advanced navigation techniques or environments. A few I can think of include the British MOD's Manual of Map Reading and Land Navigation, the U.S. Army's Manual FM 21-26, Mooers' Finding Your Way in the Outdoors, Muehrcke's Map Use, and Johnson's The Ultimate Desert Handbook (desert navigation).

jshannon,

You beat me to it, that is exactly the site that I was referring to.

Your tiny url link is much more concise than my long winded directions would have been.

Thanks,
Comanche7

Thanks for the info and links folks. I can't wait to dig into it!

"The Essential Wilderness Navigator: How to Find Your Way In the Great Outdoors, Second Edition" is a good starter book, which I own as well.
It is a good primer, one of the better ones.
After that there are about a million left to read...

One thing I noted with this book as well as half a dozen others is
They ignore the Grid-magnetic angle and focus on true-magnetic as though grid was only for surveyors. I wonder how many other forum members have noticed this ?
In view of the fact that such a large number of maps use UTM (with a printed overlay) in fact the Grid-magnetic is paramount.
In fact for most maps other than aviation or marine it's true or geographical north that's not used (unless your doing celestial navigation). Of course the US Army FM covers it extensively.