Originally Posted By: sodak
[quote=NightHiker]
My wife and her father are homing pidgeons. They are the only members of their family like this. You could blindfold them, knock them out, take them to a strange city at night, and they can tell you where north is. Many times in the woods, my wife and I have different ideas as to which way to go, but I always listen to her. She's never been wrong yet.

I'm actually pretty good at this too. Not so much since I've moved to VA, but darn near the rest of my life. I joke there's too much metal in the surrounding shipyards and it messes up my internal compass. Who knows? All I know is in my car kit and BOB is essentially just a button compass. I don't have a good map of the area yet, but I trust myself and that little back-up to get me moving should something happen.

Even if you're not "gifted" with a sense of direction, you can do most of it based on environmental clues. Just knowing where the sun rises adn sets gets you pretty good bearings. Watching dominant weather patterns helps too - ie, knowing that storms usually move in from X direction. Night is easy too, if you can find the north start. Other constellations help a bit, if you use the same time each night (since they rotate during the night, as well as daily movements) and get the gist of their seasonal variations.