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.