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How to Find North on the Hiking Trip
If you’re out hiking at night, or in an unknown area, while on a hiking or camping trip, it will be important to keep your bearings. This is especially true if you’re camping in a place you’ve never been before, where almost every location will look new and consequently, a little confusing. But if you always know how to find north and have the resources to do it effectively, you’ll be in better shape. Here are some ways to find north while you’re hiking.
Bring the right equipment:
Most of your problems will be eliminated if you bring a GPS device or a compass with you – or both. Of course, not every one of us has access to these once we’re out in the woods, so you don’t want to rely on technology alone. That’s why having other ways of determining direction will be extremely valuable. If you are informed and bring the right technology with you, you’ll have no trouble determining your direction.
On a clear night, use the stars.
Navigating by the stars has been important for seafaring civilizations for hundreds – maybe thousands – of years. On a clear night out in the woods, you should have an excellent view of the right stars to help point out where north is. In the northern hemisphere, locate the Big Dipper. At the “spoon” end of the dipper (not the handle end), the two end stars point toward the North Star.
Click here for an illustration. Note: in the southern hemisphere, you can use a similar technique with the Summer Cross. Research this more to learn how it’s done.
During daylight, use the presence of the sun.
If you know what time it is, you should have a good idea of where the sun is. In the northern hemisphere, the sun will be due south at noon – this won’t help as much the closer to the equator you are. It will rise in the east and set in the west, although you don’t want to use the sun’s rising or setting to indicate exact directions east and west.
Most importantly, in a situation where you need to use navigation like this, try to keep calm. Staying relaxed will help you to remember tips and tricks like this, so keeping your wits might be the most important tip of all.
Photo Credits: cwalker71
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Gift Ideas for your Hiker
The holidays seem to roll around earlier and earlier every year. The Christmas season starts before Thanksgiving, Spring Break seems to go on through March and April, and everyone has a birthday rolling around the corner. If you’ve got a hiker in your family, you know what kinds of gifts to buy, but you don’t have any specific ideas on what might be applicable for those special occasions.
That’s why you’ll want to consult this list of gift ideas for your hiker – it not only takes a look at the life of an active hiker who can’t get out into the wilderness enough, but it also might open up some other ideas that you hadn’t originally anticipated. Here are some great gift ideas for your favorite hiker:
- Solar-powered battery and gadget chargers – There are too many to list here, but a quick search around the Internet will yield a treasure trove of sunlight-sucking energy boosters for cell phones, iPods, and all sorts of electronic gadgets that hikers often take with them. This is an especially apt gift for the hiker in your life that likes to push his or her boundaries, get deep into the forrest and take day-long jaunts into the unknown: it always helps to have some extra energy for the cell-phone around, just in case.
- A GPS device – Unless your hiker is the outdoorsy type who needs to get away from technology to relax, the GPS device is an especially appropriate gift that will help your hiker get some air under his/her wings. GPS navigation systems can be worn on watches or handheld devices, and have even expanded to include features like barometers and weather prediction. It’s possible you have enough trouble getting your hiker back into the house as it is, but don’t rule out a handy GPS device that takes the guesswork out of hiking.
- Lightweight, weight-balancing backpacks – While hiking is great exercise, it can also present some unduly stress on the back. Keep an eye peeled for backpacks with enforcement that shifts the balance of weight to a more appropriate place in the body, closer to the center of gravity and the hips, rather than on the shoulders and back. These should also typically be lightweight items with enough carrying space to satisfy your hiker.
- Wool socks – Please note that this is more of a stocking-stuffer than an actual gift: it really doesn’t get much more boring than socks. But socks that wick away sweat, keep your feet dry, and don’t itch are as practical as they are thoughtful; the kind of gift that you don’t appreciate fully until you put them into use.
These are just a few of the potential gifts you could buy the hiker in your life. To find more gift ideas, feel free to browse the web, look for customer product reviews, and ask yourself what your hiker would want or need.
