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Posted by Grant on 2. March 2010 23:41
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Building on my post last week about getting started with navigation and orienteering for adventure racing, I want to share a solid methodology you can apply while you're "in country" with your map and compass.
It's a "PONSI" scheme, in that we can build an acronym P-O-N-S-I to help remember the steps:
- Prepare your compass, so make sure it's held flat and not moving from your activity. This usually means stopping your movement, and making sure you're away from power lines or large metal sources that could skew a magnetic compass.
- Orient your map(s) to north, using your compass so you know which way is north.
- Note your elevation, if you have an altimeter
- Situate yourself in the terrain; the map is pointing to north and you should be able to recognize map features in the terrain around you. If you're doing things right, you should be able to point to your location on the map with a fair amount of accuracy
- Identify and anticipate what's coming next; if you're moving northwest and the map shoes a ridge and stream crossing coming up, you know to look for these features as you encounter and move past them.
I suggest a beginner should do this maybe every few minutes, depending on the specific terrain. All this stopping and checking the map will slow you down, but you'll get more efficient at it and if you keep your thumb on the map marking your current location, you won't have to spend so much time Situating and Identifying each time you go throught the PONSI steps. This is a common orienteering technique known as "thumbing your map" and usually means you end up folding your map so you can run with your thumb marking your current location. Over time, you'll get better at keeping a mental map and not needing to check the physical map so often, but when you're just starting out I think you should check the map frequently!
Another adventure race specific dimension to this is that different members of the same team can focus on specific parts of the PONSI steps. Imagine one teammate keeps track of your altitude (providing it every time the "leader" stops or checks the map); maybe another teammate keeps track of the next set of features you're looking for -- each map check the person with the map would need to verbalize what to look for, but this is a good habit to develop in any circumstance because it brings in your teammates to the navigation effort. By making it a team effort, and having each person play a role and contribute, you're going to be a more effective team and you'll lay a foundation for good team dynamics when navigation problems develop (and they will!).
There you go, a quick PONSI scheme to get more comfortable with compass and map!