The Holiday Season is a great time to start looking for a new GPS. by Blake Miller Manufactures are offering discounts and coupons can be found on line. Search the internet for sales promotions and search the ads in the Sunday paper. I will occasionally use www.walmart.com to establish a price baseline. Keep in mind [...]

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  Before heading out on  a backcountry trip, there are three important steps to accomplish before leaving home. by Blake Miller First, tell someone where you are going and when to expect your return. Second, leave a map of your planned route with that responsible person and in your vehicle. Third, fill out the trip [...]

Ever wished you could find someone to answer your land navigation questions? Like some of the most basic starter queries, such as How Do I make Sense of a Topographical Map? or  How do you find your way around, when there are no roads? Land navigation is the topic of this special SurvivalCommonSense.com weekly update. [...]

Before technology entered the backcountry world of the outdoors, the primary and proven tools of navigation were a map and compass. Compass navigation remains an important component of the “Ten Essentials” for wilderness travel. Knowledge of how to use map and compass takes education and practice. Further, such knowledge will enhance GPS navigation as many [...]

When I explained that the electronic compass should be calibrated after EVERY battery change, the group’s response was one of surprise.

GPS receivers provide an amazing amount of information. They come loaded with many navigation features, maps, tide data and much more, but nothing is more important than position data and the direction to a waypoint.

If two GPS users are set up for different datums, they won’t be able to accurately exchange waypoints, settings or locations. Here’s some advice from land navigation expert Blake Miller on how to get everyone on the same page.

Sign up for our Email Newsletter The Survival Template by John A. Heatherly How do you encapsulate a survivor’s mentality into a personalized model that can be duplicated and personalized? That’s what John A. Heatherly teaches in his new book “The Survival Template.” by Leon Pantenburg So you are in a SHTF (Sewage Hit The [...]

Early in the morning, the hunter hiked north from camp to Mahogany Butte.  With an hour of light left it was time to return.  He had his day pack with map and compass and he knew how to use them.  But he didn’t have a GPS.  The wooded terrain around him didn’t lend itself to [...]