--- title: "The Old-School Guide to Not Getting Lost in the Woods (Before We Had GPS)" description: "These are the tools and skills we used to navigate the wilderness before GPS became so prevalent." date: "2026-11-05" modified: "2026-11-05" authors: - name: "Charles Elliott" job_title: "Contributor" link: "https://www.outdoorlife.com/authors/charles-elliott.md" url: "https://www.outdoorlife.com/survival/the-old-school-guide-to-not-getting-lost-in-the-woods/" categories: - "Backcountry Hunting Gear" - "Gear" - "Hunting Gear" - "Survival" - "Wilderness Survival" tags: - "News" --- # The Old-School Guide to Not Getting Lost in the Woods (Before We Had GPS) ![lost in the woods]() *Illustration by Leon Pearson.* The ridge I was on sloped gently down to a flat gap that spilled off into wide coves on either side. Through the spring and summer the forest in this mountain backcountry had been blessed with abundant rainfall and the wild creatures were busy reaping the berries, seeds and other browse. Deer tracks were everywhere and several trails crossed in the gap where deer had traveled along the ridge or moved between the high coves. The ridge trail I followed was wet from recent rains and I pussy-footed almost without sound toward the top of a contour from which the slope pitched abruptly into the gap. I was following the general rule for a stalking deer hunter, which specifies that you walk for two counts, then pause, look and listen for four. I was in the second phase of this procedure when something moved just below me in the edge of the gap. At first I thought I saw the haunches of a deer with its posterior toward me. But a closer look revealed a man, dressed in camouflage, on his hands and knees as though he were after doodlebugs. I moved cautiously toward him, keeping a tree trunk handy so that I could step behind it should the hunter suddenly detect or sense my presence and whirl on me with his gun, which leaned against a tree close beside him. He was so engrossed that he did not see or hear me. I stopped a few yards away, scarcely believing my eyes. Spread out on the ground was a 6×6-foot map, with a compass propped up in its middle. He was intently studying one and then the other. I cleared my throat. He gave a little start, straightened up and looked around. "You lost?" I asked bluntly. "Oh, no," he said and stood up. "I just wanted to see where I was going, to make sure I didn't get lost." "Not a bad idea," I agreed. We exchanged introductions. His large-caliber rifle told me he was after big game—in this case a whitetail deer because it was the largest game animal around. I was curious about the map and compass and the way he was using them, yet I didn't want to appear too nosey. "Looks like you have your hunt pretty well organized," I suggested mildly. "Oh yes," he said. "Then I always know where I am." "I'm interested," I said. "If you don't mind, please tell me how you do it." "Of course I don't mind," he said and smiled. "It might help you some time." He went back to his knees and I squatted beside him. He put his finger on a spot where he had made an X. "Here is where I left my car," he told me. "I took a bearing on this gap and followed a compass course to it. Didn't miss it by more than a couple hundred yards." The map showed that the straight line he had followed between the two points crossed a deep cove, with steep sides. A much easier route would have been at a slight angle to his direct line, up a gentle slope to the ridge and then an almost level walk into the gap. I did not want to confuse him by pointing this out. "Where do you go from here?" I asked. With his finger he traced another scope of country, then another, in a sort of rough triangle that would put him back in the vicinity of his car. "You've probably seen plenty of deer sign," I suggested, "tracks, scrapes, rubs and such." "Well, really I haven't," he admitted. "I was told this country is full of whitetails and I'm looking for a big buck." He stood up, folded his map, slid the rifle sling over his shoulder and looked at his compass. "Good luck," I said. "I hope you find him somewhere on your course." ![All of the best compasses displayed]() *Owning a compass is great, carrying one is better, and knowing how to use one properly is best of all. Alex Murphy* During many years of walking trails I have run into a number of hunters who concentrated so hard on map and compass reading that they forgot to hunt. This may be because there are many new hunters who either lack wilderness smarts or who have read articles in the magazines explaining how a man in the woods can find his way by taking bearings with a compass on top of a map. I've read a few of those articles and somehow got the impression that most of them were written by men who knew more about maps and compasses than they did about hunting. A man walking through the woods with a map in one hand and a compass in the other can't devote much time to his reason for being there. I'm not saying that a map and compass are not necessary. Both are. My old Western hunting buddy Jim Gay used to say that when a man needs a compass, it's too late. I must disagree. Months before I hunt any territory new to me, I write for maps. They are available from the U. S. Forest Service and a number of other federal agencies and from the states and provinces. Some maps show the trails and streams, others are contoured to indicate topography. Everything is bordered by something. In the broadest sense of the term, North America lies generally between three oceans, the Gulf of Mexico and Canada. Narrow this down to any segment of our vast land and you have rivers, creeks, swamps, ridges, roads and trails that surround your hunting territory, however large or small it might be. Fix those landmarks in your mind, with compass directions, and you can always come out on a road or trail that eventually leads you to where people are. I was in Wyoming's Thorofare wilderness with a hunter who had seen very little backcountry. One afternoon when we were moving our camp from one segment of this range to another, my friend somehow got ahead of the packstring and took the wrong trail. When night came he was very much lost. He was smart enough to stop and build a fire. In the morning he remembered what I'd told him: "Most of the Thorofare trails parallel streams, so if you get lost, go downhill until you find a creek and follow it. Eventually it will lead to a trail." We went looking for him after breakfast. We found where he'd branched off the main trail and we followed the tracks of his horse. They led to the remains of his fire and where he'd turned downhill to a creek that he followed to the main trail. Because we were tracking him and moving more slowly, he arrived in camp hours before we did. Even though I think I know all the features, I normally carry a map in my backpack or saddle bags. And a number of times I have used it to help me choose the right ridge or valley. A paper map with no backing for substance soon wears out from folding and unfolding or from hauling it around. Its life may be prolonged if you will glue it to some fabric such as sailcloth, very lightweight canvas or thin plastic. A coat of shellac helps keep it dry. Many outdoorsmen carry this type of reinforced map. So before you hunt anywhere, get the lay of the land in mind, even if it's only from a crudely drawn map done by someone who is familiar with the territory. It may save you from getting turned around. I am convinced that a compass is a necessity. I often make the statement that I don't go into the backyard at night for firewood without my compass. This may be a bit exaggerated but you can wager your last scrap of magnet that on any hunting trip I always have a compass with me. Over many years I've been turned around in the woods innumerable times. I'm sure that on a few of those occasions a compass kept me from getting hopelessly lost. Once in Montana I followed a divide between two watersheds that cradled vast river systems. In the heavy timber, the crest of the divide made an awkward turn that I did not notice. When I reached this same place on my way back to camp, I discovered a ridge that branched off the one I followed. Thinking it was only a spur, I continued on. I knew something was wrong when I ran into a jumble of ridges, none of which bore any resemblance to the main divide. I looked at my compass but it pointed in the wrong direction. I had no map with me, so I sat down, brushed away the leaves and pine needles and with a stick drew a crude map on the bare earth. I spent half an hour trying to correlate my map in the dirt, the compass, and the lay of the ridges. One of the toughest "lost" decisions I ever made was to backtrack myself to the "spur" ridge and follow that one. An experienced woodsman subconsciously keeps track of himself by the sun, the direction of the wind and the features of the land. It's only in a snowstorm, dense fog or on a cloudy night that he needs a compass and doesn't hesitate to use it. A man new to wild country is not likely to think of these natural guides and sometimes not even his compass if he carries one. He makes a common and often serious mistake, when he is not on a trail or road, of trying to go out of the woods the way he came in. Without knowing it, he begins to walk in circles. I have helped find a few lost hunters who stumbled for a day or two—or more—around in a circle. One was within a few hundred yards of a broad highway. If he had stopped long enough to listen, he would have heard the noise of cars passing. We found another staggering a few steps and falling, then getting up to stagger a few more steps. He had thrown away his gun, his clothes were torn and his face looked like he'd just come out of the heavyweight championship ring. He didn't even recognize his friends. Only two of the men we found had accepted the fact that they were lost and calmly built a fire to wait it out. One had responded to calls from the search party. The other, after a day and a night, had resorted to the universal signal of danger or distress known to almost every hunter. He fired three quick shots, waited a few minutes then fired three more. After a couple of hours he went through the same procedure and this time was heard by one of his companions. If any man is blessed with a sense of direction, I have yet to meet him. Animals are said to have the homing instinct, but I have encountered circumstances that cause me to doubt that in unknown country they do either. Once in the northern Yukon Territory, two weeks by packstring travel from man-made trails, we hunted all day away from camp. Late in the afternoon we stalked a big bull caribou and, by the time we had made our kill, caped out the scalp and quartered and loaded the meat on our packhorse, the night was pitch black. I suggested we broil a slab of the meat and make it back to camp the next morning. "Don't worry about it," the guide assured me. "These horses can go straight to camp." They went to camp that night but they didn't go straight. By scent they backtracked themselves over the entire route we had taken that day, climbing ridges, following streams and hollows over the same circuitous route we had hunted. We passed areas I recognized, even in the darkness, and got back to camp only an hour or two before daylight. Back to man's sense of direction: Put the best woodsman you know in an insulated room, sketch a tailless donkey on the wall and give him the tail to pin in place. Blindfold him, turn out the lights, walk him in a few circles, spin him around a time or two, then noiselessly leave him in the completely dark sound-proof room to complete his mission. The odds are four to one that he won't find the right wall and 50 to one that he won't go directly to the derriere of the donkey. To test your own sense of direction, leave the boat dock on a large lake where you know every shoreline and try to cross the lake in a dense fog to a spot you think you can reach with your eyes closed. Without a compass you may end up on any shore of the lake, even the one you pulled away from. I had this experience on a wide saltwater estuary called Buttermilk Sound on the Georgia coast. We had no compass on the boat. The fog moved in, the tide was at flood and the water surface as smooth as the top of a billiard table. We thought we knew these waters well enough to ease across at slow speed but, when we began to bounce over our own wake, I suggested we drop anchor right where we were. ![Thick trees in the fog]() *It's easy to get turned around in the woods, especially if you're on the trail of game animals. John Hafner* With the motor off we could hear a faint roar that one of our crew members identified as surf on the outer beaches and that another said was the roar of highway traffic on the mainland in the opposite direction. If we guessed wrong or continued to move in circles on an outgoing tide and if the fog persisted for a day as it sometimes did, we could have ended up on the Atlantic Ocean—out of sight of land and without a compass. We sat anchored in Buttermilk Sound for eight hours until the fog lifted. Never since have I been in a boat without a compass in my pocket or tackle box. In the woods, even with a compass, when I have had my mind on trailing or locating game, I've been so badly turned around that I was inclined to dispute the compass needle. This is more likely to happen in a swamp or other flatland where every tree or clump of brush looks like every other tree or clump of brush. I have been so dead sure of my directions that I think the compass needle has gone haywire or that I'm reading the wrong end. If you've had that experience, you know how agonizing it is to go with the needle and against your better judgment. Once I allowed a swamper to talk me out of using either my compass or my judgment. We had hunted until almost dark in the swamp on the Georgia side of the Savannah River between Georgia and South Carolina. We came to a trail through the swamp and I consulted my compass. "This should lead us to high land," I said, pointing. "No," he replied, indicating the opposite direction. "This is the way back to the road." I showed him the compass and tried to explain but he was stubborn. "I've lived in this swamp most of my life," he said, "I know the way out." So I yielded and went with him. Half an hour later we came to the Savannah River. He stared at the rolling waters with a look of disbelief. Even then he did not concede his faulty sense of direction. "My God," he said. "We're in South Carolina." **Read Next: [The 11 Most Common Survival Mistakes That Will Get You Killed in the Backcountry]()** I watch my compass often, even when I'm in woods I know. It's so easy to climb a ridge or go through a hollow with a different angle from the way you are traveling. And such sudden shifts of contour may turn you around. We were 200 miles west of Anchorage, Alaska, in the expansive delta country of the Lower Kuskokwim River. The land is made up of lakes, marshes, low hills and running streams and you can get mixed up without too much effort. The guide and I had been traveling since dawn in a circle from our camp on Hewlitt Lake. I'd been watching the compass all day and late in the afternoon we waded a small stream and stood at the base of a low ridge. "It's getting late," he said. "We'd better go to camp." I agreed and he led off in what I considered the wrong direction. "Wait a minute," I called. "Camp is over that way." "No, it's not," he declared emphatically. "This is the way we go." I showed him the compass. "I've been watching this all day," I said. "The heck with them things," he said. "I don't believe in all that foolishness." "OK, partner," I said. "You take any direction you want. I'm going to camp." He hesitated a minute and then grumbled. "All right. I'll go along. A guide is supposed to stay with his dude, no matter how crazy the guy is." We climbed the low hill, fought our way through a half-mile thicket of devil's club and came out on the lake shore 100 yards above camp. "That son of a gun was lucky to have me along," I overheard my guide confide to the cook a little later. "Without me, him and his compass never would have found the way back here." If you think a map or compass is for tenderfeet or cheechakos, try being lost for a few days in the backcountry and you might change your mind. *This story was originally published in the November 1983 issue of Outdoor Life.*