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OverviewCompass & Pacing
Many clues are written in terms of offsets: A bearing from a landmark, along with a range or distance.
E.g: "From this control, the 3 power pylon from the river bears 310 Magnetic, and is about 120 meters away.
Pre-requisites: Bearings. That covered: 1. Measuring distance by pacing. 1. Setting and following a bearing.
This course covers: 1. Measuring distance in bad terrain. 1. Measuring distance with your watch. (dead reckoning) 1. Estimating distance visually. 1. Team work for long ranges.
You need: 100m (or known length) in various kinds of country.
If you can get a 100 meter tape it will be easier to set up measuring courses. I set up one on the school driveway, one in the field in tall grass, one in a poplar bush, and one in heavy spruce. For each I mark the start and the end using the same 4x4 coreplast markers I use for controls. In the bush ones, it's a good idea to also tie flagging tape all the way around the tree at each end, and enough trees between to stay on track.
The course start and the course end should be identified with a name, and a distance, and a bearing to the other end.
This training course should be near your normal start point for races, as it's necessary to recalibrate when the snow gets deep, or you use snowshoes or skiis instead of hoofing it. Or just set up new ones as needed.
First lesson:
Define the terms, pace, double pace and step, and half pace.
Step: Each time a foot hits the ground.
Pace: Two steps.
Double pace: Two paces. Easier to count for distances over a hundred yards.
Half pace: Short steps used in heavy bush, deep snow.
Take the entire group to a field. Not your course. Point in a general direction and tell everyone to walk out there 100 steps Northwest, stop and look around.They are to wait there until you whistle. Then they are to walk 90 steps back toward you and stop.
Things to point out:
Lots of scatter both in direction and distance. You were casual about the word "Northwest" Some were close, some were way out. Not to worry.
On the return you will likely have someone who is an extra 10 paces out.
They missed a decade counting one way or another. Common mistake.Ask how many found they were having trouble counting fast enough to keep up with their steps? Some will, some won't. But that's why we usually count paces.
Other counting tricks. * The decade count is on the off foot.
Stage 2. Give them a form with the 4 names of the courses on it, and columns of blanks beside it. Point out where they roughly are. Each person completes the form on their own. But they can move around as buddies if they wish. At each course they go from one marker to the other, and record the number of steps or the number of paces. (But label which.)
They should do each course twice -- once each way. If the counts are different by more than 2 paces (4 steps) they should redo. But record each. Stress that sure, they can just claim the same number everywhere, but this won't help them when the chicken manure hits the ventilation system.
I found that most senior high kids have a pace of close to 1 meter when deliberately pacing. This tends to be longer than normal steps. Since distances this program uses pacing tend to be under 200 meters, this doesn't matter. Indeed, the longer pace focuses attention on what you are doing.
You will likely find that there is little difference in pace between road and grass, and only a small difference in light bush. Heavy bush is another matter.
Pace length when snowshoeing on a broken trail is longer (fewer paces per hundred meters) than walking. Snowshoeing on broken trails in generally faster too because of this pace lengthening. However the first people to break trail have a shorter and slower pace.
You will also find that as soon as the snow is deep enough (about 10") to require lifting and placing your foot, instead of swinging there is an abrupt difference. For this reason when measuring distances on snowshoes, it should be the third person who counts paces. He is working on a broken trail with a decent swing.
Pacing uphill is close to the same until the hill is steep enough that people start stepping toe first. At this point they are climbing rather than walking. The transition occurs around a 8-10% grade. Downhills tend to work the same, but the transition is earlier -- about 4-5%. You can't absorb the energy fast enough.
Stage 4: Taking bearings. Take the group to where there are a bunch of good landmarks at least 200 meters away. Show them with a demo compass how to take a bearing. Now ask them a bunch: "Bearing for home plate"
"215"
"Bearing for the big ugly jack pine" (A lie -- no jack pines are ugly. Some just have character)
"182"
Do these yourself ahead of time. Have your teach cadre do them ahead of time. Compare answers. Taking accurate bearings is hard.
It will take about 20 bearings to get reasonably uniform answers -- you will still get 5-10 degrees variation.
Stage 4: Estimating Game
Being able to accurately estimate distances visually is a good check. It will catch those situations where you've forgotten a hundred.
This lesson is not strictly necessary -- good enrichment for 2nd year participants.
Setup: Use your meadow with the lettered signs. Give out a map with the signs on it. They choose segments to do. E.g. A->C Q->A
They go to letter A. They pick any of the letters they see from A. They write down their estimate of the distance from A to that letter. They go to any other letter they want, and repeat. They have a half hour.
They also take the bearing of that sign. So from A their record sheet may look like
They also take the bearing of that sign. So from A their record sheet may look like
They also take the bearing of that sign. So from A their record sheet may look like
| From | To | Bearing | Distance Estimated |
| A | C | 120 degrees | 200 meters |
| A | Q | 95 degrees | 125 meters |
| A | R | 240 degrees | 300 meters |
and so on.
Their first score for each segment is (Actual)/(Actual+error) So if they said that a 150 meter segment was 230 meters they would get (150/230) If they said that it was 125 meters they would get (150/175) (150+25 meter error)
Pick up their paper and give this as a second game:
Go out and actually pace the distance. Same deal on the scoring, but you tell them this: If you are the only one to do a segment your score is doubled for that segment. If otehr people do a segment you did, you get your score divided by the number of other people.
You will get blank looks. Smith does A to Q. it's 400 meters. He records 375. He scores 400/425. But sicne he's the only one to do this, he gets twice htis. Brown does AB It's 75 meters. He records 60 meters. His score is 75/90. But three other guys also did this one. So he gets only 1/3 of this.
More blank looks.
Do the ones no one else does. You get more points.
This may make it fun. It may just confuse them.
Or put the second years on the complicated score system, and let the newbies have the easeir one.
It is important that you mark these papers, and give the kids feedback. Some will have consitent errors. (10 degrees to the left) 15% long. The first error will be standing crooked taking the measure. The second is just overestimating.
The ones who are out to lunch may need an extra session.
Having a supply of parents handy to do this marking FAST helps. You need good keys ahead of tiem. Generally you want to follow up on remedial work within an hour of the mistakes to correct it before it becomes long term memory and habit.