I’ve seen people share tecniques and tips for defining east/west in a survival situation (using sticks, stones) and I’ve always heard how useful a compass is, but I’ve always wondered why is that? If I’m lost in a forest and I don’t know my surroundings, is a compass still useful to me?
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It’s useful because you typically don’t just wake up lost in the forest. If you’re aware of the cardinal directions, you should be (generally) aware of where you came from. For example, if you went hiking and got lost, the compass can point you back where you came from.
Even if you woke up with 0 idea where you are, being able to map the local area and your position in it can be useful.
Most of the time even when you’re lost, you *are* aware of your surroundings to some extent. Like, say you park on a highway that runs north-south and embark on a hiking trail that stays entirely on the east side and doesn’t cross the highway. No matter where on that trail you get lost, if you walk west you’ll eventually hit that highway. Or maybe you know there’s a railroad trach running across the north border of the nature reserve you’re in. Or you go exploring in the woods south of the summer camp.
In all these situations, being able to ID a direction and travel in it is helpful. It’s rare that you’d ever be lost with zero knowledge of the area you’re lost in.
A compass, is probably not that useful unless you have training or experience using it.
The old fashioned “10 essentials” for hiking include a compass and a map. These two tools together can be very powerful, but you really need some training and experience with them to make them useful.
Without the appropriate map, a compass looses much (but as others have said) not all of its usefulness. In a survival situation training and experience are very important. Without this, the compass isn’t going to help much.
If you have any idea where you are, you probably know what general direction some civilization will be.
Or if you can’t hike out, wouldn’t it suck if you spent a bunch of time building a shelter, wandered into the woods to find something to eat, and couldn’t find your shelter again?
Yes. It keeps you from walking in circles if you intend to walk in one direction.
Any additional knowledge about your location, even if broad, makes most useful sense in terms of cardinal directions
walking in a circle is a great way to die.
It is really hard to walk in a straight line hoping to come across a landmark like a road or river.
The people who are saying it’s to keep you from walking in circles are correct. Unless you’re in a place like Siberia you basically can’t walk for a day or two in a straight line and not find some sign of human habitation. It might not get you back to exactly where you started from but you’ll survive, which is the goal in a survival situation.
If you know east from the west you can make a rough estimate of the time, how many hours until nightfall, keep walking in the same direction without accidentally going in circles, etc…
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