Navigational Map Activity

Nathan Sylte
Navigational Map Activity

Towards the beginning of the semester a navigational map was generated to be used at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire Priory. The map can be viewed on a previous blog post Navigation Map. The map possessed two sides with one side containing a UTM grid and the other side containing a lat/long grid. In our case we used the side that contained the UTM grid in order to navigate the assigned course (Figure 1).

Five UTM points were assigned per group as part of the navigation course. In our case the course included the area with many pine trees in the north/northwest portion of the map (not the pine plantation in the southeast/central portion of the map. There were also many ravines in our section of the course which made navigation very difficult. It was very difficult to maintain a pace count due to the terrain and foliage. Therefore, the GPS came in handy at times when the terrain made navigation difficult. Pictures were to be taken at each of the points but there were technical difficulties with both of the phones. Therefore, the group was unable to take any pictures.

Figure 1. Navigational map of the UWEC Priory.

Overall, the course took two hours to complete and several lessons were learned about navigation. The first take away from the activity is that one cannot always rely on technology. Both the cell phones ran out of batteries and the GPS would sometimes have trouble picking up a signal. A quality navigation map become important in this case for the topology lines had to be used on several occasions for orientation. Another lesson that was learned from this activity is that navigation is very difficult when the terrain is uneven. Uneven terrain makes keeping direction and pace count almost impossible. Finally, this activity proved to be very educational. It demonstrated the importance of a good old map and compass.