Natural Navigation, Lostproofing & Orienteering Class
This Thursday, December 8, 2011 from 6:00-8:00

Clear Creek Interpretive Center
9641 Levin Road, Silverdale, WA, Silverdale, WA

RSVP Required to chris@wolfcamp.com or 425-248-0253

If you are already an expert navigator, this class will give you great teaching tools for use when hiking with novices. If you are \"navigationally challenged,\" then we hope the simple way we teach these skills will open a world of understanding for you in the wilderness. Your instructors Kim & Chris Chisholm have 15 years of Search & Rescue experience as well as a lifetime of hiking/backpacking to share.

20 Minutes on the Testing Your Dominance & Risk Management: Learning always builds over the course of class, so be sure you don\'t miss the introductory information. After reveiwing the 10 Packing Essentials and risk management tips shared from our Search & Rescue background, we will help you test to see if you are \"right or left dominant\" because when walking in nature, most people continually veer left or right when they actually want to go straight. Key to navigating in nature is learning how to compensate for your dominance.

20 Minutes on the Top 10 Lostproofing Skills: The most important skill for lostproofing is awareness. In fact, some people say there is no such thing as being lost, just in being unaware, so we will practice skills to improve your spacial recognition including wide-angle vision, expanded hearing, and new ways of walking appropriate to various environments, among other skils.

20 Minutes on the Top 10 Orienteering Skills: You will be amazed by some of the incredible ways to find north-south-east-west in order to walk in a straight line toward your destination on a map. One of our favorite is floating a leaf in water, and placing a pin on the leaf. Amazingly, it points to magnetic north. We\'ll demonstrate that, and some other ways to orient yourself to the cardinal directions in city and wilderness, from GPS to the stars.

20 Minutes on the Top 10 Navigation Skills: There are some very important skills to learn in order to negotiate your way through nature without map or compass. For instance, do you know how to follow the contours of a hill in order to stay above thick brush and away from steep cliffs? How about lining up landmarks in order to go straight? We\'ll talk about these skills and practice others as allowed by time and location.

20 Minutes on Map & Compass for Smarties: No matter whether you have GPS or not, the crux of these skills is understanding map and compass. If you are an expert navigator, you know how frustrating it can be to help novices undersand maps, and if you are a novice, you know how frustrating it can be to read one. But no worries, as our method of using map and compass should alay your fears, even when it comes to contour lines and magnetic declination.

20 Minute Mini Orienteering Challenge, Resources & Questions: : Now let the fun begin as we send you out on a mini orienteering challenge that we have set up for you! As you can tell, we really pack in the knowledge, so we allow wiggle room at the end of class to review skills that you wanted to cover more deeply. 10 Minutes After Class - Please join Chris & Kim after class to review experiences, browse resources, discuss feedback, brainstorm future class ideas, and make a donation for today\'s program based on how much you learned.

Please Bring:

- Hats, warm clothes, and rain gear if necessary for the outdoor portion of class.
- Flashlight/Headlamp will make things a lot easier for map reading.
- Notebook plus Pencil & Red/Blue Pen if at all possible for good highlighting of map contour lines.
- Compass if possible. If you don\'t have one yet, we recommend the \"Coleman Map Compass 814B630T\" which you can easily find on google.
- Google Terrain Map of the Silverdale area. Just:
1. Type \"map siverdale\" in your google search bar.

2. Click on the map image that pops up.

3. Hover your cursor over the \"Satellite\" image and click on \"Terrain,\" or if you are already on \"Satellite\" then click on \"Map\" and then click on \"Terrain.\"

4. Zoom in as far as allowed.

5. Print at a quality that you can see the contour lines okay, fold and put into a zip-lock baggie for waterproofing.
- Any of the other 10 Essentials you want with you, although we\'ll be right on campus. A great description of the 10 Essentials can be found at
http://www.rei.com/expertadvice/articles/te...