Marking Trails

Discussion in 'Navigation' started by JimmyJ, Apr 28, 2016.

0/5, 0 votes

  1. JimmyJ

    JimmyJ Member
      13/23

    Blog Posts:
    0
    In survival situations knowing how to get to and from point A to point B or to mark your path to find your way back is a great idea. This can be done by marking Trails. Marking Trails can be as simple as breaking sticks, stacking rock formations, or even writing on rock cliff faces with stone. Marking Trails is something that has been done by both humans and animals since the dawning of time. This helps them to know their directions. Marking Trails is a lot like the road signs of the great outdoors.
    NTFiQfswa4AY_SouQpAhdAZpoDVCqQsH.jpeg

    Successfully marking a trail can not only help you to remember your way to and from where you're going should something happen to you along the way people will, in essence, have a trail of breadcrumbs to follow that will help them find you.
    [​IMG]


    Whatever the outdoor activities you do you probably already experienced forms of marking trails. From forest road signs to random stumps and rock formations along the road, there are many different things the average person might pass up that have been placed to mark a trail. Often people who grow pot outdoors or stash things outdoors mark trails with random items. The same technique can be applied to you when you need to mark a trail to find later.
     
    Sourdough, katlarson9 and sunnytn like this.
  2. katlarson9

    katlarson9 New Member
      1/23

    Blog Posts:
    0
    There is always the unfortunate event that your markings might end up defaced or in the case of stones, moved. Do you think that it is wise to use more than one method of marking your path at a time to make sure that your path is secure?
     
    Sourdough likes this.
  3. willywonka

    willywonka Member
      18/23

    Blog Posts:
    0
    I have always marked stones in the past, but then children would come along and move them or pick them up. I would do this when I was hiking. Now I try to tie long leaves around branches when I am going through the forest. I will try that or I mark stumps and stones that are not too large and easily able to pick up.
     
    Sourdough likes this.
  4. Corzhens

    Corzhens Master Survivalist
      277/345

    Blog Posts:
    0
    I am quite good in navigation because when I am driving in a new place, I never fail to remember the way out. Like when we went to a friend's home in a village that had so many turns, my husband praised me for remembering the roads we passed when we came in so that we reached the exit with no difficulty. I said I always take note of the street corners like if there is a street name or a particular plant or tree. In the wild, I guess that would also work to navigate the direction with the use of those landmarks in my mind.

    I understand that trees look alike but there is a particular identity for those trees and even with plants as well. In fact, even the grassy area can have something notable that you can remember.
     
    Sourdough and sunnytn like this.
  5. explorerx7

    explorerx7 Expert Member
      143/173

    Blog Posts:
    0
    I have never generally had a difficulty in finding my way out of scheme or village with multiple twist and turns. I am mostly good at marking the route while I go along. However, it has not been a total success on all occasions, in a few instances, I have had to ask directions because the topography had posed a problem to be charted in mine mind.
     
    Sourdough likes this.
  6. tb65

    tb65 Active Member
      33/47

    Blog Posts:
    0
    Marking trails does make sense. I would rather have something to show me where I'm going then just trying to guess at it. This is good only if you don't mind being tracked by anyone. The arrows on trees or logs look like a easy way to do this. This is good advice.
     
    Sourdough likes this.
  7. Tom Williams

    Tom Williams Moderator Staff Member
      330/345

    Blog Posts:
    0
    Never mark trails to your shelter best to really not make trails to shelter mark trail in on trail of game so easy to find way out if your in a unkown area. Is really the only time to mark trail rest time use compass if 45 got you in 90gets you out to same spot
     
    Sourdough likes this.
  8. Tanner Kozlowski

    Tanner Kozlowski New Member
      1/25

    Blog Posts:
    0
    Marking trails can be very useful if you are planning to go deep into an area of wilderness you aren't very familiar with. One time when a friend and I went on into an area of woods we weren't familiar with at all, he used a spray paint can to mark trees that we walked past in order to make a trail for us to get back with. Safe to say we made it back with no problem finding the spray painted marks on the trees.
     
    Sourdough likes this.
  9. Snyper

    Snyper Master Survivalist
      330/345

    Blog Posts:
    0
    If 45* gets you in, 225* gets you back.
    You add or subtract 180 degrees to get the opposite (back) bearing.
    8d120296c885dd844b594cdbec821fc2.png
    https://goneoutdoors.com/calculate-back-bearing-8728485.html

     
    coffee, Sourdough and TMT Tactical like this.
  10. lonewolf

    lonewolf Societal Collapse Survivalist. Staff Member
      510/575

    Blog Posts:
    0
    I would only mark trails if I were lost.
     
    TMT Tactical likes this.
  11. Sourdough

    Sourdough "eleutheromaniac"
      515/575

    Blog Posts:
    0
    Yes true........and it is shocking how much deeply flawed information gets posted on forums. Most of what gets posted on forums is "opinions" but something's as you point out are concrete.
     
    TMT Tactical likes this.
  12. arctic bill

    arctic bill Master Survivalist
      360/460

    Blog Posts:
    0
    So i go deep into the woods very often. you can get lost very easily. so what i use is trail marker tape 8fa1b6b617718a2c1b51282a4f9a4ed6.jpeg

    you just tear off a small piece about a foot long and tie it about a bush,tree or anything else handy. i usually put them about every 25-50 yards. it is important so that you can see one marker location from the next one. so in thicker forest put markers more often. sometimes i have gotten turned around in my the woods and when i find one of my old trails what a relief it is.
    there is an old deer hunter that goes on my trails and he does not want any others hunting in that location so he removes my trail markers, I got really pissed at him so i went just before hunting seasons and brought in a six pack of beer to the location that he was going to hunt. i the sat down and drank the beer and then urinated all over his hunting location. for those that do not know deer can smell urine from a long distance if fact if you are hunting deer you must pee into a sealed container so that the deer do not smell the urine. I have nothing against deer hunters, but if you remove trail marker from my trail that is a sin .
     
    coffee and TMT Tactical like this.
  13. TexDanm

    TexDanm Shadow Dancer
      525/575

    Blog Posts:
    2
    LOL, Have you heard that the magnetic pole is seriously on the move. After hundreds of years the North magnetic pole is on the move and going to leave Canada. It is moving at about 45 miles a year right now and seems to be heading to Siberia. It has always moved around some but not as fast or as straight in line as it is moving right now.

    For people in the lower latitudes and not depending on it for close order navigation it won't matter too much. for the ships at sea and people in the Northern Latitudes there will be some notable changes over the next 50 years.

    For the foreseeable future Polaris will stay the north star but even that has moved over the centuries and millennia.

    PS: As is usual the Global Warmers are blaming this on the cows farting in California and predicting the end of the world unless we give them more money, give up our cars in the US and stop eating beef and drinking milk. If these fools ever leave their Ivory Towers, go to a farm and visit a hog barn my BACON is going to be on the chopping block and that will mean WAR!!!

    Sorry this is basically useless information but I doubt that I'm the only info-junkie in this crowd...
     
  14. Sourdough

    Sourdough "eleutheromaniac"
      515/575

    Blog Posts:
    0
    It does "NOT" matter that it is moving. It only matters that it exists. I ferry small airplanes from the lower 48 states to Alaska, and back to the lower 48 several thousand miles, across vast wilderness, using only a compass heading. Been doing it for 40 years. The "Deviation" has always been different the further north you fly, so you are constantly calculating for standard deviation based on the new "leg" of the flight.
     
    TMT Tactical likes this.
  15. Snyper

    Snyper Master Survivalist
      330/345

    Blog Posts:
    0
    It will only matter if they are using maps which haven't been updated with the latest declinations.

    For "point to point" navigation it makes no difference at all.
    You just read the bearings shown on the compass, then add or subtract as needed to find your way back.

    You could even create your own maps using triangulation to make shortcuts.
     
    TMT Tactical and Sourdough like this.
  16. TexDanm

    TexDanm Shadow Dancer
      525/575

    Blog Posts:
    2
    The changes in the charts and logs having to do with the changed standard deviations are scheduled but the stupid government shut down has delayed it. It may not matter in the short term that it is moving but may be the sign of a major electromagnetic change coming. The poles have flip flopped numerous times in the past just not in recent recorded time historically.

    The purpose of my post such as it was was simply me trying to point out that very few things are actually set in concrete and toss out an interesting fact. Small changes as I look back in time and history have so very often been harbingers of bigger things to come. If you wait until you see a tsunami you have possibly waited until it is too late to run.

    I do however understand that some don't always get the rather sarcastic odd way that I sometimes express myself. Stated plainly I was pointing out the fallacy that anything is truly set in stone... or concrete in this case and sharing a rather interesting, to me, bit of odd information.

    It "DOES" matter that it is moving...we just don't know what it means right now.
     
    TMT Tactical and Sourdough like this.
  17. Snyper

    Snyper Master Survivalist
      330/345

    Blog Posts:
    0
    "Moving" and "flipping" aren't the same things.

    The first is constant while the latter hasn't happened in the last 780,000 years.

    Magnetic North's position has change drastically over the years:
    24947b1b118d03eddd80c59e8fecf648.png
    We just didn't get to read about it on the internet until relatively recently.
     
    TMT Tactical likes this.
  18. coffee

    coffee Expert Member
      170/173

    Blog Posts:
    0
    Snyper, thank you so much. This is great info that I did not know.
     
    TMT Tactical likes this.
  19. TexDanm

    TexDanm Shadow Dancer
      525/575

    Blog Posts:
    2
    It moves around but it also ocassionally reverses its polarity. We are somewhat past due for a flip-flop.
     
    poltiregist and TMT Tactical like this.
Loading...
Similar Threads Forum Date
Marking Your Path Navigation Jan 21, 2016
My Non Ishmaelite Thinking Or My Mind Running Down Rabid Trails.. News, Current Events, and Politics Feb 28, 2021
Pop-up Bar On Hiking Trails News, Current Events, and Politics May 9, 2020
Social Distancing And Trails, Wilderness, Related First Aid and Medicine Mar 28, 2020
Which Gps Do You Use On Trails? Survival Gear Feb 18, 2020
Chemtrails News, Current Events, and Politics Feb 21, 2017

Share This Page