Common Sense Transition: An Excerpt • The Havok Journal

This is an excerpt from Karl Monger’s book, Common Sense Transition:

Chapter 10: Staying on Azimuth

Transition is like night land navigation, old-school. For those of you who haven’t had the fun, here’s how it works: lie on the ground and cover yourself with a poncho or other cloth that blocks light and plot two points on the map: where you are now, and where you desire to go. Since it’s going to be dark, you won’t be able to use a far-off reference point, like a noticeable tree or hilltop as an easy reference. Instead, you are going to have to rely on your ability to walk in a straight line while counting your paces to determine how far you’ve traveled. Using a protractor, draw a line between the two points you plotted on the map. Ensuring you figure in the declination factor (degree of difference between grid north and magnetic north), determine the azimuth from your present location to your desired location. Measure the distance you are to travel, and remember it. Open your lensatic compass, orient it to north and dial in the azimuth you figured earlier. If the glow-in-the-dark lines or dots aren’t glowing now, get a different compass or use a light to charge them up (and hope the charge sticks). Turn the compass until the north arrow glowing line lines up with Karl Monger 184 the glowing azimuth line. As long as the north arrow stays aligned and you walk in the direction the compass is pointing, you will stay on azimuth. Know your pace count. I know from experience that at a normal walk, 120 paces (or 60 with my left foot), equals 100 meters. Now is a good time to ensure you also have your pace count cord, a cord containing sliding beads. Every 100 meters you will slide a bead down so you don’t lose count. Start walking. If it’s truly dark, and if you are walking on uneven ground or better yet—through a forest or swamp—you will soon find that it’s hard to keep walking in a straight line for very far. You’ll encounter a stump, or a water-filled ditch, or walk into spider-web, or face a large tree that you simply can’t walk straight through. Now turn 90 degrees to the right or left, walk the number of steps required to clear the obstacle, pick up your original pace count and azimuth and walk straight again. Notice you have moved your azimuth to a parallel azimuth the number of steps you took to clear the obstacle. Once it’s safe to return to the original azimuth, face the opposite direction you did earlier and walk the exact same number of steps back. Theoretically this action places you back on the exact azimuth with which you started. I learned to alternate the direction I took around obstacles. If I went right the first time, I went left the next. This evened out any tendencies I might have to step unevenly or to miscount. Common Sense Transition 185 If you are precise about this, when you reach the pace count that corresponds with the distance you desire to travel, you should be right where you planned to be. What happens, though, if you go around a tree twice or three times to the right instead of alternating? If a spider web freaks you out so much that you do the herky-jerky, trying to clear the spider web and any associated critters from your clothing. When you regain your composure, you have no idea how far off your azimuth you went. What happens is, you continue your azimuth as best you can, and when your pace count tells you you’re near, you stop and look for your spot. If you’ve only gone one or two football fields in distance, odds are good you’ll quickly find your objective, because a couple of degrees at that distance isn’t significant. If, however, you walk ten miles, now that’s a different story. You’ll end up so far away from your original objective that you may never find it. You’re probably asking yourself at this point, “Great lesson in land navigation but how does that relate to transition?”