Pacing

[Guest logscaler]

Just to help out some, As you are hiking into the cache, try estimating your distance you have come and what you have to go by pacing. Figure out your stride distance for different terrains and this will help you in shooting compass bearings and estimating distance when your GPS starts jumping around for that last little hump. Head out to the local football field, start at one goal line and see how many NORMAL steps it take you to go the first twenty five yards, then the next until your at the other end. Then try going back. The key is normal steps. For real grins and giggles, Try putting on a blindfold and then seeing what kind of straight line you can walk from one end to the other. This will tell you your dominant leg and which way you would tend to drift if you where walking "blind". This works real good in the snow, leaves a nice trail to show you where you went wrong.

[Guest Betty]

GI's have pounded into them the regular 30-inch hup-two-three-four marching pace. 30 inches is 2-1/2 feet. So, starting with your left foot, count 5, 10, 15, 20, ... every time your right foot comes down. This is very accurate. In the woods, in crooked, rough terrain, you may have to conciously stretch your pace a little to make it 30 inches. For a long distance, keep track of 100's of feet by extending your fingers one at a time from your clenched fist.

 

[This message has been edited by Don&Betty (edited 30 July 2001).]

[Guest Markwell]

Marching Band always used a 22½" stride, which meant eight steps to every five yards. I can't tell you the number of hours I spent drilling 8-to-5's as they were called, and it seems to still work well. Much shorter than the 30" mentioned above, and just a little shy of 2 feet (I use that for estimations).

[Guest tnunnery]

8 to 5's! Boy, that brings back memories. I think my steps are forever calibrated to 22.5 inches. At least I have found that it still comes in handy!

[Guest Cape Cod Cache]

AAAAAAAAHHHHHH !!!!! 8 to 5 !!!!

took 20 years, a broken knee a broken ankle and innumerous broken toes to get past 8-5.. now I walk about 36" steps, except for getting the morning paper, then it's about 12" steps/hobble

[Guest vinced]

quote:

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Originally posted by tnunnery:

8 to 5's! Boy, that brings back memories. I think my steps are forever calibrated to 22.5 inches. At least I have found that it still comes in handy!

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I was in JROTC and band and boy did that get confusing. One class your doing 30 in strides next class it 22.5in strides. :-)

 

Vince

[Guest The Bees]

und. We did this four times and then "averaged" our paces.

 

Rule of thumb was that walking up or down a normal hill reduced our pace count distance by roughly 1/4 while a steep hill was 1/2 (i.e if your pace was 24 per 100 meters on flat then 24 paces on a steep hill means you had moved 50 meters). We defined "normal" as a hill that you could walk up/down unaided and "steep" as one requiring assistance such as grabbing branches, rocks, your buddies hand, etc to pull yourself up or keep from toppling over. It was crude but it worked.

 

We also kept track of distance via Ranger Beads. These were beads on a string. When you had walked 100 meters, 1 km, or whatever distance you decided was "1 bead" then you pulled a bead down. This way you could feel in the dark how far you had travelled, or if you were sleep deprived and the memory wasn't clicking to well you would know how far you walked, etc.

 

Most of us had a second set on the other shoulder as "long range" beads. In that case each bead would be worth 10 km. So when you had 10 1 km beads pulled down you would push them back up and pull a 10 km bead down.

 

ANyway hope this helps, it certainly brings back a lot of pre-GPS land navigation memories (and horrors!)

 

Later

Mike B

 

The Bees

[Guest Campeon1981]

quote:

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Originally posted by The Bees:

 

We also kept track of distance via Ranger Beads. These were beads on a string. When you had walked 100 meters, 1 km, or whatever distance you decided was "1 bead" then you pulled a bead down. This way you could feel in the dark how far you had travelled, or if you were sleep deprived and the memory wasn't clicking to well you would know how far you walked, etc.

 

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Glad someone mentioned this... I too used this method in the military and other hiking involved groups, and it does help. Just as in geocaching, there will be more than the pace count to worry about. But unless you've got more than a 2 mile trek to your cache-point, I dont think it would really be necessary to invest in the $5 (im guessing) Ranger beads. I'd sooner carry along a little pocket sized notebook and small pencil to make mental notes... provided of course you're in daylight, otherwise take along a flashlight with a red lens cover. (so as not to ruin your night-vision)