Find your way home with natural navigation

No matter how featureless the land in which one finds oneself, navigation clues can be picked up from the position of the sun, and the way trees grow, the position of mosses and even muddy puddles

Nobody finds their way to adulthood without collecting some vivid memories about being lost. As a child I became separated from my parents in a supermarket on holiday, and I was into my teens before supermarket aisles lost their ability to make me feel uneasy.

This anxiety that we have all felt is healthy. It is a honed evolutionary response that safeguarded our ancestors from wandering too far from food and shelter, at least without a plan of some sort.

Natural navigation, or the art of finding your way using nature, can help to keep this feeling at bay. When I teach courses in this increasingly rare skill, I often give the assurance that navigators do not get lost – they are only temporarily uncertain of their position.

Behind the joke there is some truth. If being lost is to have no idea where you are or how to get where you want to be, then this sensation can be avoided by retaining some awareness on any journey. It is the start of a process that can yield extraordinary results. I have been fortunate enough to have spent time with some masters of the art of natural navigation, such as the Tuareg in the Sahara. These nomadic people are able to point to all the nearest villages and towns from wherever they are and at any time – even from the centre of a totally featureless desert plain. They do this without reference to any map, compass or GPS, only by staying tuned to their surroundings.

Such close observation has become subconscious for most nomadic people. But for those of us that have not grown up, like the Tuareg, rearing goats on wild landscapes, there are conscious techniques that allow us to emulate this ability, to a certain degree.

Sun

Looking at the position of moss on wood

Always start by looking up. In the daytime, the sun is the first clue to look for. Its arc through the sky will vary from location to location (in fact it changes imperceptibly every time you take a small step to the north or south) but some general principles apply. It is always due south or north when it is highest in the sky, from anywhere in the world. For everyone north of the Tropic of Cancer, and that includes all of Europe and the US, the sun will always be due south at midday. For most journeys, the sun can also be used in a general and common-sense way: if you feel lost after walking at lunchtime for a while, some earlier awareness that the sun was on your back for a few minutes and then your right cheek brings a welcome sense of direction. You must have been walking roughly north and then east. A walk of similar length with the sun on your face and left cheek will return you to a familiar area.

Using the sun near the start and end of the day is a finer art, as its position on the horizon changes so dramatically over the course of a year. In the UK it rises in the north-east in midsummer and in the south-east in midwinter – so you need to be an experienced navigator to judge its bearing.

Moon

Another great clue in the sky is a crescent moon. A line that joins the horns of a crescent moon, when extended down to the horizon, will give an approximate indication of south in the northern hemisphere. The reason is simple: the sun and moon move in an east-west plane and when not in line (a new moon) they are either roughly east or west of each other. This means that the bright side of the moon is pointing roughly east or west. Any line that is at right angles to an east-west line must be a north-south line.

Stars

At night the stars will help, as humanity has realised since prehistory. There are dozens of ways of using the stars to find direction, but in the northern hemisphere the Plough is generally the easiest place to start, since it leads to Polaris, the North Star. The Plough is a group of seven stars shaped like a saucepan. The two stars furthest away from the pan’s handle are known as the pointer stars. A line that extends from the pointer star at the bottom of the saucepan through the top pointer star and then continues for five times that distance will take you to the North Star. The North Star really is north.

Trees

Tristan Gooley examines the way trees grow

Natural navigation becomes a richer and more challenging art when the sky is obscured with thick cloud. Now attention must shift to earthbound clues. Trees, like all green plants, need the sun and their growth will reflect this. Think of them as having a memory store of the sun’s arc over time. The simplest method is to remember that isolated trees will often show a heaviness on the side that receives the most sunlight – which is south in the northern hemisphere.

The way mosses and lichens grow is also heavily influenced by the southern warming of the midday sun. There is a lot more to it than most realise, but the way to get started is spot trends in your local area. Perhaps roofs that show thick green mosses on their northern side and golden lichens on their southern side.

Puddles

The sun will also leave footprints in wet mud. Two sides of an east-west path will receive differing amounts of sunlight as the sun moves through the southern part of the sky. In the UK, for example, it is common to find more puddles on the southern side of an east-west path. Asymmetries in natural environments are opportunities for the curious natural navigator.

Natural navigation is a rare art these days, and all the more fascinating for being inessential. It can help you to avoid feeling lost, and if a level of awareness of natural clues has been maintained, it can help you to find your way home. It is perhaps at its most enjoyable when it is being used to enrich a journey, not rescue one. An art for when things are going well, more than when they are going badly.

Tristan Gooley is the author of ‘The Natural Navigator’ (Virgin) and founder of The Natural Navigator School

pursuits@ft.com

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The details

For more details on Tristan Gooley’s Natural Navigator School go to www.naturalnavigator.com