IES Pintor Luis Sáez
PHYSICAL EDUCATION DEPT.
LESSON: Orienteering with nature
COURSE: 3º CSE
NAME:
ORIENTEERING WITH NATURE
1. What is orienteering?
Orienteering is to place oneself in the space in relation to a
certain reference.
You can orient yourself regarding a person, a place, etc but in
the natural environment, the reference for orienteering, is the north of
the earth. (Cardinal points)
Orienteering allows you to move through the space:
A. First: knowing where you are.
B. Second: knowing where you want to go.
C. Third: choosing the best route.
Orienteering races are a sports discipline consisting in
completing a tour by passing through several points marked on a map with the help of the compass.
2. Orienteering with nature
2.1. The sun
- The sun always rises in the East and sets in the West.
- At midday the sun reaches its zenith. So, it is South in the Northern hemisphere and North in the
Southern hemisphere. You should bear in mind:
. From October to March our watch is one hour in advance with respect to the solar time; that is
why the 12 solar time (midday) equals our 13 hours in the watch.
. From March to October our watch is two hours in advance with respect to the solar time; that is
why the 12 solar time (midday) equals our 14 hours in the watch.
Using an analog watch
If you have an analog wrist watch, you can use it to find the north. Hold your watch up
in front of you, and let the short hand point the sun. While holding it like this, cut the
angle between the red arrow and 12 o'clock in two, that way is south.
The shadow
Put a long stick or branch in the ground, upright. The ground around the stick needs to
be flat. Now, you can place one little stone in the ground exactly where the shadow of
the stick ends. Wait 20 minutes. After this time the shadow will move. Place another
little stone where the new shadow of the stick ends. The line between the two stones
will be approximately west-east.
2.2. The moon
The tips of a crescent waxing moon will point to the east.
The tips of a waning moon will point to the west.
2.3. Stars:
In the northern hemisphere, there is a star that is almost exactly in the
north at all times, the Polaris. It is pretty easy to find it, if you know the
"Big Dipper". (Everybody knows the Big Dipper (or the Plough)?) Take
the two stars at the end of the "Big Dipper", and make an imaginary line
"upwards", and extend it five times the distance between the two stars.
There you have it - Polaris. That way is always north.
2.4. Vegetation:
It is not a very reliable method because it depends on the weather conditions of the area, but
it can put us on the right track.
Trees
The north face of the tree would be more humid than the south face, which is something most
species of lichen (or moss) like, and consequently, there will be more of it on the north face
Tree rings
Finding the stump of an isolated tree, and looking at the
rings in the trunk, we can see that trees grow more on
its southern face as they receive more sunshine on it.
Snow
In springtime in the mountains, snow will melt faster on the south face of rocks, or in south faced
slopes.
3. The map.
The map is a graphical, flat representation of the terrain that allows you to see a section of
the Earth's surface "in bird's eye", or as if viewed from an aerial view.
There are several types of maps: of roads, geological, climatic, topographic ... With a topographic
map you can identify any characteristic point of the terrain. The orienteering plane contains more
details than the previous one; It lacks names of towns, places of interest or tourist information, and
is presented on an appropriate scale, so that everything can be read in a legible way.
3.1. Elements of a map
Scale
This is the relationship between reality and the map. E.g. Scale of 1:10.000 -each centimeter
represents 10,000 centimeters. (That is 1cm= 100 m)
Large map scales are used since orienteering maps portray many features within a relatively small
area. The two most commonly used scales are 1:10,000 or 1:15,000
Legend or Key
They are symbols that allow us to read the map. They are usually printed in different colours.
Black: non-natural details, usually made by the man or some cliffs or caves.
Blue: everything related to the water.
Green: vegetation. The different nuances Will tell us about the thickness of the vegetation.
Yellow: clear and crop áreas with or without vegetation.
Brown: contour lines, cliffs, furrows (surcos), etc.
Bearing
Orienteering maps are aligned to Magnetic North. The reason for this choice is that orienteers use a
magnetic compass to navigate, so it makes sense for both map and compass to be using the same
system. Magnetic North is indicated on every orienteering map by a series of arrows, with North
being at the top of the map.
Contour lines and distance
They are lines drawn on a map connecting points of equal elevation. If you walk
along a contour line you neither gain nor lose elevation.
Contour lines are normally drawn in Brown
- The distance between contour lines has a constant value.
Remember:
- If the contour lines are very close, the landscape is steep.
- If the contour lines are widely spaced, the landscape is flatter.
3.2. Orienting the Map
This is one of the fundamental skills in orienteering and leads to successful navigation. The map can
be oriented either by comparing the map directly with the terrain matching the orientation of the
map to the features on the ground or by using a compass to orient to north.
SCALE CONTOUR LINES LEYEND
