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Adventure RacingNavigation Tipsby Robyn Benincasaphotos by Will Ramos PhotographyIf you are a good navigator, you canwrite your own ticket in the sport ofAdventure Racing. Your race calendarwill be full before you knowit, with invites from some prettysolid teams. But navigation is a mixof art and science that needs to bepracticed continually, so your bestbet is to hook up with a local orienteeringteam (most of the sport’sbest navigators have a competitiveorienteering background) and seehow good you can get! Plus, learningto navigate is just darn fun.Here’s the quick down low on whatyou need to know to get from pointA to point B while navigating.Make sure you have all of yourDATAH before leaving for thatnext checkpoint!D = DISTANCELook at the scale at the bottom ofthe map and calculate how far youneed to go. Don’t forget all of thebends and twists in the river or trail.One tip is to take a piece of stringand lay it out along your chosenwindy route, and then lay the stringout along the scale at the bottom ofthe map to calculate the distance.A = AZIMUTHAzimuth is a basically a fancy wayto say “compass bearing”, but it isa commonly used term in navigation.Shooting a bearing outsideand during the day is a pretty easyskill (point where you’d like togo, turn the bezel until the needleis in the ‘house’ and rock and rollon that bearing, keeping the needlein the house as you go). But forthe most part, you will be shootingyour bearings from the map, whichrequires a few extra steps. That is,orienting your map to North, thenlaying the edge of the compass betweenthe point you’re heading toand the point you’re starting from,and finally twisting the bezel untilthe red needle is in the house. Ofcourse, there’s always the issue ofdeclination to account for (the differencebetween “true North” and“magnetic North” on that particularmap) as you get more and morespecific and “micro” with yournavigation. If this is all French toyou, I recommend you take a Navigation101 class from a local outfitterfirst, and then buy a book to reinforcewhat you learned. Practiceis the key! Only one or two peoplephotos by Will Ramos PhotographyAdventure World Magazine June 200828