How do you navigate without a compass? - Answers

This may not be very elegant. It should be a sunny day, you should have a functioning watch, and you need not to be too desperate (you need some time). You want to find the moment when the sun is at its highest point in the sky for you, the observer. Put a stick firmly into the ground (as close to vertical as you can-- us a make-shift plumb) in such a way that you can mark the movement of the tip of the stick's shadow. I would do this before 11 am on your watch, given that you may not know where you are within your time zone, and solar noon doesn't line up exactly with noon standard time. Do this for as long as it takes to see a curve in the movement of the shadow, and a minimum distance between the shadow and the base of the stick (the curve comes down, and then goes up). The shortest line connecting the base of the stick and the tip of the shadow is north. This represents the moment when the sun transits the meridian, your local line connecting north and south. I think the longer the stick and the longer you have to make observations, the more accurate will be your results. Follow the direction of your noontime shadow. (Just don't keep following your shadow all day...) In a wilderness situation, this would probably be as accurate as the above, with much less trouble.