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Navigation Field Trip

Field trip: Wilderness Navigation

Navigation Field Trip - Port Gamble Forest Heritage Park

The field trip is a one-day outing at Port Gamble Forest Heritage Park where you will practice and demonstrate your competency in map, compass and navigation principles. You will complete a "leap frog" navigation exercise in pairs and a solo navigation exercise.

Contacts

Melissa White
Melissa White
Primary Leader
  • Easy
  • Easy
  • Mileage: 5.0 mi

Port Gamble Forest Heritage Park at 8:00 AM. Specific coordinates and instructions will be emailed after completion of the eLearning class.

Meeting place and time

Port Gamble Forest Heritage Park at 8:00 AM. Specific coordinates and instructions will be emailed after completion of the eLearning class.

Leader's notes

Students who successfully complete the eLearning workshop will participate in the field trip, which involves a number of activities that will test your knowledge of map, compass, and navigation principles in real-world conditions. Successful completion of the field session is required in order to earn your Navigation badge. For the field session, you will be traveling steep, rough terrain in Port Gamble Forest Heritage Park at the northern end of the Kitsap Peninsula.  Some areas feature logging slash covered by brush  and other areas have dense forest. Students will perform some navigation activities with partners.  The final exercise will involve solo travel following a bearing through a densely-forested and vegetated hillside until you intersect a trail,  which will allow the accuracy of your navigation to be measured from the correct intersection point.

Badges

students will earn:

instructors will earn:

Route/Place

Port Gamble Forest Heritage Park

Roster
Required Equipment

Required Equipment

Mountaineers-acceptable compass is mandatory.  (See Required Equipment in Navigation Course for specifics).  All students must have their own Mountaineers-acceptable compass for the field trip as they cannot be shared during the field trip.

You'll also need appropriate clothing and footwear, including hiking boots, sturdy rain gear, extra warm garments, hat and gloves.  Bring your Ten Essentials, lunch and extra food, plenty of water, and a ziplock bag of at least 1 gallon size to protect maps and other handouts.  A clip-board, while not required, will make working on your maps easier.   

Even when it is not raining or snowing, the brush you'll be traveling through is usually wet, so do not wear cotton clothing and be sure to bring your rain gear.   The field session usually ends mid-afternoon, but the ending time can vary and everyone will stay until the last student returns to the parking lot.

Port Gamble is a county park, so no parking pass is required.

Trip Reports