Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

ROUTE SKETCHING 85natural stride back and forth over a measured distance,and average the results. Do this after a longwalk, for by that time jou will have ''struck yourgait." Practice first over fairly level ground, andthen up and down steep places, learning to makeallowances, by lengthening out a little when goingup-hill and shortening the stride when going downhill.One's stride on the march, after he has settleddown to it, is likely to be longer than it is in town.In my own case, on a hike over fair road, I find thatmy pace is about 33 inches (three inches longer thanit is around home), and the cadence of a steady jogis 100 steps to the minute. This makes 1,920 pacesto the mile. Allowing for uneven ground, I figureon 2,000 paces to the mile, and three miles an hour.This happens to be convenient in plotting, for, whenmapping on a scale of, say, four inches to the mile,each of the i-io inch squares on my cross-sectionpaper represents just 100 paces of 31.68 inchesaverage, and on a scale of two inches to the mileit is 50 paces. Timber cruisers figure on 2,000paces to the mile, or 1,000 "cruiser paces" (doublepaces, as explained below).The Application.—At the start, take the bearingsby compass of some object that you can see inadvance. Then jog along, counting every other pace(left or right foot only) as you go. To count everysingle pace would be needlessly wearisome. Wherethere is a long distance between bearing points, dropa pebble into your pocket for every hundred doublepaces.When the object you sighted isreached, mark itsUn-location on the paper, as nearly as you can, accordingto compass bearing and distance traversed.til you become skilful at this without sight compassand protractor, check your first reading by turningaround and taking the bearing back to your startingpoint.Having located the object, draw a line from the