Tristan Gooley
He tells Natalie Hoare how puddles and mosses can help you to get your bearings and how the Tuareg of the Libyan Sahara always knows where Mecca is - even in a sandstorm.
Natural navigation is the rare art of being able to find your way using nature – the sun, the moon, the stars, wind and weather, plants and animals, and the interconnections among them.
It’s nothing new. Interest in natural navigation naturally subsided as instruments improved. In the past few decades, if it has been given any attention at all, it has been by the survival schools, where the thinking has been that this is something you pull out of your bag if you’re in trouble.
Most of us, fortunately, are never going to be in a survival situation, but all of us are going to be outdoors trying to understand what we see around us. A great key to furthering that understanding is to ask the question, ‘In which direction am I looking?’ without resorting to technology.
We’ve got to the point now where we can travel half-way around the world and be completely divorced from the journey experience. People will climb aboard an aeroplane, open a magazine and try to shut the whole experience out. Natural navigation enriches small everyday journeys.
I’ve had an interest in navigation for a lot longer than I’ve understood what the word meant. It became a passion later in life and came from the thrill and excitement of finding my way, whether I was in a small dinghy looking for a beach around a headland or camping in the Brecon Beacons.
A lot of people think I’m Mr Anti-GPS, but the truth is, even if I’m relying solely on nature, I always take all the equipment – map, compass, GPS and an EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) – as a backup. Being keen to become more aware of nature doesn’t mean being against technology.
The subject overlaps a lot of different disciplines – physics, maths, geography and others – and my courses are quite an eclectic experience. We’re talking about modern sailors in the Pacific one minute and peering at mosses the next. The thing that unifies it all is this idea of determining direction just by observing what’s around you.
You can use puddles to find your way. You’re going to get more standing water in the shade than you would in direct sunlight. Also, in England, the prevailing southwesterly winds can push surface plant matter and algae up into the northeast corner of a puddle, where it stays and often dries in different colours as the water evaporates – again providing a clue to its orientation.
It’s a great oversimplification that moss always grows on the north side of rocks. The sun’s arc is mainly in the south, so you do quite often get moss on the north side, but moss doesn’t care about north and south, it cares about moisture and its own environment. A lot of things can determine where moss grows. So you have to think about a whole lot of processes affecting that moss before you make a decision.
When, for example, you’re 80 per cent sure you have your bearings and you realise that puddles, the moss and other plants, and whatever other small clues you have, actually fit in with your hypothesis, it’s the most wonderful experience – it means you’re not just walking with blinkers on, but that you’re tuned in to your surroundings.
Geography is really important to me and my understanding of the world. Many aspects of it often cast light on a navigation problem I’m trying to solve. Sand dunes and their formation sit quite firmly in the geography camp, and research published in the Geographical Journal was particularly useful while I was in Libya with the Tuareg.
The aim was, first, to gain first-hand experience of navigating in the desert, while I also wanted to get a handle on the human geography – to see the Tuareg’s relationship with their landscape, focusing on their methods for finding their way.
The most interesting thing, in terms of their navigation methodology, was their spatial awareness. They don’t use maps, compasses or GPS, and yet they’re able to find their way around the land. For them, it’s about having a constant running mental note of the bearings to different places: wherever we were, they could always point in the direction of their village – and Mecca. They need to know that direction every few hours – it’s very much part of their daily routine.
Curriculum Vitae
1973 Born in London
1993-96 Studied politics and history at Newcastle University
2004 Led Expedition into the Arctic Circle
2006-present Vice-chairman, Trailfinders
2008 Became first European to fly solo and sail single-handed across the Atlantic
2008 Received the Royal Institute of Navigation's Certificate of Achievement
2008 Set up the Natural Navigator school
For more information, visit www.naturalnavigator.com
July 2009
Natural navigation is the rare art of being able to find your way using nature – the sun, the moon, the stars, wind and weather, plants and animals, and the interconnections among them.
It’s nothing new. Interest in natural navigation naturally subsided as instruments improved. In the past few decades, if it has been given any attention at all, it has been by the survival schools, where the thinking has been that this is something you pull out of your bag if you’re in trouble.
Most of us, fortunately, are never going to be in a survival situation, but all of us are going to be outdoors trying to understand what we see around us. A great key to furthering that understanding is to ask the question, ‘In which direction am I looking?’ without resorting to technology.
We’ve got to the point now where we can travel half-way around the world and be completely divorced from the journey experience. People will climb aboard an aeroplane, open a magazine and try to shut the whole experience out. Natural navigation enriches small everyday journeys.
I’ve had an interest in navigation for a lot longer than I’ve understood what the word meant. It became a passion later in life and came from the thrill and excitement of finding my way, whether I was in a small dinghy looking for a beach around a headland or camping in the Brecon Beacons.
A lot of people think I’m Mr Anti-GPS, but the truth is, even if I’m relying solely on nature, I always take all the equipment – map, compass, GPS and an EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) – as a backup. Being keen to become more aware of nature doesn’t mean being against technology.
The subject overlaps a lot of different disciplines – physics, maths, geography and others – and my courses are quite an eclectic experience. We’re talking about modern sailors in the Pacific one minute and peering at mosses the next. The thing that unifies it all is this idea of determining direction just by observing what’s around you.
You can use puddles to find your way. You’re going to get more standing water in the shade than you would in direct sunlight. Also, in England, the prevailing southwesterly winds can push surface plant matter and algae up into the northeast corner of a puddle, where it stays and often dries in different colours as the water evaporates – again providing a clue to its orientation.
It’s a great oversimplification that moss always grows on the north side of rocks. The sun’s arc is mainly in the south, so you do quite often get moss on the north side, but moss doesn’t care about north and south, it cares about moisture and its own environment. A lot of things can determine where moss grows. So you have to think about a whole lot of processes affecting that moss before you make a decision.
When, for example, you’re 80 per cent sure you have your bearings and you realise that puddles, the moss and other plants, and whatever other small clues you have, actually fit in with your hypothesis, it’s the most wonderful experience – it means you’re not just walking with blinkers on, but that you’re tuned in to your surroundings.
Geography is really important to me and my understanding of the world. Many aspects of it often cast light on a navigation problem I’m trying to solve. Sand dunes and their formation sit quite firmly in the geography camp, and research published in the Geographical Journal was particularly useful while I was in Libya with the Tuareg.
The aim was, first, to gain first-hand experience of navigating in the desert, while I also wanted to get a handle on the human geography – to see the Tuareg’s relationship with their landscape, focusing on their methods for finding their way.
The most interesting thing, in terms of their navigation methodology, was their spatial awareness. They don’t use maps, compasses or GPS, and yet they’re able to find their way around the land. For them, it’s about having a constant running mental note of the bearings to different places: wherever we were, they could always point in the direction of their village – and Mecca. They need to know that direction every few hours – it’s very much part of their daily routine.
Curriculum Vitae
1973 Born in London
1993-96 Studied politics and history at Newcastle University
2004 Led Expedition into the Arctic Circle
2006-present Vice-chairman, Trailfinders
2008 Became first European to fly solo and sail single-handed across the Atlantic
2008 Received the Royal Institute of Navigation's Certificate of Achievement
2008 Set up the Natural Navigator school
For more information, visit www.naturalnavigator.com
July 2009
