Compass headings for Muir Snowfield

[grandpa]

For a LONG time now, I've been intrigued by the prospect of hiking up Mt Rainier "a ways". I get out there maybe once or twice a year and last summer I drove up to Paradise and looked around and decided that I can do this. So the planning started.

 

One thing puzzled me right away, and that was that the compass bearings as given on the NPS website (and now the specific page I wanted to reference is gone), (but seems tp be replaced by:

http://www.nps.gov/archive/mora/general/maps/ParadiseRoutes.pdf)was the fact that the mag and true bearings seemed to be just reverse from what I thought they should be.

 

I wrote to the NPS and asked about this, but got no response. Now the original page is missing, and the abovementioned page alludes to GPS coordinates "on the reverse side" which apparently is also missing. And it also does not have any compass bearings indicated.

 

I'm spending time now re-learning to use a compass (it's been many long years since I've needed one), and also have a GPS, and am learning what it's all about too. But, without some good idea of what direction is correct in the to/from category while hiking up to camp Muir (or however far we make I decide to go), I'll have to rely on what I can see, and I don't think this is a good way to navigate, especially since I've never been there. I'm planning on a mid to late summer trip in a year or so with my son and his two cousins.

 

I am planning on taking a look this summer some time, and perhaps a lone trip next summer before I take the kids up there (they're all 30+).

 

Anyone want to point me in the right direction(s) here? Yeah, pun intended....

 

thanks,

 

Dave

 

[spotly]

http://www.nps.gov/archive/mora/general/maps/mapcompass.pdf

[grandpa]

That's the one I was looking for (don't know why I coulsn't find it before). Tell me that the Mag and True headings are indeed reversed, or why I'm looking at it all wrong if they're correct, please.

 

Mag north is EAST of true north in this part of the country. (Now if we were in Maine, this map would be more correct).

 

Dave

[Reid]

As the saying goes "East is least, West is best" The bearings on that map are right. Just to be sure, a 90 deg bearing is East and 270 is West. And if you are converting true bearings to mag then the saying is accurate. Converting mag to true is the opposite. Screwing up one of these would make the map bearings seem inaccurate.

[grandpa]

... Just to be sure, a 90 deg bearing is East and 270 is West...

 

Yes, I know and understand that point. What was pestering me was the question (in my mind) of how I would get a compass to read, say 337 degrees, when the true direction is 355 degrees.

 

I've been thinking about this today, and have come to the conclusion that the compass would indeed read 337 (vs 355) if I had not adjusted my compass for the local for declination (18 degrees in this area of the country), and was reading the compass "raw". Is this what you understand this map to be telling me?

 

Dave

[chris]

The PDF calls for a 22 deg E declination. But I just checked with NOAA, and our current declination is rounded up to 18 deg East. Any ideas?

[spotly]

Created in the 80s maybe? 18 is correct though.