This is one of the most fundamental skills involved in orienteering and needs to be perfected if you are to have a successful experience.
The map is a representation of the ground, and the two should always correspond. As you change your position and direction so you should change your position and direction to reflect this by turning the map in your hand so that it always stays orientated and thus represent the features around you. Rotate your map until everything matches. Doing this without a compass achieves two things – Orientates the map correctly and identifies where you are on the map.
To orientate a map means to turn it in such a way that north on the map fits in the landscape and that the terrain features shown on the map are lined up with these features in the landscape. So, you inspect the map & terrain & turn the map until the map fits the landscape.
The map is only held with the writing the right way up when you are facing north.
I’ll add a few drills once I have introduced all of the OAA1 skills!
orienteeringed 