There are times while hiking when it's a good idea to be able to fall back on old school navigation methods.   The modern maps, compasses and GPS units make our life better and our hiking more safe, however, you can lose your maps, break your compass or have your GPS batteries run out.   Plus, GPS units don't always work, the signal can be blocked by, of all things, trees. Most of the places to hike in the North East are going to be filled with trees.  That's not a problem in the desert southwest, but desert hiking has its own set of challenges and rewards.

The best way to be prepared is simply to have some basic navigational knowledge that doesn't depend on anything more than your eyes and some basic know how. Fortunately, that knowledge is easy to get and simple to use.  Most children learn early in life that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West.   That's true, however, being far away from the equator or when the sun is at its mid-day peak can make it harder to tell where it is.  In the Northern Hemisphere, at noon the sun will be a bit to the  south.  An hour or so later it will have moved enough to make its position easy to see.

Before your life depends on it, take note of the landmarks around you and use your watch to note the time. Take note of the sun's position at half-hourly intervals and keep a mental graph of the line along which it moves. That will give you a natural East-West line.  Once you know that, finding North and South is easy. North is 90 degrees 'to the right' of West, South is 90 degrees 'to the left'.

At night you have a potential problem. The sun, obviously, isn't there to guide you. But, you can still navigate well by the stars. After all, humans have done so for thousands of years. Heavy rain or fog, or even trees, can make that difficult, though. Sometimes you just have to wait until you get a clearer view.

When you can see the stars they're often very bright. Most hiking areas are far away from city lights. It should be relatively easy, then, to pick out some major constellations to use as guides.

At around 8 p.m., if you look straight up then around in a small circle. Before long you should be able to find the Big Dipper. That's the group of stars that looks like a big dipper :). The two stars at the end of the 'scoop' form a line that points to the North Star.  Another easy to spot constellation is Orion's Belt. That's a series of three stars that form part of the Orion group. They're almost straight across east to west looking roughly south about 9 p.m. at night.

Naturally, the constellations will be in different positions at different times of the night. But the Big Dipper's scoop stars will still point toward the North Star, and Orion's belt - so long as it is still visible - will still be in roughly the same orientation and direction.

When you plan any hike become familiar with the positions of some of the major constellations. Even a day hike can turn into an overnight stay unexpectedly. You'll be very glad to have that knowledge if that happens.