We talked about using ranger beads in the Map, Compass and Cache Class this Saturday.  I thought I would post about them for everyone who did not know what they were.

Originally developed by military forces, ranger pace-counting beads are a great way to measure distances travelled by foot. A set of ranger beads is merely a lanyard with two sets of beads; the bottom section has nine and the top section has five. The beads are moved at various distances to count your total distance walked.

Measure how many steps it takes for you to walk 100m. Now when you walk, for every 100m you walk move one of the 9 lower beads up. On the tenth time instead move one of the 5 upper beads up and pull all 9 of the lower beads back down to reset; this indicates that you have walked 1km. You can measure up to 5km with this configuration of beads. Brian’s Backpacking Blog has multiple methods of measuring strides and also gives alternate uses for using ranger beads in daily life, such as counting the number of glasses of water you drink each day.

For more on land navagation click HERE

full article: Make and Use Ranger Beads to Measure Your Walking Distance