Trackless ground is not harder than a marked trail because there are no signposts on it — it is harder because every decision you make yourself. About direction, pace, the way around an obstacle, the place to camp. In Sarek National Park practically every day of walking looks like this. Over the years I have worked out a way of thinking that allows me to move through unmarked terrain as confidently as on a trail, but honestly speaking, this confidence does not come on its own — it has to be built.
Before you set off — establish your starting point on the map
Before I take the first step from camp, I know exactly where I am — with an accuracy of two hundred metres. I identify the place on the map by relying on at least two points in the terrain: a river, a peak, a clear ridge. I mark in my head the direction of march and the first checkpoint, that is the place where I will stop and check my position. This is not a procedure for show — it is simply a safeguard against the first mistake, which in trackless country grows at an exponential rate.
Reading the relief of the land — before you take a step
Before every stage of the march I read the map and look for the line of least resistance, not the shortest route. The shortest and the easiest are usually two different things. Ridges lead far, but they give visibility and a dry foot, so it is often worth following them even at the cost of additional distance. Valleys tempt you with speed, but it is precisely there that you find rivers, bogs and damp thickets — dwarf birch and Arctic willows in Lapland can suck in your boots up to the ankle and dramatically slow down the march, sometimes to such an extent that it takes an hour to cover what looked on the map like fifteen minutes.
With time you begin to read the terrain like a text. Where a plateau gently descends into a valley, you can most often get through without a problem. A centimetre on a map at the scale of 1:100 000 in overgrown ground means even ten minutes of real effort, which is worth remembering when planning a day.
Planning on the move — flexibility as a strategy
I have a daily plan, but I treat it as a hypothesis, not as an obligation. Every hour I check where I am in relation to the plan. If the terrain turns out to be harder than I assumed, I shorten the stage and start looking earlier for a good place to camp. It is better to have a good place now than a bad one in two hours, in the pouring rain and on soggy ground.
Planning on the move also means that I look for alternatives before a problem appears. Walking towards a small valley with a planned crossing, already on the approach I glance to see whether it could be bypassed along a ridge, should the river turn out to be too high. This is not pessimism, it is simply the thinking of a guide who prefers to have plan B in his head before it turns out to be needed.
Fog and rain — decisions without visibility
Fog in itself is not a reason to stop — it is a reason to slow down and to verify your position more often. In trackless ground fog forces you to stick to linear features: you walk along a river, along a ridge, along one contour line. A march „on a bearing” through open ground in fog, if you do not know it well, is a straight road to getting lost.
Rain in turn changes the quality of the ground itself. Wet granite slabs become like glass, the vegetation is heavier and more resistant, the rivers grow. My pace in such conditions drops by some twenty, thirty percent and I accept this without discussion.
Triangulation on the move — continuous confirmation of position
Moving through trackless terrain is, in essence, a constant awareness of where you are on the map — with an error no greater than two hundred, three hundred metres. About every half hour I identify at least two terrain features and match them to the map. A peak on the left, a bend of the river ahead — and I already know where I stand. I do not wait until I lose orientation; I verify my position earlier, before I lose certainty at all. More on the technique of taking a bearing with a compass you will find in the article Map and Compass.
When to stop
In trackless country there is one skill that no piece of equipment will replace — knowing when to stop. If you do not know where you are with an accuracy of three hundred metres, you stop and determine your position. If you do not know what awaits you behind the next ridge, you wait.
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