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There are times while hiking when it's a good idea to be able to fall back on traditional navigation techniques. Modern navigation may not work well due to break or signal gets blocked by. The best way to be prepared is to have some basic navigational knowledge that doesn't count on anything more than your eyes and intelligence. It is super easy to obtain and use. Most people learn early in life that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. However, it is sometimes a little difficult to judge. In the Northern Hemisphere, at noon the sun will be south of you. If you wait an hour, it will have moved enough to judge its general direction easily. Taking note of the landmarks around is important. 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 because north is 90 degrees 'to the right' of west, south is 90 degrees 'to the left'.

At night, your navigation is the stars but often you just have to wait until you get a clearer view. When you can see the stars they're often very bright because most hiking areas are far away from city lights. It should be relatively easy to pick out some major constellations to use as guides.

Around 8 p.m. look straight up then around in a small circle. Before long you should be able to locate the Big Dipper. That's the group of stars that looks like a cooking ladle. 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 group 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 your day hike turns into an overnight stay unexpectedly, you already have the basic.