Navigating a white out. Here’s how you do it.

There you are. Map and compass in your hand. GPS in your jacket pocket. Skis under your feet. Your sled is attached to your belt. You are ready to go.

The last stage of the day. Right in front of you, three kilometers away, is the hut. And the stove. You can walk there in a straight line.

And then it begins to snow. Within minutes, visibility is reduced to tens of meters. You are in a complete whiteout. Everywhere you look is white. It’s like being inside a carton of milk.

Navigating a white out in Norway is tricky but possible

How do you stay the course? How to make sure you keep going straight to your goal. In this article, I’ll give you some tools to make it easier.

Want to know what gear you need to navigate in winter? Then read the blog: What do you need to navigate in winter?

Navigate by walking straight through.

Navigating in Arctic territory is often walking from A to B. And then in a straight line. Often over well-traveled and flat terrain. That just runs easiest with a sled behind you. So straights are common.

Whether it’s 3 kilometers to the last hut on a trek in Norway. Or 550 kilometers because you’re crossing Greenland. Navigation and walking straight ahead amount to the same thing.

During the crossing of Greenland, participants walk behind each other.

Deviation from the straight line is normal.

But how do you make sure you keep walking straight? By nature, humans have an abnormality. Just walk straight ahead on a soccer field while your eyes are closed. Chances are you will deviate left or right. This also happens in the snow. If there is no more contrast and thus you have no focus point to aim at, then you are going to deviate from the straight line.

So, how can you keep walking straight? There are some good, easy and convenient ways to do that. And if you take a combination of these ways, you will see that walking straight is quite doable.

Navigating with your GPS.

The most accurate way is to turn on your GPS. There, mark your end goal and walk after the arrow on your GPS. This will get you exactly where you need to be. I advise you to do this at least when the visibility is very poor. But then only by the last hundred meters. Navigating with your face pointed at an arrow on your GPS is exhausting. You can’t run smoothly and it takes batteries.

If you cross Greenland this way, you will have no battery left at the end and you will have neck pain. A GPS is good to use to check occasionally to see if you are still on course, though. Check and adjust and then continue with one of the ways below.

Positioning in Sweden with the GPS

Navigating through a white out with your compass.

Navigating with your compass actually works the same as with your GPS. But the big advantage is that it costs no power and you don’t have to wait for the “fix. That’s the time it takes the GPS to determine where you are. A compass is always on in that regard.

Using the map, determine exactly the course you should walk. You do that with one of the compass handles. No idea what a compass handle is? Then come to a map and compass workshop. That’s where you learn this.

Once you set the course in your compass, you transfer it to the field and start walking in that direction. You now have the right course. If you take out your compass every hundred meters to check your course, you will go more or less straight.

Now that you have set the right course, there are a number of ways to keep walking straight.

Setting course with the compass

Focus on a point in the distance.

See what’s in front of you. Is that a rock, an elevation, a snow ridge. Whatever. No matter. Find a point in the distance that is on your course and go there.

Disadvantage of the snow, however, is that depth is very difficult to estimate. I distinctly remember thinking I was walking toward a mountain on the horizon. That was in Greenland. So there you can walk nicely. But after 3 minutes, I had cut through and passed this snow ridge with my ski. I was another illusion poorer.

But the other way around is also possible. On the Gulf of Bothnia, during a sea ice expedition, I pointed my compass at a pole farther away. We would take a break there half an hour later. At the end of the day, we reached the pole. It was the Kalix lighthouse in northern Sweden. What a big thing that is. But we did have a nice focal point throughout the day. And we walked right up to it.

In Greenland, there is little to focus on

Navigation by looking behind.

If you don’t have a really good focal point, then you have to come up with something else. The following is a simple tip for staying straight.

After walking a few hundred meters, stand very still. Look behind you. Do you see a straight track of your skis and sled? Then you go straight ahead.

Perfectly straight ski trail on Greenland

Do you see your draft mates behind you? Those should be in sight distance in a whiteout anyway. When you see all your draft mates standing behind each other. And thus disappear from sight one after the other. Then you go well. Notice there is a pendulum of people and it deviates to the left. Then you have to adjust a little to the right. If the pendulum goes to the right, you have to adjust to the left. In that case, grab your compass. Check your course. Stand well in that direction and walk again. After fifty meters, look back and see if you are doing better now.

Check by looking back at your draft mates

Navigating using the wind.

Often on a plain the wind is constant. All the way in Greenland. There are often catabatic winds there. These are winds that constantly flow off the ice sheet. Also called fall winds. The advantage of such a wind is that it is a good indicator of direction.

Before you begin a trip, attach a piece of kite fabric to your ski pole. This is now a weather vane. Using your compass, stand in the right direction again. Now look at that flag. When the wind blows, the wind vane makes an angle with respect to your ski pole or skis. Keep this angle the same as you walk.

A kite fabric flag on the ski pole

With some practice, you can also go by your gut. The feeling of the wind in your face. Is it coming from the left, from the right or straight ahead. What do you hear? How does the wind hitting your hood sound. Listen to where the wind is coming from. You put all the senses you have to use to navigate.

The wind does not change very often. So if you have walked for half an hour you will see that you have gone fairly straight. You will meander, meander a bit, but making a turn is out of the question. As long as the wind doesn’t turn.

Note. When the wind comes at an angle or straight from behind, turbulence is created. Your body creates a dirty wind flow. If so, this technique is not entirely reliable.

The wind vane makes an angle relative to the skis

Navigating with the shadow.

In a complete whiteout, there is no shadow. So then you have to go all out with the other techniques. But if there is a little sun, there is shade. With that shadow, you can stay on course just fine. Look at the shadow of your ski pole. That one “cuts” your ski. Look at the angle and during the movement keep this angle the same. The same goes for the tips at the front of your ski. These, too, make a shadow on the snow. It is a small shadow, but it is there.

The tips of the skis make a distinct shadow

Of course, the sun moves at 15 degrees per hour. You will slowly make a turn because of this. So every hour you have to pause again and adjust your course. This is immediately a good time for the break.

Shadow and wind vane are clearly visible here

Navigating in practice.

In practice, I find that a combination of everything comes together. This actually allows you to walk super straight. In a whiteout, it’s trickier because most of the visual aids are gone, so you rely on your compass, GPS and sometimes a little wind.

Cordula during the crossing of Greenland

And there you are. The cabin three kilometers away. Set your GPS to the final destination and put the GPS in your jacket pocket. Evicted. Set your compass along with your map to the final destination. Stand in that direction. Look at the shadow of your ski pole. Feel the wind in your face. Check your wind vane. Look back at the rest of your the team? Is everyone ready? Then we can hit the road. In a straight line to the final goal. The cabin. And the stove, of course.