How important is having a watch or compass (or the combination of the two) when you are dealing with wilderness survival? Would these be considered a potentially essential item?

Of course they are really very very important because at some cases , there are chances for getting lost, and we may even lose our trail, at such times , compass is the best remedy.

A watch with a dial is more important than a digital. You have to remember now they have digital compasses too.
Traditional compasses, and traditional analog watch are important. And knowing how to use them is much more important.

julie

If you're not familiar of the places, compass is such a great help to determine directions. It's more convenient to use digital watch and compass nowadays because it's easier to navigate. I bought a digital compass watch a month ago.

Most of the adventure watches comes with a compass pointing directions. Digital watches are much useful than the analog ones. If you are using watches only for time seeking purpose than it is of not much value though.

I have a beautiful Breitling watch which has a compass on it. It would really help me out in the wilderness if I ever do need a compass.

I don't trust compasses in a watch, or the cheap ones you can by locally either.

I have a surplus military lensatic compass. they are very reliable, rugged and accurate. When I was in the Army, GPS was just starting to come online. we still used compasses, topographic maps, and pace counts to measure distance. If you practice this it is actually very accurate.

I do have a GPS unit that I use, but I still use pace counts, keep notes and use maps in case the GPS fails.

_________________
Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

NRA Certified Instructor for Basic Handgun and Personal protection in the Home.
V.F.W. Life Member
NRA Member
U.S. Army Veteran

Obviously GPS units are great, but the liklihood of them getting damaged in the wilderness (rain, humidity, mud, dropped on a rock, etc) as well as the odds of the batteries dying too soon are really high. I've got the same lensatic compass that dclaarjr talks about. It's not exactly cheap (can get them on ebay for around $80) but the work like a charm and are very reliable. I still carry a small button style compass as a back up in case something happened to my main compass.

_________________
If it's in your pack, but you don't know how to use it...it's useless. So, always test your skills as a form of preparation...Don't wait until your life depends on it. That's a lesson you don't want to learn the hard way.

I would also go with a GPS device rather than a compass or watches, they are good but GPS is better, the risk of GPS is rain, snow, mud etc.. try not have them around your unit.

Please do not go with just a GPS unit. It always seems that they fail when you have no other means of navigation available. I use one primarily as well, but I always have a backup. With most things I like to have a backup to my backup. when I am traveling on foot every so often I will stop, triangulate my position with my compass and map so I can verify that everything is working as it is supposed to. If my GPS does fail, then I know what my position is so I can get myself out.

_________________
Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

NRA Certified Instructor for Basic Handgun and Personal protection in the Home.
V.F.W. Life Member
NRA Member
U.S. Army Veteran