Guys your stories of getting lost are just great! I teach map, compass and GPS to about 600 students each year. I will print out your stories as examples of how not to navigate. YOU ARE GOING TO BE FAMOUS!!!
A FEW of the points I try to get across in the classes:
Carry two compasses (Keith explained this above). Both need to have adjustable declination feature and to be of good quality. And something many don't know, they need to either have a global needle or one adjusted for your region of the world. Your Northern temperate zone compass doesn't work accurately in Africa for example.
Have a topo map of the area you are hunting. Use the topo enough and you will begin to understand even the smallest features delineated by the contour lines which helps immensely in those "featureless" places. Navigation by topo alone is better than compass alone once you are skilled with the topo but they so much better together. Learn to use UTM coordinates on your map and GPS. It will assist you to understand distances much better and will enable you to coordinate with search and rescue units all of which use UTM coordinates for operations.
If you get a GPS, get a good one, not the cheapest one. Cheap ones have lousy antenna's. I prefer those which accept an Aux antenna. If you rely on GPS alone it will fail you when you most need it. Carry twice as many spare batteries as you think you might need. I have students giving me their failed GPSs as examples to show others after they have gotten lost with a GPS. Usually this is operator inexperience,antenna failure or total reliance on GPS device alone.
Neither the compass, GPS nor topo map will do you much good in your back pack. Position them so you will refer to them frequently.
Take your cell phone. It is a very viable emergency navigation device in more places than you might suspect. Conserve the batteries (turn it off) until you need it.
Don't wait until you are lost to use the tools!!!
