I've just purchased myself a compass, map and map reading guide to go and teach myself navigation in the bush. I bought a fairly basic compass and the scale on the sides is in metric, seeing as I live in Australia. I'm just wondering whether I'll need to upgrade the compass once I get to america to something a little more fancy and whether you need the scale thing. Oh the guide came with a "map card" with a grid reference guide, a compass rose and a bearing guide. Did you guys have to use something like that on your hike?