Navigation with Distance, Time, and Pace (III)
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The ability to estimate distance, a good watch, and awareness of your pace are the MOST important tools in navigation.
ESTIMATING DISTANCE: The estimation of distance is all you need most of the time.
1. Linear distance vs. terrain distance:
At left is a map with the UTM grid superimposed; 1000 meter squares. So, it is 1.4 km from "A" to "B"; that is easy enough to measure; just use the scale provided with each map. (Also, the diagonal of a square is 1.4 times the side.) But several important considerations are:
If you walk from "A" to "B" the profile of your walk, in terms of elevation change, will not look like this,
A
B, the linear distance. Instead your walk will look something like this, A 
B, which is about 200 meters, or 14% further; this is the terrain distance. The principal is this; walking the hypotenuse of a triangle is a longer walk than walking the base. 
