Land navigation is easy to do provided you have a good compass and preferably a topo map. Even in deep-forest, navigation is relatively easy with these tools because you can get a simple sense of direction, as well as identify terrain features.

Let's look at the purpose of a topo map.

Normal street maps are typically 2D. They show you North and South, East and West. They show you the direction of streets and even the location of landmarks.

But there is one element that a typical street map doesn't show - elevation.

Without elevation, everything looks flat. What looks like a simple hike on a street map may become insurmountable once you arrive at the location and find it mountainous.

A topo map gives you that missing dimension. One of the things you'll notice immediately on a topo map is the contour lines.

There are two main types of contour lines. Index lines, and simple contour lines.

On each topo map (usually at the bottom) you'll find a listed Contour Interval. This number tells you the change in elevation from one contour line to the next.

The index lines will be bold and will have an elevation written on them. There will be 4 regular lines between index lines.

So, if the Contour Interval is 20 feet, there will be 100 feet of elevation change between index lines. There will be 4 regular contour lines and 20 feet between each line.

These lines curve around and show terrain features such as hills, saddles, ridges, valley, depressions, draws, and spurs.

The closer together the contour lines, the steeper the slope. This allows you to see the layout plus the third dimension. With this information, you can know before you get there if it's going to be a tough hike.