Top Secrets Revealed

Ok. so im letting my Army experience come through here for the first time on my blog... we did a lot of what the Army calls "road marching" while I was in training and otherwise with the US military. If anyone does some serious hiking it is the US Army, miles and miles of road marching which is really just sleep walking after you get used to it. I mean seriously, after months of training it got to the point where I would wake up to find myself walking with an M-16 held firmly to my chest, clutched tightly in my leather and wool gloved hands, 30 lbs of gear hanging from my shoulders down my back in an alice pack that was probobly used for the previous thrity years, and a heavy kevlar helmet weighing down my head. I mean serisously... I would WAKE UP and realize that I was in this situation... "oh shit! here I am walking 5 meters behind the soldier in front of me, and I dont remember how i got here" it was an experience. Well... I guess i can reflect on the things I learned while hiking with the army... or for now at least one of them. While in training at Ft. Benning, GA my L.T. (or butter bar as I called him) taught us what he knew of pacing and the use of Ranger beads. Well... he didnt really teach us, but he used them, and I learned by watching. While hiking, most hikers know (by use of compass and map) which direction they are headed, but they can rarely acurately tell you the distance they have travelled without a GPS system.
Well the topic was recently brought up in my Florida Field Biology course of forest measurement. Foresters measure by a unit known as a foresters "chain". A foresters chain in 66 feet long, or 22 yards... why is it 66 feet long? let me explain... If I pace out a forester's chain i get 13 paces, or 16 steps, while hiking normally, with no load. 5 foresters chains is equivalent to 1/16th of a mile, which is 110 yards. 8/16ths of a mile is a half mile... make sense? Now let me introduce you to a handy little measuring device I learned about in the US Army. The Ranger pacing beads. This set especially is modified to include foresters chain measurements to make things easier for me... from the bottom to the top the beads represent the following: the 4 bottom beads represent foresters chains(5 chains = 1/16th of a mile), when you get to the fifth chain you move the to the next step, the next 7 beads represent 1/16th of a mile(8/16ths for all you fraction disabled out there represents a half a mile) each, and the next 6 beads represents one half mile each.
This set up is a modification to the true Ranger bead set up which measures Clicks (Kilometers) for use with UTM grid lined maps. The metric version would be from the bottom up 9 beads which represent 100-meters each, and there are four upper beads which represent Clicks or 1000 meters. The beauty of this is that 100 meters is roughly the same as 110 yards, so using the forester's chain beads is still possible with this set up as 5 forester's chains would equal 100 meters. By knowing your pace you can fairly accurately tell how far you travel when you hike, and by using pacing beads you can keep track of how far you've gone with far less counting and remembering.
Click on the table to see a larger version.. these are easy to make.. boot laces and wooden beads..