I tried to look through the tread to see if anyone had mentioned the eye-blinking method, but I did not find it. If it is already mentioned, bear over with me.

The method uses the fact that the distance between the eyes of people is usually 1/10 of the distance of the arm up to the thumb. First you need to spot something that you know the height of at the target. If there is a building, count the number of floors, then you know the height aprox. If there are trees, you know the height usually in that district. For longer distances you must know the height of mountains, just look at the map. (f.ex an island on a lake, find the difference from the water level)

Then you do this: With one eye closed and arm stretced out, raise the thumb up (no not the middle finger <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />) and use one eye, then the other. If you keep your hand steady, the finger will point to a different place from one eye to the other. If you know that a tree is say 60 feet high, and the finger "moved" a treelength to the side then the distance there is 600 feet. For greater accuracy use a pointed object, pencil, knife, straw.

I was with some people once and one asked the distance to a house. Several guesses came up. I used my eyeblink-method and said 400 yards. One decided to check by walking and counting steps. He came back a litle later, rather baffled and said it was 405 yards. He had counted his steps both ways. I had luck on that one <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />