How to get started using a topo map?

I have read a few books on the subject, and would like to know how all of you got started after doing the reading, did you just get a topo and walk into the woods?
My aera is rather flat with no large viewable peaks for tianglulation how do I get started?

Yeah, pretty much. However, I stayed on-trail until I was really comfortable with my ability to read the map and match it to the terrain. (Like you, not many views for triangulation in the woods of the Ohio valley.)

I would try to read the map ahead and predict what the next half mile or mile would look like as I walked: would it be a gentle uphill, or a steep climb up a box canyon? When should I come to a creek? Would it be a quick drop down, or a gradual descent along the course of the creek? Does that white area mean that I'll be coming to an open rock face on the top of the ridge? If the trail is following a creek, will I be able to get water about anywhere, or is the trail on top of a sheer gorge?

When I got fairly good at predicting the terrain (and even choosing campsites) using the map, I started doing some off-trail route finding, which in the heavy forest often meant picking a heading and sighting on a distinctive tree or bush twenty yards away, walking to it, and repeating the process until I hit an opening or a creek, or other landmark where I could fix my position on the map and go again.

I'm still not an authority on using topos, but I've not been lost (or even temporarily misplaced) for quite a number of years now.

Thanks Glen, thats a great idea, I'll try it, anyone else have suggestions

And to be fair, if there are no landmarks, it's darned hard to use a topo map. You need some topography to make them work!

Your profile does not give your location. I could not look up the orienteering club near you.

http://www.us.orienteering.org/

Take your time and enjoy your walk.

I got started using topos with formal training. I started climbing as a teenager, and went through the Spokane Mountaineers "mountain school". See if you can find some group that gives formal training. Like any other skill, you can learn on your own, but formal training really gets you going faster.

I live in MI just N of detoit

There are alway nearby roads sometimes water and small hills under 10 ft high, most of the time I tink it can be hard to see three of these from one vantage point

Do most of you wait to pull out your map when a feature comes into view? do to thick woods here it is hard to see things for refeance most of the time

Same issue here - the woods make it virtually impossible to do "classic" map navigation from point to point. That's why I never became an expert at map navigation, relying on my map instead just to predict trail terrain and measure my progress toward where I wanted to go. The main features I use are creek crossings and trail intersections, though I will occasionally get to an exposed point on a ridge and be able to triangulate from two other observable features.

Occasionally, if I'm able to determine where my starting point is, I'll use the map to get a bearing to a point I want to walk to, then walk that bearing from tree to tree. There's a local park where we can see the lodge from the dam, so I'll show Scouts how to read the bearing, and then have them walk that bearing through the woods; they're always amazed when they end up at the lodge! But that comes perilously close to being a stunt as opposed to standard operating procedure.

Just got back from a trip with Bigfoot. We had my GPS that had a waypoint set on the lake we were going to. We had maps and we had the compass in my GPS and BF had been there 5 times and there was only one major trail in the area and we lost it. Pretty deep snow covered the trail and I would say that "we were lost" and could make no sense of things, so we climbed the highest point, looked down and bush wacked to the lake. On these twisty trails a compass would be as useful as piece of umm err rock. A compass can only point north. Map reading skills are way more important than a compass.

Anyway there are little booklets that describe the symbols used on the map. The next thing is learn how to tell up from down. Good luck.

Jim, I have done that a few times, climb to the highest point and look around.

Anyways, I learned a little in Boy Scouts, but most of my training came from Uncle Sam.

Yep, losing a trail in the snow pretty much knocks everything into a cocked hat. Did you use the GPS to guide your bushwhacking, or did you go map-and-compass?

I do know how to read the symbols on the map, how to tell from the countour lines which way the creek flows, and how to tell high from low ground. However, what I have never gotten a lot of practice at is picking out a long route with a couple of intermediate waypoints on the map, then navigating across open ground using map and compass to work my way to them. I've just had some short traverses (usually half a mile or less) where I've wanted to navigate off-trail from a point on a trail out a spur ridge to a point that looked interesting.

I may give longer routes a try sometime, now that I've started going to the Mt. Rogers area in Virginia - there is some open country there that I could map out an off-trail route, then navigate my way along. Might be fun.