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.