Trackable Options |
Found this item? Log in. |
Printable information sheet to attach to Pace Counter Bug
Print Info Sheet |
|
The owner hasn't set their collectible preference.
Congratulations, you have just found a hand-crafted (more or less) set of tally beads. Orienteers and the military have long used tally beads to estimate travel distances quickly and reliably.
Pace counting, or tally stepping as it is sometimes called, is an ancient technique. Legionnaires in the Roman Army used it on the battlefield just as today's elite warriors do. Ranger pacing beads were widely used in Vietnam and continue to be popular with Army Rangers, Army Special Forces units such as the Green Berets and Delta Force, Navy Seals, and the British Army's SAS (Special Air Service).
Our English statute mile is based on the Roman soldier's mile. The Latin phrases "mille passus," or "milia passuum," which meant a "thousand paces," were eventually shortened to a "mile" in English. The average soldier laid down 5,000 "foot-lengths" or "feet" in a mile. Much like the pace we use today, a Roman pace consisted of two steps equalling about 5 "foot-lengths."
While pace counting is admittedly an arcane distance determination technique that is seldom used by trail-bound hikers, it is an essential technique used by advanced-level land navigators who travel cross-country through challenging wilderness. In certain situations, a map and compass alone just aren't enough.
In his book, entitled Orienteering, John Disley aptly writes that "more mistakes are made in orienteering by wrongly estimating distance than from any other reason." While most of us can quickly learn to travel in the right direction, few of us have any idea of how far we have traveled.
To use your tally beads, first test your average pace by walking a route that’s 100 meters point to point. Count off every time your left foot hits the ground. Walk the distance three or four times to get an average. Most people have a pace count between 56 and 65 steps per hundred meters.
While walking, pull down one of the nine lower beads every time you reach your 100 meter count. When you get to the tenth, that’s a kilometer, so pull down one of the upper beads and start over with the nine lower beads.
If you’re like most Americans, and don’t know what a meter or kilometer is, or think the metric system is the work of the devil, then you can use the lower beads to represent tenths of a mile and the upper beads to represent miles. An average pace count for a tenth of a mile is between 90 and 110 paces.
Hunch Front retrieved it from Two Bays
|
Yorkshire, United Kingdom
|
Visit Log
|
Grabbed from Two Bays will drop off ASAP.
|
mikenbike placed it in Two Bays
|
Yorkshire, United Kingdom
- 68.77 miles
|
Visit Log
|
Sorry about the delay, had one planned trip cancelled, then been out to the World Cup in Germany but didn't have time to find any caches.
|
mikenbike retrieved it from 'T,owd pit lane
|
United Kingdom
|
Visit Log
|
Tried to count my paces but I was on my bike!
|
The Last Boy Scout placed it in 'T,owd pit lane
|
United Kingdom
- 51.14 miles
|
Visit Log
|
|
The Last Boy Scout grabbed it
|
|
Visit Log
|
Lifted from Withins Clough and used to count paces back to the car!
|
Dave and Maerwen retrieved it from 'Sampson's Toe' (Yorkshire Dales)
|
Yorkshire, United Kingdom
|
Visit Log
|
We'll put a few miles on it.
|
spindlewood placed it in 'Sampson's Toe' (Yorkshire Dales)
|
Yorkshire, United Kingdom
- 177.1 miles
|
Visit Log
|
|
spindlewood retrieved it from ashwellthorpe woods
|
Eastern England, United Kingdom
|
Visit Log
|
'Spindlewood' have taken the 'Pace Counter Bug' back to King's Lynn with them. We are going caching in North Yorkshire soon and will take this TB with us to release in a suitable cache.
|
V & A placed it in ashwellthorpe woods
|
Eastern England, United Kingdom
- 3,702.78 miles
|
Visit Log
|
|
V & A retrieved it from JJTJ - W&OD #1
|
Virginia
|
Visit Log
|
This bug did not go back in JJTJ W&OD#1. We did not find the cache, only the TB. It will be travelling to England with us for over 3000 miles.
|
data on this page is cached for 3 mins
|