A FREE SAFETY TOOL ON EVERY GUIDE
How Camp Compass works
Riders get turned around on open sand. It happens to people who have ridden for thirty years, it happens in daylight, and it happens within a mile of camp. Camp Compass answers one question: which way is camp, and how far.
How it works
Camp Compass does three things. It marks your camp so you can find it again, it points you back to it using GPS, and it shares your coordinates by text if you need help. The first two work with no cell service at all. Sending needs either cell coverage or a phone with satellite messaging.
This is the part most people do not know, and it is the reason this tool is worth carrying at all.
GPS is not cell service
The satellite receiver in your phone is a passive radio. It listens to GPS satellites and never transmits, so it does not need a carrier, a tower, or a single bar. Airplane mode does not stop it. What stops working without a signal is downloading map tiles and turn-by-turn routing, which is a different thing entirely.
So the important parts run on the device
Marking your camp, reading your position, and working out the direction and distance back to it are all arithmetic performed on the phone itself. No connection is involved. Sharing your location and opening driving directions are the only features that need a signal, and they are kept to one side so their absence never blocks anything else.
The one catch, stated plainly
The page has to be loaded while you still have coverage. Open the Camp Compass page for your destination before you leave town, and leave the tab open. Once it is loaded, the tool keeps working with nothing at all.
Install it on your phoneTakes you back to the top. iPhone and Android steps.
Teaching your group
Make it the thing you do when the trailer is level and before the first engine starts, the same way you check the flag.
- Set the location. Standing at the trailer, not fifty yards from it. The fix is only as good as where you were standing.
- Name it. Base camp, the truck, Wash 4. Something you will recognise at dusk when you are tired.
- If you get turned around, come back to the page. It gives you the bearing and the distance. Share it with the group so everyone has the same pin.
Cell service at each destination
You install Camp Compass once and it works at any of them. It does not care which dune you are standing on. What changes is the cell service, so each guide tells you straight what to expect where you are going.
What it will not do
Camp Compass is an orientation aid, not a rescue plan. The arrow is a straight line to a saved point. It knows nothing about a wash, a fence, a closed area, or a dune face nobody can climb. Use it to work out which way to go, then pick a way that actually works on the ground.
A phone battery dies. A screen fails in the heat. A satellite fix can be tens of yards out, and the tool says so when it is. Carry a paper map, tell somebody your plan and your return time, and treat a handheld GPS or a satellite messenger as the real equipment. If you are lost and low on water, staying put beside a visible machine is usually safer than walking.
We built this because the alternative was riders having nothing at all. It is free, there is nothing to install, no account, and nothing is sent to us. It is here because it should exist, not because it earns anything.
Ready to put it on your phone?
It takes about a minute, and it has to be done where there is still a signal. Do it before you leave home.