just remember Hidden Valley Ranch salad dressing hey guys this is josh here the great bearded green beret i want to start a series on basic map reading and land navigation so i thought i'd do this first video in the series on identifying terrain features i want to show you not only what they look like on a map but what they look like on the ground now there are five major and five minor terrain features the five major terrain features you've got Hill Valley Ridge saddle and depression and the five minor terrain features are draw spur cliff cut and fill let's take a look the first major terrain feature that we're going to talk about is a hill a hill is an area of high ground and it's depicted by contour lines that form concentric circles and that while a hill is this thing is this terrain feature in its entirety that last circle denotes the actual hilltop and if you're standing on the hilltop you can look around in every direction and the ground will slope down to lower ground that'll be sloping downwards so the first major terrain feature is a hill depicted by concentric circles made by the contour lines which we'll get into a little bit later so we have a hill here we have a hilltop right here and here we have another hill another hill and then of course within those the last concentric circle denotes the actual hilltop there's a hilltop here hilltop here hilltop here hilltop here and so on a valley is basically an area that has high ground on three sides usually both sides and then of course the upstream area we'll say because most valleys have streams running this area of low ground has been cut out by a river or a stream so it's kind of this this groove that goes through the land that collects all the water from the surrounding mountains and continues on to lower and lower ground that's how you can tell it's a valley normally is it has water in it or it's nice and wide really wide between contour lines a ridge is basically an elongated section of high ground so here is the actual Hill top of the hill this section that's running down this long gradual slope that's pointing down is an actual Ridge if you're standing in the middle of a Ridge you're gonna have low ground sloping off in three directions and high ground in one direction the way you can tell the ridge is the contour lines are always going to be either v-shaped or u-shaped and that V or U is going to point towards lower ground so I know this is a ridge because I know that the hilltop is up here my B shapes are pointing down heading towards this valley a saddle is a dip or a low point usually between two Hills but not necessarily between two hilltops it could just be a sagging little low point on a ridge line but if you're in a saddle say we're in a saddle right here when you look in two opposite directions you're gonna have high ground and if you look in the two other directions the ground is gonna sloped down you know so you've got high ground on two sides low ground on two sides you're standing in between you know two Hills basically and normally a saddle is going to be depicted by kind of a figure eight or an hourglass shape in your contour lines so we've got a saddle here we've got another saddle right here and they point between you know this peak and this peak this hill this hill along this ridge line this would be the saddle right here and then between these two this would be the sound right here now the fifth major terrain feature is a depression and a depression is basically an area of lows it's a low spot it's like like a sinkhole and a lot of times it'll have water in it and the way it's depicted on is as you'll have basically a concentric circle or concentric circles that are closed meaning all it goes all the way around and it'll have these little tiny tick marks that point towards the low ground there's one here's one here's one here this one actually has a little bit of water in it so that's a great example depression depression depression if you're standing in the middle of a depression you would basically be standing in a hole you would have high ground all the way around you so that is the fifth major terrain feature which is depression so the first minor terrain feature is called a draw and a draw is basically a smaller version a smaller scale valley it's it's where valleys begin what they do is they take rain and snowmelt from the high ground and they channel that they draw that down into the valley if you think of it that way so just like a valley you know has been cut out by a stream or a river on a larger scale in a draw a draw has been cut from the high ground on a smaller scale from those streams coming out of the mountains or the high ground but if you're standing in a draw you're gonna have high ground on three sides and low ground in one direction which is heading down towards the valley if you look it's going to be depicted by contour lines that are going to be v-shaped or you shape that this is the high ground here and here and this valley in this case there's a lake in the valley but in this case that the valley is down here so I know that the water is going to be going from the high ground following downhill into the valley these B shapes or new shapes are going to be pointing up towards the high ground in a draw so this is a draw this is another draw the second minor terrain feature is called a spur now a spur is normally cut by two draws on a draw on each side so the spur is the high ground that juts out from the side of a ridge that is basically going to have a high ground on one side and it's going to slope in downward directions on the other three sides where you have these drawers in between those would be the Spurs so this is a spur this is a spur here this is another spur as far as depiction goes is you're going to have you shaped or v-shaped contour lines and in this case the U or the V shape is going to be pointing down towards the lower ground because the higher ground here is here and the valley the low ground is here so think of it that way a spur is the high ground between two draws and that's normally how they occur the third minor terrain feature is a cliff and I think we all know that a cliff is is a vertical or a near vertical a very steep cliff it's a very very steep feature so they're two different ways to depict it on a map on this particular map is depicted as contour lines running extremely close together or touching if it's vertical they'll be touching because a contour line when we get into that a little bit later basically with those being that close together what it's telling me is that there's a lot of elevation change within a very short distance sometimes no distance at all in this case you can see where these come together these very steep contour lines up here is probably a near vertical surface as well so those are a couple other examples of a cliff and if I have to switch the map to find you the clip that's depict in a different way this is just one way of depicting a cliff right here where the contour lines actually converge and come together that shows that it's extremely steep but the fourth and the fifth minor terrain features are cut and fill and those are both man-made features you'll usually find them along roads and along railroads and oftentimes you know they need to either as they're making the road bed or the railroad bed an attempt to make it more level they're either cutting through terrain to make a more loved a bit or they're filling the terrain to make it more level so if it's depicted on the map then what you'll have is a contour line it'll have little tick marks now this particular one if you look it has the contour line on both sides and the tick marks are facing out away from the rail bed and just like if we were depicting a cliff in that second way with the tick marks the tick marks point towards the drop off the lower ground so that tells me that in between these is actually high ground the tick marks are pointing towards the drop-off so this is a fill that has been put here to make this road bed more level there's not really a good example of a cut but a cut would be just the opposite you can have your contour lines on both sides and the tick marks would be facing the drop-off just like this with the road or whatever running through it so that tells me that that would tell me that the high ground is actually on this side away from the tick marks and the tick marks are pointing towards the drop-off or the low ground another example that you could run into is where it was built kind of on on the side of a mountain so they had to actually cut one side and the tick marks would indicate where that lower ground was meaning that the higher ground is on this side and it drops off where they had to cut into this side of this mountain on the other side they actually had to fill so the tick marks would be facing towards the low ground and the high ground would be on this side so that tells me that you know they cut into this side and they actually had to fill this side to make this level all right folks that is it for the terrain features lesson if you're trying to think of a good way to remember the major terrain features just remember Hidden Valley Ranch salad-dressing Hill Valley Ridge salad saddle depression yeah as far as the miners there is there's no little saying for the miners so draw spur cliff cut Phil anybody comes up with an acronym for that let me know in the comments because I'll have one for you just got to remember those anyway hope you liked the video if you want to see more of them make sure that you're subscribed make sure you click that notification bell so that you get notified when the next one's coming out and I hope to continue this series until we get all the way through the gamut til next time don't get lost see you next time