Can my watch tell me which way is north?

I lost my way the last time I went hiking. May be a compass would have helped. Now I am curious in finding out how I could plot my trail using just a compass. This is something I hope to do soon. So, to get started on it, I started looking for a digital compass online. A watch with a digital compass is way too expensive - 150 bucks! So, as I was poking around the search results, I found this article on how one could use essentially just the current time of the day and the sun, to figure out your orientation.



You need to have the watch set to the true time without adjustments for daylight savings.

"In the northern hemisphere, hold the watch horizontal and point the hour hand in the direction of the sun. Bisect the angle between the hour hand and the twelve o'clock mark to get the north-south line. North will be the direction further from the sun."

Obviously enough this will work only when the sun is shining. In case you cannot see the sun for any reason, but if the sun is still casting shadows, this method will still work. Hold a thin object straight and the sun is in the direction away from the shadow. Duh.

And if you happen to have a digital watch, you could draw/imagine where the hour hand would be, and still use this technique.

Ref:http://www.onebag.com/popups/wcompass.html