ArcGIS Question- Turning a polyline or polygon into, on ground, distance and azimuth

Factual Questions
1

I think this should be a pretty standard tool but I still can’t find a way to do it.

I would like to turn a polyline or polygon that I have created into on ground direction with distance and azimuth.

A large portion of my job entails turning on ground data into map data by physically traversing units or roads and then entering that data to create lines and polygons. I would like to reverse this process; to make a trail showing the shortest path to a lake on a map and have it spit out point to point directions on how to get there.

Thanks

2

Are you looking for as-the-crow-flies directions, or along a road network? If it’s the latter, you might try the Find Route tool (although I’ve never used it much); for the former, you can get the start and end point coordinates with the Go To XY tool, or by drawing a line along the route, then do a bit of modeling, scripting, or just plain ol’ math to convert the difference between the two points into an azimuth.

It also looks like the Near tool might fit the bill if you have Spatial Analyst.