Navigation - Map and Compass Technique

This practical guide will help you get the most out of your map and give you the key skills to using your compass. It’s then down to you. Practice will make perfect, and with that will come the freedom and confidence to enjoy our hills and mountains.

Chapter 1

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Why Use a Map and Compass?

Glance along the bookshelves of any outdoor equipment shop and you’ll see a wealth of guidebooks to every corner of the UK and the world. The quality will vary, but all will contain a number of routes in your chosen destination along with some kind of a map, varying from a simple sketch map to an extract of the full colour ‘proper’ map with the route overdrawn. The better guides will also give some indication of the history or ecology of the area.

On the face of it that’s great: all you need in one handy book. Sadly many walkers would agree, only to discover – too late – that the sketch map is inadequate, the route description contains errors, and the overdrawn route obscures some feature vital for the successful completion of the route.

Guidebooks are an ideal way of getting to know an area in advance. Study the guidebook and locate the most interesting places. Then compare the sketch maps with a ‘proper’ map. Put the guidebook away and then study the map. Turn the suggested route into something that suits your purposes, depending on where you are staying, proximity to a bus stop or a safe place to park, an interesting feature you’ve seen on the map that wasn’t mentioned in the book, and so on. The walk then becomes yours and you can use your own map skills to follow the route rather than rely on the book.

As you progress through this book you’ll notice that your map skills will improve. You will be looking at the map in far more detail than previously. The symbols you missed before, or ignored, will be more familiar; you’ll be able to spot features on the ground that you’ve predicted will turn up from a close study of the map. Your days of getting lost will fade into distant memory, your confidence will increase, and thus your reliance on guidebooks will decrease.

Most walks can be enjoyed without using a compass, but when you hit bad weather or fading light, or are in remote countryside with few features, you’ll soon discover you need to know how to use one. Many walkers who have learnt how to read a compass will then use one at every possible opportunity. By all means practise and show others that you can use it, but you must also learn when using one is appropriate and when you can navigate sufficiently well without.

Even the most experienced walker will become uncertain of their location at some stage. They’ll know roughly where they are but may not be sure, for example, where they are in relation to a particular path that will take them off the hill. Simple locating techniques will come into play in such circumstances.

Knowing the right compass techniques in bad weather or at night is invaluable. If you know you can confidently continue with your route, or come up with a safer alternative, you’re less likely to panic and get into greater danger. If you’re walking with less experienced companions your confidence may be what turns a potentially terrifying situation into an enjoyable and challenging walk.

Getting used to maps in the UK with different scales and from different publishers will help you adjust to using foreign maps. Take out a Harvey map or a 1:50,000 one for a change. The more variety you experience the quicker you’ll adjust when abroad.

Practical exercise
Take a map of your local area. Choose a short walk a couple of kilometres long. As you walk this route try to match the features on the ground with those marked on the map. How accurate is it? Are there features on the ground not shown on the map (and vice versa)? If so, you need to decide whether the presence or absence of those features would affect the accuracy of your navigation. Would you use a particular building, for example, as a point to look for prior to a change in direction? Would the absence of the building on the ground mean that you would miss the direction change?

This exercise comes into its own when you are using unfamiliar maps (perhaps when abroad). Study the map closely and see how well it matches the ground before setting off to remote areas where you have to rely on it. Bear in mind also that the map symbols may differ from those you are used to.

Does the map match the features on the ground, and how well? The level of accuracy will obviously affect how much you rely on the map. If it’s not very good, navigate with care. Also bear in mind that (even in the UK) urban areas are resurveyed far more regularly than rural areas because changes are more frequent. Changes do also occur to the landscape in rural areas, however, and you should never assume that any map is 100 percent accurate. They become historical documents as soon as the ink is dry!

Map and compass skills are practical ones. Reading about them in a book is a good start, but backing them up with a training course (see Appendix II) and plenty of practice on the hill is vital. Practise what you learn in this guide and when you find yourself having to navigate for real you’ll do so efficiently and with
confidence.

Note This book uses examples drawn from the UK using maps available in Britain. However, the techniques and skills covered are applicable to navigation in other countries.