Author Topic: Good place to keep your map  (Read 4603 times)

ninthace

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Re: Good place to keep your map
« Reply #30 on: 16:31:24, 25/04/19 »
Thanks sussamb that's what the book says, although it refers to collecting features as the technique of noting which collecting features you've passed to keep an idea of where you are (it suggests ticking them off on paper but that seems extreme to me seeing as this is something I was already mentally doing without knowing what it's called). After fighting with the OS map and realising you have to tear the cover off I've been practicing keeping the map orientated walking around my flat. Simple enough, if I can do it blind shouldn't be a problem with the terrain as a clue. Will be practicing the skills properly tomorrow!

  If you are off to Kirkby Stephen - roughly the area you can play in is bounded by Kirby Hill and Hartley Hill to the N; the River Eden from Low Mill Bridge to Stenkrith Bridge to the W; Stenkrith Bridge to Podgill Viaduct to the end of the rwy line E of Hartley to the S; the W side of Hartley Village to the E.  It is not all public space but a lot of it is and it is criss-crossed by PROW, part of the fun will be finding out.  Below Stenkrith Bridge is a fun place.  There is even a minor cave/pot hole just downstream.
PS look out for the parrots.
« Last Edit: 16:36:18, 25/04/19 by ninthace »
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Mel

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Re: Good place to keep your map
« Reply #31 on: 16:43:22, 25/04/19 »
Also I noticed Mel in her blog calls what my book calls "collecting features", "handrailing", where as my book calls "handrailing" following a linear feature to an attack point. Is there some discrepancy in the use of the terms?


Yes, sorry.  I use the terms interchangeably.  Handrailling = following a linear feature (eg. path or stream).  Collecting features = stuff I pass on the way.

Rob Goes Walking

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Re: Good place to keep your map
« Reply #32 on: 16:49:44, 25/04/19 »
I've bought the wrong compass  :tickedoff: . Made another thread about it to discuss what it is. Looks like I'm off to Penrith at the cost of an additional £5 in petrol to Go Outdoors in the morning to get a suitable one or maybe even have to wait for another from Amazon. Don't want to rush out and buy the wrong compass if I'm going to wish I bought a better one. This one will have to go back to Amazon at a £4 loss. Maybe I won't get to practice tomorrow.  :(

sussamb

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Re: Good place to keep your map
« Reply #33 on: 16:51:54, 25/04/19 »

Yes, sorry.  I use the terms interchangeably.  Handrailling = following a linear feature (eg. path or stream).  Collecting features = stuff I pass on the way.


Just to confuse things further those are more Checking features, but I think we all know what is what  O0
Where there's a will ...

ninthace

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Re: Good place to keep your map
« Reply #34 on: 16:54:43, 25/04/19 »
I've bought the wrong compass  :tickedoff: . Made another thread about it to discuss what it is. Looks like I'm off to Penrith at the cost of an additional £5 in petrol to Go Outdoors in the morning to get a suitable one or maybe even have to wait for another from Amazon. Don't want to rush out and buy the wrong compass if I'm going to wish I bought a better one. This one will have to go back to Amazon at a £4 loss. Maybe I won't get to practice tomorrow.  :(
  See my reply - no need to go to Penrith
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Rob Goes Walking

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Re: Good place to keep your map
« Reply #35 on: 17:20:30, 25/04/19 »
  See my reply - no need to go to Penrith

Thanks ninthace, the Silva Expedition compass in Mad about Mountains looks acceptable albeit a bit pricey. Cheap compared to the compass my book recommends, the Suunto M3 Global.

ninthace

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Re: Good place to keep your map
« Reply #36 on: 17:30:27, 25/04/19 »
Thanks ninthace, the Silva Expedition compass in Mad about Mountains looks acceptable albeit a bit pricey. Cheap compared to the compass my book recommends, the Suunto M3 Global.
Think of the time and petrol you will save.  They will have a selection of compasses in either shop I am sure.  Mad about has been there about 5 to 6 years, Eden Outdoors is a tiny shop that has been there since Pontius was having flying lessons, it's a one man shop.  I have shopped at both in the past.
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archaeoroutes

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Re: Good place to keep your map
« Reply #37 on: 21:45:27, 25/04/19 »
I thought I'd only have to practice thumbing for a while and then would be able to move on to having a rough idea where I am and using confirmation and relocation techniques to get a better fix. Is this not how you do it post thumbing stage as, as you say, you stow it in a pocket you don't thumb your location most of the time?
If I'm in an orienteering event or something else where detailed nav is key, then thumbing is still the way.


If just out in the hills for a walk where I want to go somewhere specific, then the next thing introduced in learning nav takes the fore - route stories. Study the next leg and work out the story. This will involve handrailing, checking features, collecting features. Along the path through the wood for ten minuted, left after the bridge, up the steep bit, stop when you reach the fence, it should take half an hour. Then the map goes away, only to come out if a checkpoint doesn't appear or you get there.


Then there's just wandering around exploring and knowing you can relocate when you want to.
Walking routes visiting ancient sites in Britain's uplands: http://www.archaeoroutes.co.uk

Rob Goes Walking

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Re: Good place to keep your map
« Reply #38 on: 21:58:23, 25/04/19 »
If I'm in an orienteering event or something else where detailed nav is key, then thumbing is still the way.


If just out in the hills for a walk where I want to go somewhere specific, then the next thing introduced in learning nav takes the fore - route stories. Study the next leg and work out the story. This will involve handrailing, checking features, collecting features. Along the path through the wood for ten minuted, left after the bridge, up the steep bit, stop when you reach the fence, it should take half an hour. Then the map goes away, only to come out if a checkpoint doesn't appear or you get there.


Then there's just wandering around exploring and knowing you can relocate when you want to.

Thank you, this was the missing piece of the puzzle. My book didn't cover route stories. Now I just need to practice.

ninthace

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Re: Good place to keep your map
« Reply #39 on: 23:17:44, 25/04/19 »
Thank you, this was the missing piece of the puzzle. My book didn't cover route stories. Now I just need to practice.
  The other thing I would add is never pass a feature you can't account for.  More often than not it is something you didn't notice when planning the next section of your route but it can save time and trouble as it can also be a sign you are going off route.  If you are walking with a gps or map with pre-plotted route this can be done very quickly.  Pressing on is a main cause of becoming temporarily geographically misplaced.
Although I walk with gps as standard these days, I still do "route stories" off the screen to save me having to look at it so often.
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Rob Goes Walking

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Re: Good place to keep your map
« Reply #40 on: 23:57:16, 25/04/19 »
Another good tip although I like to think I'd have checked my position when that happened.

fernman

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Re: Good place to keep your map
« Reply #41 on: 08:41:15, 26/04/19 »
I really didn't understand what was being talked about, with "route stories", I have never heard that term before.
Then I read the post again, and unless I'm mistaken I believe it's what I have been doing for years.
I can look at a map and fix bits at a time in my head. Cross this field, come to a small wood, go along it's right-hand side, turn right at a T-junction of paths at the far edge of the wood, reach a B-road, and then it's time to look at the map again.
I think it was born from my days on the road as a service engineer, when I could look at the A-Z street map and memorise the route to my next call.
A lot of the upland walking I've done in recent years has been fairly pathless, when I navigate by looking at features of the land such as streams, hills, valleys, blocks of forest, etc.
But when  I'm walking I still manage to go off course through sheer carelessness and inattention. I plod along so wrapped up in my own little world that sometimes I carry on past where I should have turned off, even if the instruction is tucked away in my brain.

Rob Goes Walking

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Re: Good place to keep your map
« Reply #42 on: 09:43:28, 26/04/19 »
fernman it's because you're an experienced navigator. You worked it out yourself, beginning as a service engineer. Just like I worked out handrailing, collecting features and sometimes attack points myself as a novice navigator by doing it without anyone telling me. My understanding of route stories is they can be visual like your fixing bits of map or more descriptive - the English words describing what features you will encounter and a little bit (probably increasing with practice) of visual map memory to back it up. Hopefully I'll be corrected if I'm wrong.

ninthace

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Re: Good place to keep your map
« Reply #43 on: 10:25:07, 26/04/19 »
The term was new to me too fernman.  I learned to navigate in the mists of antiquity when as far as I know,  much of the modern jargon hadn’t been invented and Silva compasses had yet to be in common use. Oh the heady days of prismatic compasses!
When I was alive, we had linear features and handrailing had yet to become a verb.  Aiming off existed too, collecting points and attack points were described as “aim for” or “start from”  but most of it was just common sense that you picked up without ever knowing if it had a name.  My teachers were my dad and the scouts and your skills developed over time without much conscious effort.  Sometimes I think people overcomplicate stuff these days in an effort to make it seem simple - or am I becoming a grumpy old man?
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Rob Goes Walking

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Re: Good place to keep your map
« Reply #44 on: 10:39:57, 26/04/19 »
Sometimes I think people overcomplicate stuff these days in an effort to make it seem simple - or am I becoming a grumpy old man?

It's just a bit of jargon every field does it as someone learning it I'd say giving it a name was neither here nor there it was archaeoroutes description of what he does that was important. It's never yet occurred to me to do this beyond two locations without getting ViewRanger out, perhaps it would have in time.

 

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